Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Great news.
As I sit here in front of the computer I smell this odd odour of sour milk; low and behold, my tea has been compromised. This is where I explain just how lazy I can be: I am still drinking it, yep, that's right, not going to let it get me off my ass. Additionally, I would have to put pants on, venture out in the public, looking like I'm taking the walk of shame: no thanks. A little sour milk never killed anyone... Or did it? I'm not about to go searching to find out. Right, back on track here, a dear friend of mine is getting married in Paris. Good news indeed! She is such a bright young lady and so pretty, good for her. He's going to be one very lucky man.
Really, do you think the little chunks could hinder my concentration... Alright, I'm not drinking it, nope: too disturbing.
photo taken from Bill Durgin
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Rain Over Bouville
Rain Over Bouville is a collection of works (poetry, thought, and expression) by the likes of Humphrey Astley (Founder and Editor), Adriana Sabatini, and David Mclean. Within this collection a plethora of fantastic poetry can be found. And Bouville continues to grow. Much of the work is still very surreptitious, which I enjoy the most about it.
Therefore, If you are looking for interesting poetry to stumble upon, they can be purchased individually, or downloaded for free through Lulu.
Therefore, If you are looking for interesting poetry to stumble upon, they can be purchased individually, or downloaded for free through Lulu.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunja Link Fall 2009.
These are just a few items from the collection, item's I like (because it's my blog).
AND My Favorite.
Sunja Link can be found at various boutiques throughout Canada; a good place to start is The Block located in Vancouver, BC.
Images taken from: sunjalink.com
AND My Favorite.
Sunja Link can be found at various boutiques throughout Canada; a good place to start is The Block located in Vancouver, BC.
Images taken from: sunjalink.com
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Canadian Poetry. 2007
In my high school social studies class (a long long long time ago) we were asked to write about current events and a famous Canadian, on the list of approved people was Leonard Cohen. I had listened to some of Cohen's music, was surprised to discover he is a respected poet, and was embarrassed (at my ignorance) to discover he is Canadian. I knew Cohen because of his music but it was his poetry that led me to discover the wealth of Canadian poets from E.J. Pratt to Margaret Atwood and many more. I was amazed to discover so many talented poets from such a short period of history and asked myself- why have I never heard of these people?
My question was one that defines much of Canada’s poetic heritage; a heritage of talented writers often ignored outside (and inside) the countries borders. Without the myriad of poetic history that many other countries have established over the course of centuries Canadian poetry is dismissed as an insignificant topic. International recognition is still a difficult task for Canadian poets to achieve. Regardless, poets like F.R. Scott, Dorothy Livesay, and Irving Layton have had a huge impact on Canadian poetry, challenging tradition, breaking down barriers, and exploring new poetic styles and themes, and in the process creating a poetic heritage. Modern and contemporary poets continue to expound a vast variety of content form and style; many of their poems with allusions to politics, economics, religion, and important social event from around the world.
One of the many established aspects of poetry that Canada’s modern poets challenged was form. Pre-modern poetry in Canada had the tendency to follow more static traditional Romantic and Victorian forms. Modern Canadian poets like P.K. Page and many others chose different forms to express their poetic vision. Page produced poems with such varying structure that they had both no, and complex form at once. Page’s poem “Arras” has at times an irregular rhyme pattern, no rhyme, and the intentional lack of rhyme: “Through whose eye / did it insulate in furled disguise […]” (5-6). Page uses an open form, changing the rhyme scheme, or lack there of, as the poem progresses. Notice the irregular rhyme scheme, the irregular length of line, and the use of enjambment, caesura, and end stopping in a single stanza, and the irregular length of the lines; “I ask, what did they deal me in this pack? / The cards, all suit, are royal when I look. / My fingerprints slipping on a monarch’s face / twitch and grow slack. / I want a hand to clutch, a heart to crack” (14-18). Although Page is well known for altering the form of her poems she is far from the only modern Canadian poet to do so. To varying degrees poets like F.R. Scott, Irving Layton, and Al Purdy would also play with form to convey new ideas.
Another convention of established poetry Canada’s modern poets rebelled against was the use of Romantic poetic language. A chief principle for these poets was to be exact in their choice of words and language, clarity and conciseness was paramount for Al Purdy and F.R. Scott. Purdy used vernacular language to set a satirical tone in much of his poetry. Purdy’s poem “At The Quinte Hotel” is overflowing with satire and vernacular: “[…] Now I am a sensitive man / so I say to him mildly as hell / “You shouldn’ta knocked over that good beer […]” (14-16). Purdy’s use of vernacular allows him to create the unexpected by juxtaposing crude language and simplistic beauty. In opposition to the (sometimes) simplistic beauty of Purdy’s vernacular are his misogynistic poems. Purdy’s representation of his wife’s grief from menstruation in “Home-Made Beer” is an attempt to identify with the common man, the attempt to create poetry for those who ‘typically’ don’t appreciate poetry.
