This loss is like a passing year,
a fading sun down earlier each day.
But memory is candied lime,
a taste mere water cannot wash away.

Look now through winter’s rime-etched pane,
sun sprawling in to light an empty page.
Your memory will wane with time,
and with it, wisdom come, a cage.

Harraps Online

Great news for translators of French and English: the Harrap's French-English dictionary--the best French-English dictionary in print, IMO--is now available on-line. I've been waiting for this for years. No more flipping through pages, poring over tiny text to find the translation for that elusive idiom. A quick search and it's right there on the screen. Hallelujah!

There's a free 30-day trial (an incredibly no-hassle process) and the subscription costs are actually pretty reasonable (£20 per year). I've only used it for a day, but I'm impressed thus far.

Did I say Hallelujah already?

Halley's Comet

I am not the first to set eyes on this scene.
Over the course of life on this planet
some other sentient being has undoubtedly gazed
over the lake at sunset, with the wind just so.

Over the course of life on this planet,
I have come to cherish mergansers flying high
over the lake at sunset. With the wind just so,
I am sure they will come down here, on the bay

I have come to cherish. Mergansers flying high
are a sign of spring, and yes, like wild ginger
I am sure they will come. Down here on the bay,
in the full dark of the new moon, May showers

are a sign of spring. And yes, like wild ginger
flowers, they mostly pass unnoticed, blossoming
in the full dark of the new moon. May showers
fall from the tail of Halley’s Comet; modest

flowers, they mostly pass unnoticed, blossoming
discretely in the night sky, their sole purpose apparently to
fall from the tail of Halley’s Comet. Modest
observers of the heavens turn their heads

discretely in the night sky, their sole purpose apparently to
witness the fiery passage of dust grains in air.
Observers of the heavens turn their heads
now toward sunrise, as pollen dances in the dawn.

Witness the fiery passage of dust grains in air!
Some other sentient being will undoubtedly gaze
now toward sunrise, as pollen dances in the dawn:
I am not the last to set eyes on this scene.

On bagpipes as a metaphor for puns

Well-placed and shrewdly played
(say on a mountainside or battlefield),
The bagpipes’ loud and noble bray
does uplift hearts and heal.

But poorly blown and frayed
(say at a party chic and spiky-heeled),
They end up causing much dismay
And make one’s ears congeal.

The Atlantic drops its paywall!

Fans of the journal The Atlantic will be thrilled to learn that the magazine has decided to open up the site to non-subscribers. This includes free access to the archive going back to 1995, plus some access to even earlier articles.

This is great news. Upon looking at the site, however, I can't find the old Forums section. Did The Atlantic  do away with them at some point?  The old poetry forum was for many years a vibrant place for on-line poets to post works and engage in discussion. But I guess when they put up the paywall, everyone went away. Imagine that!

Blogged with Flock

Quebec's Ice Hotel. You've got to be kidding me!

Photo credit: Etolane

This past weekend, I traveled to the Quebec City area to do some skiing. Aside from the fact that the weather was so cold that we might as well have had sandpaper on our boards, it was great to get outside.

Our first skiing stop was the Station Touristique Duschesney. I've always known it as a great place to ski, though I haven't been there in years. But in recent times, it has also been home to Quebec's so-called "Ice Hotel." We drove past this curiosity as we were leaving Duschesney in search of our chalet for the night.

Now I remember as a kid always loving fireplaces. But my grandfather never had a fireplace in his home, though he possessed just about every other amenity a house could have. When I asked him why he didn't have one, he replied  that during his childhood in England, the only source of heat most houses had was a stove that constantly had to be supplied with coal. So the idea of a fireplace as a luxury was anathema to him.

I think most Canadians must feel a little bit the same way about the ice hotels, of which there are apparently several around the world. When you spend a good 4 months out of the year making major efforts to keep warm, the idea of paying good money (and lots of it--rates start at about $600/night for two) to sleep in a glorified igloo seems like an idea for people with more money than brains.

