I woke up with a sore throat again on Thursday but it diminished a few hours later. I also still had an aching shoulder but it wasn’t as bad as the day before. That subsided considerably as the day progressed as well.
I read a couple of chapters of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and made some notes for my essay.
In the afternoon, before leaving for the Poetry Master Class made some minor edits to and then printed five copies each of “Unloved by Cannibals”, “Beneath the Rubble of Us” and “universalorder829”.
On a normal day if I’d been ready to go a few minutes early I would have done some work until it was time to go. In this case though it had been raining and there was a strong chance that it would start again and so I took advantage of the lull in order to get to school dry.
The snow banks are now like the burned down melted dregs of white candles tainted with soot from charred wicks.
For the first 45 minutes of class we had a guest poet named Mercedes Killeen, who took this course a couple of years ago. She began with a content notice that she would be talking about suicide and mental illness. She said she became serious about poetry after winning a contest at the age of thirteen. He chapbook was published by Grey Borders and she works for Grey Borders as an editor.
She said that writing could be an act of survival when one is mentally ill and it can turn the illness into something beautiful. If what you’re writing makes you nervous you’re doing something right.
From “The Joy of Life” – “ … to reflect o suicide … I breathe death in.”
A quote from Melissa Broder - “I use people like drugs … I’m wired for longing … I have holes in my brain where I want to hide …”
From “Borderline Personality Disorder” – “Devaluation … unstable emotional experiences … intense feelings of nervousness … negative possibilities … fears of rejection … associated with fears of excessive depending … feelings of inferior self worth … without a plan … difficulty following plans … lack of concern for one’s limitations …”
From “Annoyed by Life” - " ... more than I'm depressed by it ... Annoyed by the rich ...”
From “2016 Fusion Jazz” - "Chugging eight dollar bitter red wind ... I will swallow him whole ... Trust in him and ye will not thirst ... I look to the heavens … I look up and wait for this to be over.”
Some of her poems were so short that once I’d written the titles down, like “I Call Strangers from the Internet Daddy”, the poem was finished.
From “A Blue and Pink Paisley Scarf” – “I plan to hang myself …”
From “Baggage” – “I called you so many times from the psych ward … Even now in crisis my fingers dial your number …”
Another title for a too short to record poem – “Long White Things I Stick In My Mouth Sometimes”.
From “Zoinks” – “I saw the bar … I did not go in … I kept walking … You are a bar I can keep walking past ...” From “Reconciliation” – “ ... I kneel before you ... but I feel no guilt ..."
One poem had a Spanish title and so I don’t think I got the spelling right – “Lo Otima Olia” – “El Salvador is living its own exodus … peasants killed … machine gun fire … brothers of the army … you come from our own people.”
From "They Were Shooting All the Teachers" - "So I came to Canada ... I don't feel god anymore."
From “I Like Drunks” – “I like Bukowski because he was shitfaced most of the time … I secretly like the trope of the tortured artist.”
From “Donation” – “I gave away the dress I was assaulted in … Just looking at it made me want to vomit …”
I didn’t find most of Mercedes Killeen’s poems particularly interesting. When I ran The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy at the Gladstone in the 90s, more than half the poets that read there suffered from mental illness and wrote much better poems about it.
Mercedes answered questions after her reading and some people asked about chapbooks. There was talk about chapbooks having 60 poems or less but I think it’s more like 40 pages or less. Mercedes’ poems are pretty short so I guess she could fit 60 poems onto 40 pages.
I asked her where she liked to read and she said the Art Bar reading series because it had always been her dream.
We had a ten-minute break during which time Albert said goodbye to Mercedes. I assume he handed her an envelope with some money. I think that guest speakers at U of T get around $200.
When it was time to resume the class there were a lot of conversations going on and Albert apologized, saying that as a teacher it is his job to interrupt reality.
In reference to Mercedes’ reading he said, “My history is irrelevant but hopefully not my work.”
He talked about what she said about getting published and said that one might want to re-install geographical localism. Maybe you don’t want to be published in Australia even if your books are being read there because you want to meet those that are reading your work.
He said that Mercedes’ work is finely done for what it is: failures that are masterpieces.
Poetry is inspiration. Writing is re-writing. Perfectionism is an attempt to reach the deep plain of inspiration. If sometimes a poem just comes out perfect on the first try it’s because you’ve laboured for years on your craft. The most profound level of a poem not being finished is that it does not say what you meant. One must get into what the essence is and the process of rekindling to complete inspiration is plenty mystical. It could just need a change of one word to transform it but it could take years. One might have to put it away for a while. Be reasonable, forgiving but strict with yourself.
