The 6th International Publishers Association Copyright Symposium wound up last night. It was the last big bash held in Montreal as part of that city’s reign as World Book Capital. Turin is next…man, some politicians there are doing something right…I was there, in Montreal, on Sunday interviewing Lise Bisonnette President of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec. Our conversation will arrive here for your ears within the next week or so.

Apropos of the Symposium, here is a poem by Robin Robertson, some of whose work, in first edition and broad side I purchased, on the same visit, from Michael Harris of Montreal Books, who incidentally showed me the most breathtaking collection of Ted Hughes’ poetry I’ve ever seen . Thank you Michael for the tour and the free meal. Montrealers are so genuinely hospitable.

I say apropos because I want to display the entire poem here, to share it with readers of this blog so that they can participate in my celebration of Robertson’s talent, and, if interested, seek out more of same.

Am I violating copyright by doing this?

If I leave off the last line am I? The last stanza?

And if I am, whooz gonna stop me from doing this? Whooz gonna fine me, or throw me in jail? Damned this swithering business.

Okay. The last thing I want to do is take food from the mouth of a starving poet, so I will drop the final stanza. You’ll have to buy the book to get the finale. If Robin and or his publishers tell me to add it, because there is little doubt they scour this site daily, I will, very happily. In the meantime, please enjoy most of The Rainmaker from Swithering :

Tentative rain, and the light
is changing, the water ticking
in the leaves, pattering the sheets
as she turns to him, murmuring
slow and ready for the verge of flood,
the undertow’s hard covenant,
the run of trust.
She feels something unfurling
in a glut of dew, a finger pushing
into a peach, peach-water welling
over fern and fruit; she tastes the curve
and ache in the weather.

…

I plan to interview a publishing copyright expert momentarily.

By far the best play of the game, and most important: when Chris Neal suckered that moron Chris Dingman into the fighting (5 minutes)/instigating (2 minutes)/(10 minute misconduct) penalties in the third period.

Speaking of which, Emery looked really bad on that Alfie give away goal. He’s going down far too often.

Great to see Redden playing so well for his mother, and Havlat flyin’.

Members of Andrew Robertson’s class recently went through the publishing process from start to finish. Andrew and I are joined here by three of his students to talk about their experiences. Yes it is sweet and funny. But for me at least, there is something more. Something profoundly moving about listening to children talk about the pride they feel in writing and producing books.

Copyright © 2006 by Nigel Beale.

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Image from here

When Martin St. Louis got hit by Zdeno Chara early in the first period of the first game of this Ottawa Senator/Tampa Bay Lightening National Hockey League playoff series, and took a dive to put Chara in the penalty box, we should have gone after him. Neal, or someone, should have pounded the piss out of him, first, for taking the dive, for flaunting, insulting the rules, second to send a message to Tampa that we aren’t about to let this little jerk get their team fired up.

But this didn’t happen. And look what he did. Look where we are now: Already facing the pivotal game of the season. We lose this and its over. Again, relegating a league/division topping season meaningless. Someone needs to take St. Louis out, right away.

And they should also take Hasek out too. Away from our bench, just as Don Cherry…Canada’s best-ever hockey commentator, suggested the other night. Who wants this guy breathing all over the team, adding emotional tension, possibly psyching Emery out? Get him away from the rink. A long way a way. Somewhere where he can heal on his own. Fast.

And if he doesn’t heal, and doesn’t help us in the playoffs, what a useless acquisition.

“There was never a good war, or a bad peace.”
Benjamin Franklin

Escaping the Moonlit Cage

Linda Holeman began her writing career in the early 1990′s. She writes short stories and historic and contemporary novels for both adults and young adults. Her love of travel and research fold together into page-turning works that feature exotic, strongly recognizable settings. Knowledge and the acceptance of loss, as well as a search for identity, feature large in many of the widely translated books Linda has written. In the interview here, we talk, in advance of our appearance on stage with authors Susan Glickman and Martha Baillie at the Ottawa International Writers Festival on Thursday April 20, about her latest novel The Moonlit Cage, about being wicked, about the impact of dead relatives on our lives, prisons and escaping them, and nose jewelry. Copyright © 2006 by Nigel Beale.

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This just in: Canadian Federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is married. I called her offices to confirm this just 10 minutes ago.

This complicates matters considerably, given my new found affection for her, and the desire to act upon it. Can you blame me?

Weblog may not be forum to deal with this news. Therapist couch or novel a possibility. Stay tuned.

According to an email I got from a list server I’m on (WD-List: CAJ) ‘Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, in an email, said Tushingham’s mistake was in billing himself as a government representative in a Canadian Press advisory to the media about the event.’ See this previous posting.

In other words, he broke the rules, completely justifying Ambrose’s decision.

The more talent you have, the less up tight you are about trying to prove to others that you have it. This holds true not just for writers.

This just picked and photoed.

I call her Eleanor.

Have you ever noticed how daffodils sparkle? I hadn’t until this morning. And they are purportedly one of my favourite flowers.

Unless of course one of my daughters snuck some of that face sparkle stuff they use onto it.

"with flowers that have a large typically yellow corona elongated into a trumpet shape: genus Narcissus. [prob from Dutch de affodil the asphodel, via early French afrodille via Latin from Greek asphodelos]" says The Penguin Dictionary.

Much as I like dictionaries, particulary slang ones…and prefer my flowers in situ, tearing them out of the ground to observe them closely on my balcony in the morning sunshine isn’t really so bad either.

Daffodils (1804)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).