F.R. Scott on the other hand uses the simplest language possible to convey his ideas. Scott’s poems resemble news stories you would hear on the radio or television taking only a few seconds to tell and having a significant impact considering their length. “After ten years of research / This great scientist / Made so valuable a discovery / That a big corporation actually paid him $150,000 / To keep it off the market” (Scott, Great discovery). Scott’s use of vernacular is not intended to attract the common man; rather is intended to be understood by everyone so the social message might reach as many people as possible. For Scott the subject of poetry was paramount and vernacular language a tool to achieve a wider audience.
The subject matter in modern Canadian poetry ranges far and wide from scenes of nature to politics to one-night stands. F.R. Scott was a lawyer, a socialist and a poet; his poems were a reflection of his values and political beliefs. In Scott’s poem “W.L.M.K” he asserts Mackenzie King as a man of “Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity” (32). Scott attacks the Canadian Prime Minister accredited with creating the old-age pension, unemployment insurance, and the family allowance; a curious reaction for an avid socialist I thought; soon, however, I realized the poets beliefs were part of a poem’s significance, and varies from one poet to another, the other significant aspect of modern Canadian poetry is it’s constant challenging of our beliefs.
Modern Canadian poets did not, however, stop at challenging the Canadian resolve solely on domestic issues. Dorothy Livesay concerned herself with important international issues and the Canadian response to them, likely contributing to our strong national sense of international justice. Livesay’s “Spain” is in response to the complacency in Canada to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Many countries from around the world including Ireland, the Soviet Union, Mexico, and the United States (unofficially for the U.S.A) allied themselves with a side in the conflict, historians see the Spanish Civil War as the prelude to World War II. The comfortable Canadian middle class should have been more attentive to the political situation in Europe-for their ignorance they paid a dear price, the loss of thousands in the Second World War. Modern Canadian poets confronted every aspect of life they could, from the kind of words we considered fit for literature to our notions of politics, and justice, and by doing so dare Canadians to define themselves.
Despite Canada’s rather short existence many poets have contributed to its poetic history and in doing so have created a poetic and literary heritage for future generations to follow. Canada’s modern poets contributed a tireless struggle against complacency, ignorance, and convention to our literary heritage that lives on in poets like Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen. Although Margaret Atwood was only beginning her career at the end of the modern Canadian poetic movement she espoused the struggle against injustice her predecessors began. Margaret Atwood was an important voice for the feminist movement in Canada using her poems to expose, not only, the inequalities faced by women, but also, the patriarchal ideas common in Canadian society. The situation in Atwood’s “They Eat Out” is an allegory to Canadian society and the problems faced by women “In restaurants we argue / over which of us will pay for your funeral” (1-2); Atwood represents the struggle for women to be accepted as having the right to work, illustrating the patriarchal and sometimes misogynistic outlook of men before and after the 1960’s.
Leonard Cohen too exemplifies the living heritage of Canadian Poetry. In his poems Cohen often highlights the struggle against prejudice and social problems affecting marginalized people. Cohen’s “The Music Crept By Us” demonstrates the social problems faced by the disadvantaged such as poverty alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases “I’d like to remind / the management / that the drinks are watered / and the hat-check girl / has syphilis […]” (1-5). Cohen also demonstrates the prevalence of racism and the struggle against it in “The Genius” by sarcastically adopting stereotypes of Jewish people to illustrate the absurdity of racism “For you / I will be a ghetto jew / and dance / and put white stockings / on my twisted limbs / and poison wells/ across the town […] / For you / I will be a banker jew […] / For you / I will be a doctor jew […]” (1-27). Cohen’s poems and others serve as continuations and contributions to Canada’s literary heritage.
Canada’s literary heritage is one with a rich variety of form, language, theme and style; it has developed for over a hundred years and has been significantly contributed to by Canada’s modern poets. They have created a tough poetic and literary landscape that: refuses to be idle, challenges Canadians to be open minded and accepting of new ideas, challenge convention, and always demand better from ourselves. No doubt the modern Canadian poets have helped to sculpt Canadians sense of justice and morality, to become a nation of many peoples, creeds, religions, and affiliations. Irving Layton sums up the poet’s role as a voice against ignorance: “There are brightest apples on those trees / but until I, fabulist, have spoken / they do not know their significance” (Layton, “The Fertile Muck”).
