September 19, 2005
Up the anti
25 years of Degrassi Street. Lionel Shriver has had it with being “the anti-mom”. So perhaps she could stop writing articles about it? I went to see Rebecca Godfrey give an excellent talk in the UofT bookstore reading series on Friday. Her book seems to combine literature with true crime, and I can definitely do that genre.
September 18, 2005
Autograph
“Virginia Woolf: A Personal Debt” was wonderful, and I read it quite happily and then, when I was finished, flipped over the final page and there, where I almost hadn’t even looked, was Margaret Drabble’s autograph, thirty-two years-old but there all the same.
Tonight we are having goulash.
September 18, 2005
For One Year
We hollowed out a home
in that tough and tiny core
one room and we fixed it
with a window a door
a ladder we climbed to our bed
and in the rafters there
we slept like bats alive
and hanging for one year.
After there were seven boxes
that we sent home by sea
a hoard that we acquired
almost accidentally
unnoticed stuff that lived with us
filling space we didn’t use
they slipped inside so quietly
with the dust upon our shoes.
That cosy world we curled within
we came to need no more
it felt unnecessary
to have more walls than four
elbow rooms and breathing rooms
overblown and obsolete
just that little room for me and you
to dine live love and sleep.
September 15, 2005
A Personal Debt
In 1972, Margaret Drabble who I love wrote a book called “Virginia Woolf: A Personal Debt” which was limited to 110 copies. And tomorrow, I get to read copy 80 in the Woolf Collection at the EJ Pratt Library! No one can tell you that life isn’t exciting. And do the Guardian poetry workshop!
September 13, 2005
Remembering the Midlands
I deeply frightened of and disturbed about graduate school. Any finding my workshop course very difficult, trying to contort into positions I’m not accustomed to. It will be good for me eventually. And so in escape, Guardian Top Ten Books about my former home, The Midlands- though not exclusively the East Midlands (which everyone knows is the best bit). Now I want to read “The Road to Lichfield” as I fell in love with Penelope Lively this summer via Moontiger. I still love Gloria Steinem. I have to go as there are line-ups for the computer, and I have to find some OSAP.
September 12, 2005
Poems About Knitting
There is exciting news at Pickle Me This Press, as plans are underway for a book of poems about knitting. It will be our second project, and we will be calling for submissions shortly. The haiku book is also coming along well, and we hope to have 30 copies published by the end of October.
I had my first class this morning, and the workshop meets for the first time this afternoon. All is well, and I had my first shift at the library this morning, which felt like a step back in time (but not entirely for worse- it’s the nicest job I’ve ever had).
And I am going to see both Zadie Smith and Joan Didion at Harbourfront readings this autumn!
September 11, 2005
Tomorrow
Really, say what you want about Russell Smith but I’ve enjoyed every one of his books that I’ve ever read. Currently in the final third of Muriella Pent and it’s wonderful. Otherwise, I made a fantastic spaghetti dinner Friday night and my future as a hostess is promising. And classes begin tomorrow.
September 7, 2005
Perks
Becky’s website is redesigned and you can see our Canadian wedding photos here! Today has been a marvelous day of schoolbook buying, as I managed to spend $50 of gift certificates I got as a wedding present, and get an out-of-print book used for $10. I also wrangled free cookies and juice, and Stuart and I had a little picnic at Hart House. To update the “Toronto is the best city to live in if you’re broke and looking for fun” file, we went to see the Fembots last night play a little free show at Soundscapes on College Street. They were ace, inevitable comparisons to the Jayhawks or Wilco but enough of their own. Their new CD is said to be excellent. A review of Zadie Smith’s “On Beauty”. She places her story in America, and I’m interested to see how she does that. I get a strong sense that (North) American writers really shouldn’t try to “write British”, and that the Brits themselves have more freedom to jump continents. My story takes place in England and I oft fear I don’t have the authority to carry it off altogether, though I did live there for nearly two years. There is a cultural gap however minute and it matters. Stuart keeps comparing everyone here to characters from an American Pie movie. Here, top ten books on Russia. Oh! Zadie is profiled, and discusses the novel as “an ethical enterprise”. I ran into a Professor today, and we talked about not only about the pain of so many books to be read, and the number that should be reread and how it’s never going to happen. Being a grad student has perks I never even imagined by the way.
September 6, 2005
Get back to where you once belonged
Nothing much changes on the UofT campus, and I have a part-time job at the library again. We had our “orientation” session this morning and classes start on Monday. The van finally did become available and we moved in Thursday night. Our apartment is absolutely gorgeous, and we really would be reluctant to leave it if the neighbourhood wasn’t so fantastic. All is really well.
