Monday 13 July 2015

On Being Interviewed About My Summer Reading

CBC Radio One in Sask, sometime soon. Samanda Brace, her name. She's been asking women about summer reading and I was the first man, a status I hadn't attained for years. I stammered out something about the John Ashbery, Quick Question, and an idea I'd been tinkering with for a few seconds, the concept of reading one of the poems every five minutes while walking around town. I used the word jolt but that's not what I meant. More a kick. "The average / lighthouse is mostly ancient by now" ("In a Lonely Place"). More a series of hops and skips that once in a while thumps you on the head. 
I forgot until after the interview to tell her about my "To Read" list. When I said something like that to her, she turned her machine back on, and I put in a plug for the Guy Vanderhaeghe collection Daddy Lenin and the David Stouck bio of Sinclair Ross, As for Sinclair Ross.
No, after Ashbery, what I told Ms Brace about was a read-by of The Divine Comedy, for I, like many a young dog, had followed Dante down that road, wanting to be transformed.
And speaking of plugs, I did find a way to talk about my Hillsdale Book, published in April with NeWest Press, from which I'll be reading in Saskatoon three nights from now.

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