My question was one that defines much of Canada’s poetic heritage; a heritage of talented writers often ignored outside (and inside) the countries borders. Without the myriad of poetic history that many other countries have established over the course of centuries Canadian poetry is dismissed as an insignificant topic. International recognition is still a difficult task for Canadian poets to achieve. Regardless, poets like F.R. Scott, Dorothy Livesay, and Irving Layton have had a huge impact on Canadian poetry, challenging tradition, breaking down barriers, and exploring new poetic styles and themes, and in the process creating a poetic heritage. Modern and contemporary poets continue to expound a vast variety of content form and style; many of their poems with allusions to politics, economics, religion, and important social event from around the world.
One of the many established aspects of poetry that Canada’s modern poets challenged was form. Pre-modern poetry in Canada had the tendency to follow more static traditional Romantic and Victorian forms. Modern Canadian poets like P.K. Page and many others chose different forms to express their poetic vision. Page produced poems with such varying structure that they had both no, and complex form at once. Page’s poem “Arras” has at times an irregular rhyme pattern, no rhyme, and the intentional lack of rhyme: “Through whose eye / did it insulate in furled disguise […]” (5-6). Page uses an open form, changing the rhyme scheme, or lack there of, as the poem progresses. Notice the irregular rhyme scheme, the irregular length of line, and the use of enjambment, caesura, and end stopping in a single stanza, and the irregular length of the lines; “I ask, what did they deal me in this pack? / The cards, all suit, are royal when I look. / My fingerprints slipping on a monarch’s face / twitch and grow slack. / I want a hand to clutch, a heart to crack” (14-18). Although Page is well known for altering the form of her poems she is far from the only modern Canadian poet to do so. To varying degrees poets like F.R. Scott, Irving Layton, and Al Purdy would also play with form to convey new ideas.
Another convention of established poetry Canada’s modern poets rebelled against was the use of Romantic poetic language. A chief principle for these poets was to be exact in their choice of words and language, clarity and conciseness was paramount for Al Purdy and F.R. Scott. Purdy used vernacular language to set a satirical tone in much of his poetry. Purdy’s poem “At The Quinte Hotel” is overflowing with satire and vernacular: “[…] Now I am a sensitive man / so I say to him mildly as hell / “You shouldn’ta knocked over that good beer […]” (14-16). Purdy’s use of vernacular allows him to create the unexpected by juxtaposing crude language and simplistic beauty. In opposition to the (sometimes) simplistic beauty of Purdy’s vernacular are his misogynistic poems. Purdy’s representation of his wife’s grief from menstruation in “Home-Made Beer” is an attempt to identify with the common man, the attempt to create poetry for those who ‘typically’ don’t appreciate poetry.
F.R. Scott on the other hand uses the simplest language possible to convey his ideas. Scott’s poems resemble news stories you would hear on the radio or television taking only a few seconds to tell and having a significant impact considering their length. “After ten years of research / This great scientist / Made so valuable a discovery / That a big corporation actually paid him $150,000 / To keep it off the market” (Scott, Great discovery). Scott’s use of vernacular is not intended to attract the common man; rather is intended to be understood by everyone so the social message might reach as many people as possible. For Scott the subject of poetry was paramount and vernacular language a tool to achieve a wider audience.
The subject matter in modern Canadian poetry ranges far and wide from scenes of nature to politics to one-night stands. F.R. Scott was a lawyer, a socialist and a poet; his poems were a reflection of his values and political beliefs. In Scott’s poem “W.L.M.K” he asserts Mackenzie King as a man of “Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity” (32). Scott attacks the Canadian Prime Minister accredited with creating the old-age pension, unemployment insurance, and the family allowance; a curious reaction for an avid socialist I thought; soon, however, I realized the poets beliefs were part of a poem’s significance, and varies from one poet to another, the other significant aspect of modern Canadian poetry is it’s constant challenging of our beliefs.
Modern Canadian poets did not, however, stop at challenging the Canadian resolve solely on domestic issues. Dorothy Livesay concerned herself with important international issues and the Canadian response to them, likely contributing to our strong national sense of international justice. Livesay’s “Spain” is in response to the complacency in Canada to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Many countries from around the world including Ireland, the Soviet Union, Mexico, and the United States (unofficially for the U.S.A) allied themselves with a side in the conflict, historians see the Spanish Civil War as the prelude to World War II. The comfortable Canadian middle class should have been more attentive to the political situation in Europe-for their ignorance they paid a dear price, the loss of thousands in the Second World War. Modern Canadian poets confronted every aspect of life they could, from the kind of words we considered fit for literature to our notions of politics, and justice, and by doing so dare Canadians to define themselves.
