Tag: Poetry is Dead

2019 week twenty two

Book Read
22. It’s a Big Deal! – Dina Del Bucchia

Kilometres Ran
week twenty two – 56.9

2019 to date: 1,077

I’m a day late writing this blog post and I can’t even blame it on a long weekend, but I flew home from Paris on Wednesday morning and I’m still trying to finish my travel journal. So no big deal. But what is a big deal is this new collection of poems from Dina Del Bucchia and if you don’t believe me then just read the title of the book. How can you argue? You can’t. I especially liked the Megafauna part of this collection – 19 poems with the following criteria: 1. Must be heavier than 100 pounds, 2. Must be fauna, and 3. Must be extinct. These are great. These belong in a museum. Who needs binomial nomenclature and some dry, stuffy description along side the Smithsonian’s dioramas? Put these there instead. And since we’re on the precipice of a mass-extinction event, Del Bucchia will have lots more to write, and we’re going to need her humour to help get us through. (We’re not getting through.) It’s pretty URGENT! Speaking of which, a couple years ago I was the managing editor of The Capilano Review and we collaborated with Daniel Zomparelli of Poetry is Dead for ti-TCR #11 “Urgency and Response,” which you cannot find online anymore but if you could you’d see that I got to typeset Del Bucchia’s poem “URGENT!” which you’ll also find in It’s a Big Deal. (Actually, since it was meant to be online and it’s not anymore for some reason, here it is.) Nostalgia enough? I still have a soft spot for TCR, which makes me do stuff like, years later, still try to help them out.

The 2018 Scotiabank Half Marathon. This year I’m running in the Charity Challenge in support of The Capilano Review. I hope you will consider lending your support.

The Scotiabank Half Marathon is in three weeks and this year I’m hoping to run fast than last year but I’m also running to raise money for The Capilano Review, which this year is a registered charity, and I hope that you’ll consider giving your support. For over 45 years or something TCR has published the who’s who of Canadian and international literary and visual artists, many of whom were still who? when they first appeared in TCR‘s pages. I was a fan, and then had the privilege of being the managing editor for a couple years. (Hence, I know the state of the books….) In spite of its tenuous financial situation, it continues to publish uncompromising quality, and I’m still a huge fan who looks forward to finding it in my mailbox throughout the year. TCR gives back to the community too, hosting numerous free cultural events throughout the year. I hope that you will consider supporting my race for a new personal best, and to make a donation to The Capilano Review. As TCR is a registered charity, all donations of $25 or more receive a tax receipt. To find out more about The Capilano Review follow this link.

Use this link to Donate

Mile on the track at the Vancouver Distance Track Series hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. Photo by Charles Perrot-Minot

On Friday I got to race a mile on the track up at UBC for the Vancouver Distance Track Series hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. It was over pretty quickly, and was a ton of fun. I went into the day with a bit of jetlag and not really knowing what to expect. I’d never raced a mile. According to Strava, my fastest mile was the first 1,609 metres of the Chilly Chase 5K that I raced in January. Strava said I did that in 6:05. I wanted to run under six minutes. The gun went off and I got a good start and just tried to keep pace with Rochelle Marasa who’d taken the lead. In the second lap Paul Farrow took over the lead, Marasa second and me trying to keep Marasa’s pace in third. Going into the bell lap Marasa picked up her pace and caught and passed Farrow. On the final straight I thought he was within reach and I turned on the sprint, but just before the line he saw me coming and managed to find another gear too and held me off. I finished third just 3/10 second behind him, crossing the line at 5:52 for a pretty satisfying personal best.

Vancouver Distance Track Series Heat 1 – (L-R) me (3rd), Paul Farrow (2nd), Rochelle Marasa (1st) hosted by the Vancouver Falcons Athletics Club. Photo by Jan Heuninck.

I learned a few things too. The biggest one is to stay in lane one. I spent some time pacing the leaders on their right instead of from behind. Which meant my mile was a few metres long – a learning experience that I will carry into next time. There will be a next time.

2018 week forty five

Book Stuff Read:
Poetry is Dead — Issue 18 — Metal

Kilometres Ran:
week forty five: 23.4

To date: 2,217 KM

A slow week in book reading but a great week at my mailbox. The latest issue of Poetry is Dead is guest edited by Carleigh Baker and David James Brock, the latter of whom I was unfamiliar and now I’m interested. Baker has a piece in the new Vancouver Noir collection that also launched this week and I missed out on for fear of spreading the plague. But I really want to pick up a copy. PoD Metal explores the unusual intersection of metal and poetry. There’s some great stuff inside. It’s hard to argue with Luke Meat’s “Five Times Metal Jumped the Three-headed Hydra.” My favourite piece is Chris Koenig-Woodyard’s “Satan, in Pandemonium,” a work whose lines are anagrams of pandemonium, which sounds gimmicky but is not. I don’t think so at least. The issue is delightfully evil, and right up my alley.

On Wednesday just before the Metal PoD came through my mail slot I went out for a run that would be my 666th activity on Strava, so I decided to run 6.66KM because I couldn’t resist. It went pretty well with minimal knee pain. At physio on Friday I had my knee taped for the first time, which was a different experience and I’m still not sure about it. The run with a taped knee wasn’t great, but I’m not sure that it had anything to do with the taping; I think that between the running and bicycling and strength training exercises that maybe my leg was tired. So I might give taping another try. I’ve started on a study somehow affiliated with the University of BC and at the moment of typing this I cannot seem to recall the confidentiality clause, so I’ll talk about it a little bit. Basically I’m to use and then evaluate a website focused on knee pain, specifically pain in the knee cap. I’ve learned a few things that I’m going to try to incorporate into my routines and see how it goes. I’ll probably write more about the study and the website when it wraps up, sometime before Christmas. My total milage is below what I wanted for this week but it’s a long weekend, which always messes with routine (if you’re paying attention you’ll notice this is Monday and not Sunday…). My current plan is to start slowly loading by adding 5KM per week as long as my knees respond positively. If not then it’s back into the pool, though I want to be in the pool at least once per week too. Two weeks until first test: Moustache Miler 5K on November 24.