Sunday, March 9, 2008

Announcements

Ekstasis Reading at the Pacific Festival of the Book - March 15, 2008 @ Victoria Arts Connection

Morning Couplets

The force of re-entry from an orbit retreat; hitting ground
with pen in hand, I plunge back into the world.

Pieces of wood snap together and boast their deep burn,
red and solid; the transformation of space and energy.

Paper covered shelves, homeless in their temporary home;
this place of disorder, schedules lost, and a wormhole for the renovators
of thought and work.

Our cats don’t mind the chaos – jumbled furniture,
piled books and yesterday’s news – more surface space.

Kittens scratching at heads, night time cardboard rustles;
a test of skill in the morning rewarded late afternoon.

My kittens lie away from me, until a phone rings or visitors
take my attention, their ego brains attack, vie for my affection again.

Rain falls heavy in carport pools, our half day ticks
by lounging bare on the couch, as we watch the cats race.

We wake to white blankets – this cold warmth of brightness;
snug inside with words, warm tea, our own singular warmth shared.

Our kittens don’t notice the snow – their world, us, loud toys
across the floor. Maybe they can’t see white or anything past normal conditions.

A white-trimmed tree sways like a cobweb, snowy
breeze pushes through an early winter.

Little Emperors' Book Launch - March 1, 2008

On March 1, 2008, my close friend, JoAnn Dionne, launched her first book titled, Little Emperors. The book is a memoir of her time spent teaching English to elementary students in the Republic of China. She takes a look at the boundaries acknowledged and dissolved both in the classroom and beyond the school gates, and the change in China's politics and collective thinking, succumbing to Western influences. Her memoir is both humourous and startling from the daily activities she relays, and life-altering adventures she encounters in a communist country. The book is a reflection of her acqaintances, choices, observations of people and ideas, and emotions while in a foreign place as she struggles with her foreign concepts and assimilates herself into a new world.
She organized her launch to be held in a new art gallery called Dales in Chinatown, Victoria, BC. A fit setting and a phenomenal turnout, as her audience was packed to the rafters. She graciously invited a few local writers - Steven J. Thompson, Yvonne Blomer, Liz Walker, Missie Peters, and myself -to read our selected poems (her favourites) before she read excerpts from Little Emperors. As part of her launch, she also invited a spokesperson from the Free Tibet society. Her memoir is a sharing of her broadening perspectives and embracing of Eastern culture, as well as a message to Westerners about the atrocities that still occur in that part of the world; atrocities that are against basic human rights.
I am honoured to be able to call such a brilliant, adventurous writer my friend, and to have witnessed her great accomplishment and be a part of the celebration of her book.
You can check out her book at: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Little-Emperors-Year-Future-China-JoAnn-Dionne/9781550027563-item.html