bookgaga

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"When time permits,
we cover ourselves with moss
to soften the violence of flight,
listen for ripples in the atmosphere
waiting for the proper slipstream
to carry us, back to the place
where a slight turn of our head
altered the course of planets."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Slipstream by Lynn Tait (@lynntait) from You Break It You Buy It (2023 Guernica Editions) https://tinyurl.com/yesfravk

Handwritten transcription of the poem "Slipstream" from the poetry collection You Break It You Buy It by Lynn Tait - the book is held open with a piece of red brick and an uncapped black pen rests on the notebook page
Close-up of handwritten transcription of the poem "Slipstream" from the poetry collection You Break It You Buy It by Lynn Tait

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry @scottishpoetrylibrary
Things by Fleur Adcock from Poems 1960-2000 (2000 Bloodaxe Books) https://tinyurl.com/4j33p85z

bookgaga, 6 months ago to bookstodon

"The word text descends from a Latin verb meaning "to weave," and I often wish I could craft sentences from a language I could hold in my hands, as if I could write an essay or a poem as beautiful and useful as my mother's socks."

#SundaySentence @bookstodon
from Turning the Heel by Kevin Shaw
in Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (2023 Arsenal Pulp Press) https://tinyurl.com/4ta4t2w8

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Sheep in Winter by John Clare (written 1835-37) from The Poems of John Clare, vol. 2 (1935 JM Dent & Sons) https://tinyurl.com/3cnypxxb

Handwritten transcription of the poem "Sheep in Winter" by John Clare in a small notebook with an uncapped black pen resting on the notebook page. On the computer screen is the poem, accompanied by a picture of the poet.

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"If I had a yard I would abandon
washing machines in it

then listen to that song that gets me
late at night,

my friends’ poems
circling my head like a flock

of yellow finches."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Stories by Bianca Stone (2013 BOMB Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/rhwv43dy

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Far away, points of light in a town,
flickering coldly at the horizon.

As when a man has gone into a dream so deep
he’ll never remember having been there
when he comes back to his room."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Tracks by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robin Fulton from New Collected Poems (2011 Bloodaxe Books) http://tinyurl.com/4dj8sbd8 & http://tinyurl.com/yzf4yase

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Just. Could
somebody
please
tell me.
What did it mean
that I was a girl."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Abandon Yourself to That Which Is Inevitable by C.D. Wright (2022 Conjunctions) http://tinyurl.com/ycks6z5y

bookgaga, 6 months ago to bookstodon

A 10-year-old blog post on rare gem A Ride in the Sun, or Gasoline Gypsy, by Peggy Iris Thomas http://bookgagabooks.ca/2013/01/01/a-ride-in-the-sun-or-gasoline-gypsy-by-peggy/ led to someone contacting me on how to find a copy for a holiday gift. She just messaged me today to happily confirm she'd located a copy and now couldn't wait for the recipient to open his gift. Now I can't wait either! @bookstodon

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Among his own kind he is peace-loving
and will not pick a quarrel lightly:
but if battle has to be given, he will get hold
and not give in, or let go, for the life of him,
of stick or ball."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Domestic by Mick Imlah from The Lost Leader (2008 Faber and Faber) https://tinyurl.com/ykuuwas3

Handwritten transcription of the poem "Domestic" by Mick Imlah from the poetry collection The Lost Leader, held out in front of beautiful Airedale terrier Tilly

bookgaga, 6 months ago to bookstodon

"All language, but perhaps especially poetic language, contains a front stitch and a backstitch."