Despite Canada’s rather short existence many poets have contributed to its poetic history and in doing so have created a poetic and literary heritage for future generations to follow. Canada’s modern poets contributed a tireless struggle against complacency, ignorance, and convention to our literary heritage that lives on in poets like Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen. Although Margaret Atwood was only beginning her career at the end of the modern Canadian poetic movement she espoused the struggle against injustice her predecessors began. Margaret Atwood was an important voice for the feminist movement in Canada using her poems to expose, not only, the inequalities faced by women, but also, the patriarchal ideas common in Canadian society. The situation in Atwood’s “They Eat Out” is an allegory to Canadian society and the problems faced by women “In restaurants we argue / over which of us will pay for your funeral” (1-2); Atwood represents the struggle for women to be accepted as having the right to work, illustrating the patriarchal and sometimes misogynistic outlook of men before and after the 1960’s.
Leonard Cohen too exemplifies the living heritage of Canadian Poetry. In his poems Cohen often highlights the struggle against prejudice and social problems affecting marginalized people. Cohen’s “The Music Crept By Us” demonstrates the social problems faced by the disadvantaged such as poverty alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases “I’d like to remind / the management / that the drinks are watered / and the hat-check girl / has syphilis […]” (1-5). Cohen also demonstrates the prevalence of racism and the struggle against it in “The Genius” by sarcastically adopting stereotypes of Jewish people to illustrate the absurdity of racism “For you / I will be a ghetto jew / and dance / and put white stockings / on my twisted limbs / and poison wells/ across the town […] / For you / I will be a banker jew […] / For you / I will be a doctor jew […]” (1-27). Cohen’s poems and others serve as continuations and contributions to Canada’s literary heritage.
Canada’s literary heritage is one with a rich variety of form, language, theme and style; it has developed for over a hundred years and has been significantly contributed to by Canada’s modern poets. They have created a tough poetic and literary landscape that: refuses to be idle, challenges Canadians to be open minded and accepting of new ideas, challenge convention, and always demand better from ourselves. No doubt the modern Canadian poets have helped to sculpt Canadians sense of justice and morality, to become a nation of many peoples, creeds, religions, and affiliations. Irving Layton sums up the poet’s role as a voice against ignorance: “There are brightest apples on those trees / but until I, fabulist, have spoken / they do not know their significance” (Layton, “The Fertile Muck”).
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sockets and Frizz.
The title of this item is vague; it evokes thoughts of fingers poking into electrical sockets and, as a result, hair standing on end. This said, it can't be further from the truth and the truth of the matter is; I recently moved to place where the sockets are different from the last place I resided. I have a magnificent hair iron, a HAI classic, with layered ceramic plates and adjustable heat settings. But only works in Canada, the US, and Mexico.
What options are available to me? Well, I could purchase a very expensive converter, or, just purchase a new iron all together...
Now, which iron to choose among all the wonderful irons out there. Here, the popular choice seems to be a GHD but I am not sold on that. The one I wanted, FHI platform, that would work in these sockets could not be shipped to my address; so what did I do...
I did what any narcissistic-hair-obsessed victim does, call up a friend over seas that it could be shipped to, made them receive it, and then resend it. An expensive process, but in the end worth it.
Three layers of ceramic plating, tourmaline somethingorother, adjustable heat settings, and some magical ionic stuff; to maintain the health and look of my hair. The later always causes some confusion. You see, heating your hair up in such a way fries it, no matter what anyone states as fact, but; when something locks in moisture with these tiny wizards (ions), it doesn't do nearly as much damage.
How do I know? To be honest I don't, I completely buy into selling features of certain desirable items and what else can I say? I'm a hopeless consumer whore. Point is, I'm satisfied.
Additionally, I have some recommendations for hair care as well. And while I'm no hair stylist or part thereof. These "recommendations" come from my years of experience with my own unruly, temperamental hair.
For paste, if ever I use any, usually I don't have to; due to great irons or a really well-done cut. My number one choice is Davines no.5; it doesn't leave a greasy feel or look and you really only need enough to form a teeny tiny residue on your finger, depending on what you are creating. This residue is best for "fly-aways."
For shine and general conditioning effects; any of Aveda's "brilliant" collection work wonders.
I have yet to find a favorite shampoo or conditioner but I've still got some life to live.
And that's enough of this useless crap.
