Tag Archives: Quillfyre

Small Stones for January

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jan13badgesmallSo it is that time of year again, time to take on the challenge of writing one small stone a day.  You can participate too. All info at: http://www.writingourwayhome.com/p/river-jan-12.html

And already, I am behind schedule. I was not going to try this year, with so many new things going on as I begin my work with Tree. But I need the poetry, so… here goes:

 

white and yellow sapphires

tiny winks of snow dance on silver,

surround wee yellow flowers:

gems capturing summer sun

holding it close

CS Jan 1 2013

5 little stones

5 little stones (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

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No-Comfort Zone Challenge 2012 in review

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In 2012, I stumbled upon the No-Comfort Zone Challenge and decided to give it a go. It has been an interesting year! The weekly posts for that drew a fair bit of interest while keeping me focused on trying new things or new ways of approaching old ones.

I travelled to Massachusetts on my own. The last time I went on a trip alone was in 1979! So that was a challenge, but also dealing with the fear that I had acquired after my illness four years ago. And I was successful!

I had some successful poetry submissions over the course of the year AND a couple of encouraging rejections (!). In the summer, I signed up for a course through Coursera, Modern & Contemporary American Poetry, expecting something not too challenging. After all, it was a free course. But come September when the course got underway, I became immersed in the 20th century of American poetry, and would remain so for the next 10 weeks. Along with some 36,000 other students from all over the world. What an amazing experience!

I also worked on a lot of fears about health and aging. I am still working on that! But I feel like I’ve come a long way since last January. For that I owe thanks to the No-Comfort Zone Challenge that I found through MargeKatherine at the Inside Out Cafe blog.

And at the same time, visitors from 82 countries visited my blog! Wow! I have not made any resolutions for 2013 yet. I look forward to more poetry, more challenges too. At the end of January, I’ll be doing the Intro to Philosophy course, also through Coursera. That sounds interesting too!

Happy New Year everybody, and thanks for visiting me!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

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No-Comfort Zone Dec. 16, 2012

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This week marked the retirement from Tree Reading Series of Director, Rod Pederson, after 5 years of excellent work promoting and advancing poetry in Ottawa. We’ve seen the launching of Ottawa’s own poetry festival, VERSeFest, the addition of the Tree Seeds Workshops, Master Workshops with some of Canada’s leading poets, and reading events with major voices in Canadian poetry. Three new Directors will share the Directorship going forward: Margaret Malloch Zielinksi, Deanna Young, and yours truly, Carol A. Stephen. We are all looking forward to being part of the literary scene in Ottawa, with the assistance of David Currie, as the new Admin.

To say goodbye to Rod, Tree held a special tribute at Arts Court on Tuesday, December 11th, with readings by regular attendees at the open mics, as well as board members. There was also a play with Rod as King, his wife Liz Bertholdi as Queen, Murray Citron as Merlin, David O’Meara as Sir David of the Manx. peppered the performance by repeating his line at random, “What the heck does that mean?” as well as providing a little swordplay with Kevin Matthews played Sir Kevin Hoboken Spoken, David Currie was the able Jester. Rona Shaffran portrayed Guinevere with her husband as Sir Brian Lancelot (Laughs a Lot) doing his version of Groucho Marx. Claudia Coutu Radmore was Lady Claudia, both MC and playwright. Her husband portrayed Sir Ted of the Red Moor, complete with fancy plumed hat. The previous director, Dean Steadman, also appeared as the old King. The three incoming Directors were the Supreme Duchesses, with Margaret stealing the scene as a regal duchess visiting the colonies. Margaret’s Scottish/British accent added much to that role!  After the play, the audience and cast feasted on a buffet with contributions by everyone. Rod is known for his mismatched two-different-colour socks, so many of the people attending had socks on their hands to wave, or mismatched gloves, but Brian Cook outdid us all with his special hat sporting two stuffed socks on top!

Brian Cook ably manned the video camera for the evening so we’re hoping to see it all again here now that the video is up on the Tree website. Meanwhile though, here are photos that Pearl Pirie, Pesbo, took at the event:

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NO-COMFORT ZONE WEEK ENDING DEC. 9

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no-comfort-zoneIt has been a couple of weeks since I posted my No-Comfort update, but it has been a period of rest after the end of ModPo. That was an accomplishment outside the Zone for sure, and rather carried me for awhile.

This week I wanted to share about a different kind of poem submission, this one involving a call to try to help save a the McLellan Park Forest, just outside Fort Langley, in British Columbia.  This is the Han Shan Poetry Project.Han Shan translates as Cold Mountain, and the picture below is the invitation to view the poems in the forest. Han Shan was a Tang Dynasty hermit poet, according to the information I was sent about the tree poem installation.

It is always a sad thing when developers take over our forests, and destroy habitat for wildlife, both plant and animal. The call was for tree poems, each poem to be waterproofed and attached (safely!) to one of the trees in the endangered forest. There has been a lot about this in the press lately. I wanted to share information about this. I don’t know which tree has my poem, but that is not as important as showing support for this venture. Location of the forest: http://goo.gl/maps/qWM4j

093po(1)

To quote an excerpt from the invitation to the installation: “Poets across Canada, including several Governor General’s Award winners, responded to a call from Langley poet Susan McCaslin to submit poems celebrating trees in an effort to protect a unique forest just outside the heritage community of Fort Langley, British Columbia.  

More than one hundred and fifty poems were submitted over a five day period from established and emerging poets of all ages, and are now suspended from the trees in the hope that the voices of poets will be considered when Langley council decides the fate of the forest on December 17, 2012. Currently we have almost 200 poems.

The installation was inspired by Han Shan, a Chinese hermit poet from the Tang Dynasty era over 1,000 years ago, who wrote poems on trees and rocks, living respectfully with nature. ”

Further information about the forest may be found at:
http://mclellanpark.blogspot.ca/
At Pig Squash Press, the blog of Kim Goldberg, you’ll see the post that inspired me to send off a poem.

031po(1)Photos of tree installation courtesy of Erin Perry, Erin Perry @ erinperry@telus.net

Here also are links to some of the articles that appeared in the press:

Globe and Mail piece, Dec, 5

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/writers-hang-poems-in-trees-in-bid-to-save-langley-land-parcel/article5983994/

 

Global TV News Dec. 30

http://www.globaltvbc.com/wildlife+artist+robert+bateman+adds+voice+to+save+langley+forest/6442764086/story.html

 

Vancouver Sun Nov. 30, 2012

http://www.vancouversun.com/Save+ecologically+unique+forest+Langley+urged/7636559/story.html

 

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