#SundaySentence @bookstodon
from Becoming Swarm by Andrea Rexilius
in Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (2023 Arsenal Pulp Press) https://tinyurl.com/4ta4t2w8

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Each of us goes through life with these holes in our bodies until the right words find them. And then afterwards? What do we look like, this patch of quilted words with arms and legs? I cannot say. I’ve never seen anyone so whole. I’ve never seen a person pass me who wasn’t leaking light."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Death Letter #2 by Sean Thomas Dougherty from Death Prefers the Minor Keys (2023 BOA Editions) https://tinyurl.com/5h6m67fx & https://tinyurl.com/mu9bhxxh

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"in our average day we make thousands of lines -
across our rooms, our schools, towns, cities.
Because we fire off, getting hurt, feeling love, unloved, all day long, we find meaning in the line we have walked, look hard to arbitrary things for symbols, and reassurance"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Epilogue by @elainefeeney from How to Build a Boat (2023 @Biblioasis) https://tinyurl.com/mrxu58ds

Close-up of a handwritten transcription of a poetic excerpt from the novel How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
Handwritten transcription of a poetic excerpt from the novel How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney - the book is held open with a pink hand weight, an uncapped black pen rests on the notebook page, and also visible are a Biblioasis bookmark, coffee in a blue cup and the Saturday Globe and Mail, showing their top 100 books of 2023, of which the Feeney book is one

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer (2023) https://tinyurl.com/3bs597fx

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"And the snow continues
In the yellow light of the old and the new

The interstices where it all connects
And still, it snows"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Apartment None Other by @RobertFredeKenter (2023 Anthropocene) https://tinyurl.com/5b3ychjt

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Everybody’s
busy, so distraught they forget to kill me,
and even that won’t keep me alive. I share
my home not with horses, but with a little dog
who sees poorly at dusk and menaces stumps,
makes her muscle known to every statue."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Not Horses by @natalieshapero from Hard Child (2017 Copper Canyon Press) https://tinyurl.com/2s3r9bkt

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"he turns to me from the window,
showing me our forlorn, pink wet cheeks,
he already knows why, tear-formed stalactites
stretching out as if to kiss."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
i can't tell if i'm okay in real life but supposedly all the characters in my dreams are played by me, so by Catherine Weiss (2019 The Shore Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/2je2hhb9

bookgaga, 6 months ago to bookstodon

"Feel where the wood wants to go, and if you need it to resist it can do that too, challenges to the natural movement are good, it'll keep your boat alive."

#SundaySentence from How to Build a Boat by @elainefeeney (2023 Biblioasis) https://tinyurl.com/yddb73xz
@bookstodon

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"Don't believe me, please, if I say
that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,
of asking you if you would marry me."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
I Am Very Bothered by Simon Armitage from Book of Matches (1993 Faber and Faber) https://tinyurl.com/yrrp7cef & https://tinyurl.com/4kxfd265

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"The glass against which the bird is pressed is silent
I conduct the notes of silence

The grass warmed by silence grows
Music turns into vapor"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
from 5 Poems by Mykyta Ryzhykh (2023 Icefloe Press) https://tinyurl.com/ypea4s5f

bookgaga, 6 months ago to bookstodon

#FridayReads #WeekendReads @bookstodon
Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (2023 Arsenal Pulp Press) https://tinyurl.com/yckxdz5u

and

How to Build a Boat by @elainefeeney (2023 Biblioasis) https://tinyurl.com/mr42ezpt

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"I put my mouth to the speaker:
Who sent you?

Tell it lies
about the truths

I've never told."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Frequencies by Katherine Leyton from All the Gold Hurts My Mouth (2016 Goose Lane Editions) https://bit.ly/3nMbsAN

Handwritten transcription of the poem "Frequencies" by Katherine Leyton from the poetry collection All the Gold Hurts My Mouth - a piece of red brick holds open the poetry collection, an uncapped black pen rests on the notebook page and coffee in a blue cup sits nearby

JD_Cunningham, 6 months ago to bookstodon

It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.

It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.

