http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/ Poets introducing poets! The Scotland-Canada exchange en-ca editor@arcpoetry.ca (Anita Lahey) web@arcpoetry.ca (Stacey Munro) Copyright 2009 Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:23:39 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss poems poets poetry contemporary poetry Canadian poetry Canadian literature Scottish literature Scottish poetry web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) There is a poem of Aislinn Hunter's entitled "Everything Lost is Found Again" that is both short enough, and deceptively simple enough for me to quote here in its entirety: the ring that lay for months behind the dresser, the book finally returned by a friend, apples reborn in the boughs of an old tree and the years appearing suddenly ripe fruit in the open hand. The brevity of this poem is important, because it highlights Aislinn Hunter's gift for poetic economy (which is not to say that her poems are always short; rather, that she is one of those poets who has an uncanny ability to say exactly as much as she wants with the most economical of means). What matters more, however, is the deceptive simplicity: Hunter is forever taking us into what we think of as familiar territory--whether it be familiar images, familiar ideas, seemingly well-worn philosophical notions--and revealing what was missed, in all that supposed familiarity: what we took for granted, what we didn't want to acknowledge, or even--as in this poem--what we gave up on too soon.... http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_04_john-burnside-introducing-aislinn-hunter.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_04_john-burnside-introducing-aislinn-hunter.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_04_john-burnside-introducing-aislinn-hunter.php#comments Aislinn Hunter Canada-Scotland John Burnside Scotland-Canada contemporary poetry poetry Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:23:39 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) "Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks." --ihf, "Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening." I first met Ian in 1967. I'd written him a letter requesting a meeting and an interview, for a research project on contemporary Scottish poetry. His answer, welcoming me with his customary openness and generosity, was dated "Jumy 3rd." Rather than excusing the typo, he wrote: "It must be some sort of summer elephant." For forty years thereafter, he never ceased to show me things as rare, as beautiful, as whimsical, or as sublime as summer elephants. Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) was one of the great artists of his age, despite (or because of) the fact that he was never completely of his age. He stood in often solitary opposition to many of its major currents. He was a devout Classicist in an age of Romanticism. He used post-modernist techniques in profoundly pre-modernist ways. In a pacifist age, he embraced the iconography of war; the most peaceful of men, he was capable of the most refined and civilized anger. His imagery embraced wee Fife fishing boats and Pacific aircraft carriers with equal warmth. He fought constant battles with local authorities, Arts Councils, and all aspects of cultural orthodoxy. He was a 20th century avant-garde artist with roots deeply seated in the 18th century (or the Greek pre-Socratic philosophers--the rough track up to his garden at Stonypath bore the literal but profound admonition "The way up and the way down is one and the same")... http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_01_stephen-scobie-introducing-ian-hamilton-finlay.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_01_stephen-scobie-introducing-ian-hamilton-finlay.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2007_01_stephen-scobie-introducing-ian-hamilton-finlay.php#comments Canada-Scotland Ian Hamilton Finlay Scotland-Canada Stephen Scobie contemporary poetry poetry Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:50:03 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_10_anna-crowe-introducing-stephen-scobie.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_10_anna-crowe-introducing-stephen-scobie.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_10_anna-crowe-introducing-stephen-scobie.php#comments Anna Crowe Canada-Scotland Scotland-Canada Stephen Scobie contemporary poetry poetry Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:55:39 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) In "Fridge Nocturne", a short poem near the beginning of Don McKay's selected poems, the sleepless poet lies listening to the sound of his fridge, 'the old/armless weeping willow of the kitchen'. The fridge's "Humble murmur" brings to his mind several distant rivers--"the Saugeen, the Goulais/the Raisin". The permeability of the border between the domestic world and the wilderness which lies beyond it marks a landscape whose vastness teaches early that, "Lonely is a knife whose handle fits the mind/too well, its oldest and most hospitable friend" ("Nocturnal Animals"). However, "There is a loneliness/ which must be entered rather than resolved" ("On Leaving") and to enter the wilderness with Don McKay is to have the sharpest, most informed and responsive guide. http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_08_tom-pow-introducing-don-mckay.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_08_tom-pow-introducing-don-mckay.