He said that sometimes he’d comment on a student’s work and realizes that he’d said something stupid and the poem was fine as it was.
By the time we split into our groups and began workshopping poems there were only 45 minutes left. Albert stayed with our group this time.
We began with Blythe’s poem about a boyfriend’s blue coat that becomes a symbol of intimacy when the speaker gets to wear it.
We looked at my poem “Unwashed Memory” but I had made revisions to the poem that altered it slightly from the copies that I’d given Albert and my group the week before. I read the new revision while they looked at the earlier version and made adjustments to match it in their copies. The version I’d given them was:
Parkdale’s alive this afternoon
and some of that life’s been thrown away,
discarded and mixed with the wind blown trash
tumbling to this bench where I sit each day.
And as I bend to scoop it up
the sun tries to remember summer
while scratching vainly at autumn’s rust
straining to remember summer
while I try hard to forget about
Brenda.
This is my revision:
Parkdale’s alive this afternoon
and some of that life’s been thrown away
discarded and mixed with the wind blown trash
tumbling to this bench
where I sit each day
And as I bend to scoop it up
the sun scratches vainly at autumn’s rust
straining to remember summer
while I try to forget
Brenda
Albert agreed that my revision is better but he says he liked it before. He would have taken out “about” as well but he said the poem is a gem.
I said that if I’ve gotten nothing else from this course I’ve learned to pay closer attention to punctuation. Albert said it’s important.
Vivian said she liked the parallelism of the sun trying to remember while I try to forget.
Margaryta said she liked how simple and direct the poem is and that it’s brevity is its strength.
Blythe really liked it too and said it was another of mine that reminded her of Frank O’Hara.
We looked at one poem each by Vivian and Margaryta. Although Margaryta is a much better poet, both of them put too much in their poems and they sometimes lose their meaning.
By the time we’d looked at one poem each it was time to go. We handed back our comments to each other.
Of my poem “Waves”:
The traffic is wet and sucking along the street where it has sounded the same in the city
for so long that it’s familiar as the names of kin and its sonorous chorus comforts when
it’s steady and flowing and builds musically with a rhythm and pitch that soothes the
nerves unlike when sirens pass in daytime but at night with the breathing shushing traffic
it comes from a distance and rises to an elastic crescendo below my window then fades
away and when several vehicles are doing the same thing but starting at different times
it’s like a symphony of polyrhythms and tones such as that of the deep-voiced truck that
just grumbled by or that thundering streetcar and then the soft cars are alone again with
the resonance of hurrying ghosts dragging their damp ectoplasm along the road
Blythe wrote that she liked it but that it seemed to be trying too hard for a certain style.
Margaryta wrote that the style informs the content but that some minor tweaking in the wording would make it flow even better.
Of “Two tanka, one haiku and a short western poem”:
spotted snowbank
beside the café
a Holstein carcass
Black coffee today
…
Ice-plated snow
pearlescent
in alley light
Breathing cold air
I toss the bag of cat shit
…
beside the sidewalk
he walks the tightrope
of the snow bank
…
It would be a gas
if you’d do me a solid
and buy me a liquid
Vivian didn’t realize that they are four separate poems and commented that the last part doesn’t fit with the rest.
Blythe liked three of the poems but thought the haiku was weak.
Margaryta wrote of the last poem, “This is my kind of humour!”
Margaryta has become less distant towards me and actually said goodnight.
It was raining hard when I left Northrop Frye Hall and I was soaked by the time I got to Freshco where I bought three bags of grapes and nothing else.
I had already cooked two small potatoes before leaving for class. I had them with gravy and watched The Rifleman.
In this story a gang of outlaws consisting of the not very bright Sheltin brothers, Flory and Andrew and led by the much smarter Lloyd Carpenter decide to visit North Fork because the two dumb brothers want to kill a former sheriff named Micah Torrance. Micah was once legendary but after injuring his pistol hand he lost his nerve and took to drinking. The Rifleman, Lucas McCain offers Micah a job building fences to help him sober up. The Sheltins find out where Micah is living and try to provoke him but Lucas chases them off. Back in town while busting up the saloon, the gang are confronted by the town sheriff. Lloyd kills the sheriff and then rides out to tell Lucas that the Sheltins killed him. This is a trap to get rid of the Rifleman so the Sheltins can get to Micah. Micah senses Lucas is heading into a trap and finally gets up the nerve to act. He loads up a shotgun with long-range shells. Lucas kills Flory but Andrew badly injures Lucas. Micah kills both Andrew and Lloyd and becomes the new sheriff of North Fork.
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