That night, the temperature in the Quebec City region dropped down to about -30 degrees Celsius. I fear the poor saps staying in the ice hotel that night may have resorted to burning wads of cash to keep warm.

I wonder what my grandfather would have said.

Rio

Rio

In the movie of your memory
Rio envelops you like twilight
sneaking up slowly until night
falls and you are lost.

Lost in the aroma of roasting meat and passion
fruit juice, of piss and sweat, lost
in Christ’s eternal, concrete blessing.

But the truth is an abrupt assault,
a stunning cacophony of brake squeals,
unmuffled engines, taxi horns, the ubiquitous
dual roars of football fans and the Atlantic.

Rio intoxicates you, suddenly, with bittersweet
lime and sugar, orchid scent and warm sea air,
azalea and bougainvillea blossoms.

Bathes you in skeletal yearning, entices with the sense
that any thing can be, that music is all you need. Only
frigate birds and vultures indicate your peril,
but no one here looks at the sky.

Compendium of Lost Words

Compendium of Lost Words

I recently installed the cool FireFox add-on StumbleUpon, which took me to this site. Not sure if any of these words would pass the Scrabble test, but I love it anyway.

Resources for writers

I came across this exhaustive web links of resources for writers via Lifehacker. I have used a number of the links listed for years, but there are also a ton I'd never heard of. If you write, there's surely something here you'll find useful.

DailyLit

I just ran across this very cool site. Basically, you can get daily 5-minute chunks of litterature sent to you via email or RSS. For those of us who have busy lives but who would like to take a break to read some great writing.

There are hundreds of titles to choose from. So if you've always wanted to read War and Peace but never summoned the courage, maybe this is the way to go.

Sonata in G

Sudden as a broken string, Scarlatti
materialized after you left this afternoon,
shimmering, there, on the claw-footed stool.

Tentative at first, he warmed to our piano,
foot heavy on the sustain pedal, hands
rising like laughter while arpeggios of gold dust
suspended gravity in a sunbeam. Then,

with a quill pulled from the air, and ink
flowing under the nib, he began to scratch out
a sonata in G—losing all notion of time in the allegro three-eight.

You find it on the stand upon your return
and play, perhaps more legato than he;
I listen, secretly pleased, and resist the urge to say
that he is standing behind the door, smiling.

Siegfried Sassoon

I was away for part of last week and so wasn't able to listen to one of my favourite podcasts, the BBC's In Our Time. Last week's episode was on the British poet Siegfried Sassoon. Unfortunately, it is no longer available for download, but you can still listen to a streamed version here.

Life(r) in the front yard

S. and I have been birders for quite a few years, so no matter what we do the rest of the year, mid-May is always exciting because it's when the bulk of the migrators pass through.

But old birdwatching hands that we are, we were still absolutely thrilled this evening when, just after supper, a Cape May warbler decided to have its own evening meal in our front-yard Prunus. Since we don't use any pesticides in our yard, the tree was presumably a veritable smorgasbord. At any rate, it stayed around for a good long while, long enough for me to get a few shots, which I include here for your viewing pleasure.

And yes, it was a lifer for both of us.

Body Worlds 2

Last night, I had the great good fortune to attend the official launch of Body Worlds 2 at the Montreal Science Centre.

If you've never heard of Body Worlds, check out the Wikipedia entry for Body Worlds. It is the creation of Gunther von Hagens, an anatomist who patented a process called "plastination," and Body Worlds is an exhibition of real plastinated human bodies, displayed in various lifelike poses and showing human anatomy in great detail.

At first, the idea seems a tad gruesome, and indeed, the various Body Words exhibitions have been protested all over the world. France apparently still refuses to allow it in that country (so the Montreal exhibition is the first time it has been translated into French), and it remains controversial in many places. To cite the Wikipedia entry on von Hagens:

The exhibition went on tour in 1995, and has met with public interest and controversy in numerous cities around the world since. Critics contend that the exhibition is sensationalist and that the artistic, lifelike poses into which the plastinated cadavers have been fixed is degrading and disrespectful.