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_08_tom-pow-introducing-don-mckay.php#comments Canada-Scotland Don McKay Scotland-Canada Tom Pow contemporary poetry poetry Thu, 10 Aug 2006 18:10:25 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) Misquoting Cromwell while reading Robin Robertson... My father told me this one. In April 1653 Oliver Cromwell--officially England's "Lord Protector", unofficially a military dictator, additionally a war criminal given to thanking God for his mercy but disinclined to show much of his own--dissolved the last vestige of Parliament, known as the Rump, with the following speech: "You have sat here too long for all the good you have done. In the name of God, now go." And the Rump dissolved. Cromwell had thirty musketeers with him, of course, and a reputation for savagery; he might have said anything and dissolved the Rump. Told a joke, if he knew one. Issued his order in Basque. But (my father said to me, repeating that one-breath speech) what is it about those twenty words that makes them so damn effective? (When I was a boy, he liked to be teaching me things all the time. Especially when driving me places.) I scratched my nose. I can't remember, now, if I came up with any sort of response. Certainly the Lord Protector's speech had been short. Had the Rump dissolved in sheer gratitude? That was an age of interminable speeches, wasn't it? Twenty words, my father said, and twenty syllables. Count them. I did. You see? They're all one syllable, I said. Right! he exclaimed--[_one two three!_]--smacking his free hand on the dashboard, dust rising with each smack. Through the windows a span of amber prairie under lucid blue sky: the Trans-Canada Highway, westbound lane, the Rockies still tucked under the horizon. Each syllable, he said, [_bang_], [_bang_], like the slam of a judge's gavel after he gives sentence. Or--or like a musket shot from each of those soldiers he brought in with him. Cromwell. I thought there were thirty soldiers, I said. Thirty, twenty--the point is there's no arguing with it. It's strong speech. People think they can make what they say impressive by using a lot of big words. Words with Latin roots, Greek roots. Jargon. Argot. Polyunsaturated syllables. It's those hard little fist-shaped Saxon words that really grab you by the lobes. http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_07_steven-heighton-introducing-robin-robertson.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_07_steven-heighton-introducing-robin-robertson.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_07_steven-heighton-introducing-robin-robertson.php#comments Canada-Scotland Robin Robertson Scotland-Canada Steven Heighton contemporary poetry poetry Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:28:30 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) I met Karen Solie and heard her read, and was impressed when I returned to Edmonton for a reunion of Writers in Residence in March 2006. She read in one of the newer buildings of the University -- one wall a curve of windows and steady snow falling outside. There was a hush both sides of the glass. She read well. Afterwards I bought her pamphlet _The Shooter's Bible_ and discovered that her poems sound as good on the page as they read in the air, that they had weight as well as music. I went straight back and bought _Modern and Normal_, her latest collection. Two poems caught my attention that first day: "An Argument for Small Arms", in which Solie subtly conflates details of gunmanship and desire and "The Birds of British Columbia" a gem of a "found" poem which I kept pondering and rereading for the rest of my stay in Canada. http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_05_john-glenday-introducing-karen-solie.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_05_john-glenday-introducing-karen-solie.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_05_john-glenday-introducing-karen-solie.php#comments Canada-Scotland John Glenday Karen Solie Scotland-Canada contemporary poetry poetry poets Fri, 26 May 2006 19:30:24 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) I first discovered John Burnside's poetry the way most poets discover other writers: in the form of a slim volume sitting on a crammed bookshelf in a good bookstore. First of all I liked the title of the book (_The Light Trap_) and the look of the font. I also liked the author's name: it seemed warm and somehow familial. I pulled the book out, opened it up and read a few lines. There it was: a sense of travel, of being Elsewhere, of seeing another world as no one, save John Burnside, has ever seen it. Who in Canada would write, as Burnside does in _Common Knowledge_, of "The classes of jamjars. Subtleties of string"? Of "tubers locked in bottles, sprouting wings"? No one I knew of. But more than that, more than the specifics of language and place, Burnside was good: a good philosopher and a good technician; a rigorous examiner of the common and the ephemeral; of the seemingly insignificant and the large... http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_04_aislinn-hunter-introducing-john-burnside.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_04_aislinn-hunter-introducing-john-burnside.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/features/2006_04_aislinn-hunter-introducing-john-burnside.php#comments Aislinn Hunter Canada-Scotland John Burnside Scotland-Canada contemporary poetry poetry Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:59:39 -0500 web@arcpoetry.ca (Arc) Each time he visits the Montreal home of fellow scribe Michael Harris and his partner Carolyn O’Neill, Stephen Heighton, one of Canada’s best-known poets, finds himself staring at one particular wall in their house. On it, in the form... http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/aboutexchange/2006_04_the-scotlandcanada-poetry-handshake.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/aboutexchange/2006_04_the-scotlandcanada-poetry-handshake.php http://www.arcpoetry.ca/greatscots/aboutexchange/2006_04_the-scotlandcanada-poetry-handshake.php#comments Anita Lahey Canada-Scotland Scotland-Canada contemporary poetry poetry Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:44:02 -0500