It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.
-- The Dipper by Kathleen Jamie from 'Selected Poems'

#VerseThursday #TodaysPoem #poetry #CurrentlyReading @bookstodon

(Art credit: Deborah Butts)

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"So I walked as day was dawning
Where small birds sang and leaves were falling
Where we once watched the rowboats landing
On the broad majestic Shannon"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
The Broad Majestic Shannon by Shane MacGowan of The Pogues from If I Should Fall from Grace with God (1988) https://tinyurl.com/42mvn9z2

bookgaga, 6 months ago to poetry

"But now, both parents dead,
it was time, I thought, I had the time and
courage, I thought, and I found the letters—
I was going to say, in the last place I looked,
but of course, where else?"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
What I Was Looking For by Kathy Fagan (@KathyFaganPoet) (2023 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/5djxc8wr

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"These all spring up
from dimness to full life again
because of you, as if they were no more
than low reliefs carved badly in black slate
until you shine."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
The Sun by AF Moritz from The Sentinel (2008 House of Anansi Press) https://tinyurl.com/5ak4699f

bookgaga, 7 months ago to bookstodon

"My current age and slowing atoms have surprisingly provided me with a renewed strength."

#SundaySentence @bookstodon
from Transitions by Jenny Judge
in Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (2023 Arsenal Pulp Press) https://tinyurl.com/yckxdz5u

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"the heron was in the same place,
same pose. If it was the same heron. Or perhaps
only the same me, same pose, driving past,
threading my car between casual accidental
invitations of no railing along the causeway."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Great Blue by Dani Couture (2023 West End Phoenix) https://tinyurl.com/2p98ve2h

Handwritten transcription of the poem "Great Blue" by Dani Couture, sitting on the open pages of the December 2023 issue of community newspaper West End Phoenix, where the print version of the poem appears
Close-up of handwritten transcription of the poem "Great Blue" by Dani Couture

bookgaga, 7 months ago to bookstodon

The power and glory of readers connecting ... leaving this reader wobbly with delight! Check out our latest #SilentBookClub report: https://bookgagabooks.ca/2023/11/26/the-power-and-glory-of-readers-connecting-leaving-this-one-wobbly-with-delight/
@bookstodon

Books, coffee and pastries wonderfully strewn across a table at the East Toronto Coffee Co. Titles include How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney and The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Poking out of the books are bookmarks from Type Books, Book City, Biblioasis and the Toronto Public Library.
Two readers reading intently at sunstreaked tables at East Toronto Coffee Co

bookgaga, 7 months ago to bookstodon

#FridayReads #WeekendReads @bookstodon
How to Build a Boat by @elainefeeney (2023 Biblioasis) https://tinyurl.com/mr42ezpt

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"There was no one home.

And no one in the water. Overhead
the white thread spidered from a jet
drifted across where the evening star
was not yet shining."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Road Ending by M. Travis Lane (1982 Canadian Literature) https://tinyurl.com/53htjmn8

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"Sweetness of being together in the hundreds,

the thousands, for a new world whose seed
is us singing it in the streets"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Sweetness | מתיקות by Anna Swanson (2023 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist) https://tinyurl.com/3pyhnuxf

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"They showed me branches and twigs interlaced
warp up, weft across, their tongues clicking fast
their fingers even faster, their feet pedalling thread

twist us twine, smooth and stretch cotton, tie knots
warp up, weft across, their fingers on fire"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
In the Weavers' Guild Hall by Renee Sarojini Saklikar from Bramah and the Beggar Boy (2021 Nightwood Editions) https://bit.ly/3C9RTqA

My hand, next to the stylized hand on the cover of the poetry collection Bramah and the Beggar Boy by Renee Sarojini Saklikar (Nightwood Editions)

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"To the shadow I had left alone before I
crossed the border, my shadow that stayed
lonely and hid in the dark of the night,
freezing where it was, never needing a visa."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Obit by Mosab Abu Toha (2023 The New Yorker @NewYorker) https://tinyurl.com/ysufa4kz

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"Yesterday, I buried another squirrel.
Every morning, he’d gnaw on my plastic lawn chairs,
shavings accumulating across his tiny organs.
Is his death political? Everything is.
Different, though, those two politics, dying for and dying of."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
The Systemic by J. Estanislao Lopez (2023 Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day) https://tinyurl.com/4hvm4zx3

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"A trail of broken sinew, there is
slippage on the pale lip of the moon,
nursing of darkening brows.