What options are available to me? Well, I could purchase a very expensive converter, or, just purchase a new iron all together...
Now, which iron to choose among all the wonderful irons out there. Here, the popular choice seems to be a GHD but I am not sold on that. The one I wanted, FHI platform, that would work in these sockets could not be shipped to my address; so what did I do...
I did what any narcissistic-hair-obsessed victim does, call up a friend over seas that it could be shipped to, made them receive it, and then resend it. An expensive process, but in the end worth it.
Three layers of ceramic plating, tourmaline somethingorother, adjustable heat settings, and some magical ionic stuff; to maintain the health and look of my hair. The later always causes some confusion. You see, heating your hair up in such a way fries it, no matter what anyone states as fact, but; when something locks in moisture with these tiny wizards (ions), it doesn't do nearly as much damage.
How do I know? To be honest I don't, I completely buy into selling features of certain desirable items and what else can I say? I'm a hopeless consumer whore. Point is, I'm satisfied.
Additionally, I have some recommendations for hair care as well. And while I'm no hair stylist or part thereof. These "recommendations" come from my years of experience with my own unruly, temperamental hair.
For paste, if ever I use any, usually I don't have to; due to great irons or a really well-done cut. My number one choice is Davines no.5; it doesn't leave a greasy feel or look and you really only need enough to form a teeny tiny residue on your finger, depending on what you are creating. This residue is best for "fly-aways."
For shine and general conditioning effects; any of Aveda's "brilliant" collection work wonders.
I have yet to find a favorite shampoo or conditioner but I've still got some life to live.
And that's enough of this useless crap.
Booze and Broads. 11/8/07
The relationship, specifically between a husband and wife, is the theme in Al Purdy’s “Home-Made Beer.” Through satirical illustrations of the speaker’s encounters with his wife, Purdy presents an almost stereotypical image of married life. This stereotypical marriage is certainly not that of the circa 1950’s nuclear family, but rather a dark comedy version of the uncaring husband and manic wife. The poem casually portrays the husband’s unsympathetic attitude towards his wife’s feelings and, figurative or not, the wife’s violent reaction to her husbands uncaring nature. Purdy emphasizes the relationship through the juxtaposition of romantic language and violent and graceless action. With reference to imagery and diction, I will show that “Home-Made Beer” illustrates Purdy’s satirical representation the relationship between a husband and wife.
The imagery in the poem suggests the couple’s dysfunctional relations are more than just bickering. The first physically violent ‘blow’ between husband and wife is demonstrated in her attacking “[him] with a broom-” (14) followed by “[…] she grabbed the breadknife and made / for me with fairly obvious intentions-” (17-18); revealing this marriage as the opposite of the archetypical nuclear family. The image of “[icicles dropping] from her fiery eyes” (22) illustrates the wife’s tears as she threatens the speaker’s life and reveals her guilt for attacking him, “cleverly concealing” her love for him. The speaker exhibits the ongoing danger of their relationship in stating: “[…] I had to distribute / the meals she prepared among the neighbouring / dogs because of the rat poison […]” (28-30). In “[…] it can never again- / Sept.22, 1964: I was wrong-” (35-36) Purdy deliberately hints that the speaker’s wife continues to try and poison him.
Purdy’s choice of words is both formal and colloquial. He juxtaposes his violent images by casually displaying a poetic “savoir faire”. “[With excessive moderation I yodelled […] “Keep your ass out of my beer!”]” (7-9) it is obvious there had been no “excessive moderation” and no actual “yodelling,” rather, yelling on account of the punctuation and words “keep your ass out.” Additionally, what about the excess of l’s in the word “yodelling?” Perhaps a typing mistake but I highly doubt that; it is more likely Purdy’s clever invention to have the reader look twice and assume he intended yelling, or, it is one of Purdy’s representations of his colloquial type character. This misspelling of particular words is again noted in line thirty-one “Missus” justly confirms the expression of the colloquial type of character the speaker is. Purdy’s alliteration of ‘b’ sounds reveals the speaker’s colloquial attitude towards his wife’s menstruation in: “where she had been brooding for days / over the injustice of being a woman […]” (12-13). The speaker’s colloquial attitude is thus continued throughout the second stanza and is reaffirmed in his “minimum boredom” over her knife wielding threat of murder.
Purdy’s “Home-Made Beer” presents a stereotypical relationship of a married couple. He emphasizes the theme satirically through language and diction. The characters are portrayed colloquially in their speech and their actions. The poem’s theme expresses the speaker’s misogynistic desire to trivialize the feminine experience.
Photo taken from: harbourpublishing.com
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