Personally, I found the exhibition to be highly respectful and, far from degrading, a tribute to the truly astounding beauty of the human body. I've been to many of these launches, and the public at these events is largely a glad-handing, PR-oriented, see-and-be-seen type of crowd. After a couple of glasses of wine, they generally breeze through the exhibit (if they view it at all) to get out of there as fast as they can.

But as soon as I entered Body Worlds, I immediately felt a difference. There was a hush over the exhibition hall, even with several hundred people inside. Even the most jaded visitor immediately understood that they were in the presence of real people. And the exhibition itself is fascinating and breathtaking, gently guiding visitors step by step from the tiny bones of the inner ear, through various individual parts and systems of the body, to culminate (from an emotional standpoint) in a pregnant woman with a five-month-old fetus. The exhibition's sheer beauty blew me a way, but it was also an exceedingly touching and thought provoking experience. Above all, it was human. I came away with a profound respect for the human body and the sense that beauty really isn't just skin deep.

If you ever get a chance to see Body Worlds, I would suggest that you not pass it up.

Mark Strand on CBC

The CBC recently expanded its podcast lineup, and its program Writers & Company is finally available as a podcast. The program for April 1st, I have just learned, is a long and excellent interview with Mark Strand. If you're a poetry lover, you'll love this interview.

The CBC only archives its podcasts for four weeks, so if you hurry, you might be able to get it here (direct download). If not, it's available in a streaming version on this page. You can subscribe to Writers & Company in iTunes here, or simply pick up the RSS feed here. The Writers & Company home page is here.

Greek & Roman love poetry

That's the topic this week on the BBC's excellent program In Our Time. Melvyn Bragg and his guests start with Sappho and end with Ovid. A really interesting program and well worth the 40 minutes or so it will take from your busy, busy life.

You can get it here and you can thank me later.

[Update: a commenter pointed out that you can also read a summary of the program here. However, both he and I strongly recommend you listen to the podcast. I always find that doing the dishes or some other such chore is much more enjoyable when you're learning something at the same time. Thank you Paul Grieg (even if your blogger profile is maddeningly blocked, so I can't even visit your blog to thank you for the tip).]

White day in spring, song sparrow
alights in a naked maple,
the first hopeful bird
in the yard.

No mystery, this telepathy,
buzzy trills and tremolos
come to mind,
byproducts of a vital message
missed.

The sensible hen is somewhere
south where April snow
knows to fall
as rain.

Joshua goes to D.C.

The Washington Post Magazine ran a really excellent article this weekend. The premise of the article was an incognito performance by violinist Joshua Bell in the Washington D.C. Metro. Read the article to find out how discerning Washington commuters are.

From the article:

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

My favourite quote by Bell, referring to the $32 he made in just under 45 minutes: "That's 40 bucks an hour. I could make an okay living doing this, and I wouldn't have to pay an agent."

He was joking, of course. I'm bet the insurance premiums on that violin are more than many people make in a year.

Meb bought a "new" typewriter...

Hope she didn't get the last one. What a nostalgia trip.

Not long ago, I re-joined a live (as opposed to on-line) poetry workshop after a hiatus of a couple of years. I find the immediate and honest feedback a refreshing change from the goings on in some on-line spaces. One of this workshop's members, Maxianne Berger (this isn't the first time FFTMC has mentioned Maxianne's name), recently sent me a few links to some of her wonderful poetry, and I want to pass them on to FFTMC readers. I think you'll find them well worth the click.

Two poems in the Hamilton Stone Review

Two poems in ars poetica

A poem at Les Wicks' Australian Collaboration page for last years Trois-Rivières International Poetry Festival. The poems are in alphabetical order, so scroll down to a bit to read the ver funny Ode to a Round Tuit.

A translation of Maxianne's book How We Negotiate was also recently published by Écrits des forges. The translation is entitled Compromis.

Enjoy.