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Winter's Coming by Ellen Zhang (2023 Pinhole Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/ymnytjmf

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"I left the boy forever once.
But I'm ever dragged back
through the gaze of the world.

Every morning I must rise
to the warm light
of his burning."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
I Left the Boy Forever by John Elizabeth Stintzi (2023 Ex-Puritan / Best Canadian Poetry 2024 from Biblioasis) https://tinyurl.com/mujnk4f5

Handwritten transcription of the poem "I Left the Boy Forever" by John Elizabeth Stintzi - an uncapped black pen rests on the notebook page, the poetry collection is held open with a silver stapler and a slate coaster, and sections of the Saturday Globe and Mail are visible in the background

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"All night I dream about a man with a crossbow
at the bottom of the ocean. I guzzle vodka from an unlabeled bottle.
You'll be even drunker, he explains, on your way back up."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
I Can Communicate If Communication Is Another Form of Sinking by Jaclyn Desforges (2023 2023 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist) https://tinyurl.com/4p6fkdfr

Likewise, 7 months ago to bookstodon

In case anyone is wondering if there is any engagement on here— this is the list of every book recommended after I asked if you’d share one book you enjoyed this year. You can scroll underneath the post to see these, but I think seeing them all together shows the true awesomeness of the people on here.

Thanks for being pretty darn great ❤️
#books #read #fediverse #booktoot @bookstodon

A continuation of the handwritten list of all the books recommended.

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"Because you were schooled in no
instrument and I could carry

no tune, there would be no
music between us, not even

at the place of oracle, no matter what
story the flames told."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Qawwali by Dilruba Ahmed (2010 Blackbird, Virginia Commonwealth University) https://tinyurl.com/2hxhncce

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"Wakes up a wisp of leaf.
A shrivelled lung.
Lifts her head & weeps.
Wades deep into heavy water & floats her dead man.
Or sinks into his gaping pool."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
Flower Water of Saffron by Sandra Ridley (2009 This Magazine) https://tinyurl.com/9zeyssek

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"Out all the knots came, sloop, sloop, sloop, sloop, hop in the boat and we're off.

We knit our boat to our dock. We pulled the stitches to cast off."

#TodaysPoem #poetry
from Protection by Anne Fleming (@anne_flem)

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
from Protection by Anne Fleming in Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (2023 Arsenal Pulp Press) https://tinyurl.com/yckxdz5u

Close-up of a handwritten transcription of an excerpt from the poetic essay Protection by Anne Fleming, from Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee. Parts of a colourful crocheted afghan work in progress are visible in the background.
The essay collection Sharp Notions - Essays from the Stitching Life, edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (Arsenal Pulp Press) sits atop a colourful crocheted afghan work in progress, alongside a notebook with an ornate green cover with a black pen sitting on it. Part of a long crochet hook is visible on one side.

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

"A hashtag
was once a pound sign.
A call for help.

A cry for help
is also a hashtag.

I didn't ask for it and here I am
on a bed of splinters
###########"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry
by Hannah Green from Xanax Cowboy (2023 House of Anansi Press) http://bit.ly/3ZqsvbK

bookgaga, 7 months ago to poetry

Such a lovely virtual celebration today for the launch of Amanda Earl (@AmandaEarl)'s Beast Body Epic (AngelHouse Press), with moving support from Sandra Ridley and Christine McNair. I enjoyed transcribing selections from their #poetry while listening raptly. @poetry

Poet Amanda Earl on screen, in a zoom book launch, reading from her work Beast Body Epic. In the foreground, a handwritten transcription of some of her poetry sits on the computer keyboard, with an uncapped pen resting on the notebook page.
Poet Sandra Ridley on screen, in a zoom book launch for Amanda Earl's Beast Body Epic, reading from some of her own work. In the foreground, Ridley's poetry collection Silvija sits on the computer keyboard.

bookgaga, 7 months ago to bookstodon

"One person's poison-arrow frog is another's elixir of life."

#SundaySentence @bookstodon
from The Observer by @marinaendicott (2023 Knopf Canada) https://tinyurl.com/2h2pte58