A Poet’s Nanaimo

Crime Fiction (with a chuckle)

I’m not sure if there is a particular genre name for light-hearted crime fiction. Until I find out, I’ll call the likes of books by Richard Osman, Susan Juby, Ron Base, Prudence Emery, Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti: crime fiction (with a chuckle). Novels by these authors with their amateur sleuths, remind me somewhat of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Usually, the Christie novels, as well as those of P.D. James, were set in a particular setting such as a small village, a school, a theatre, and we got to meet all the characters among whom is the murderer. That way we readers could be sleuths as well.

My favourites of the light-hearted crime novels I’ve read recently? I appreciated Bury the Lead by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti because I knew women wouldn’t be denigrated – or if they were, something would be done about it. (See my review, below.) I liked Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby with its quirky characters from an “outer island” and it’s B.C. locale. (Susan has new book out with the same protagonist, Helen Thorpe, see below.) I found the gossipy nature with reference to famous people the most fun aspect of Ron Base’s and Prudence Emery’s Death at the Savoy. (They have a third book out in their Priscilla Tempest Mystery series, see below.)

Bury the Lead: A Quill & Packet Mystery (House of Anansi Press, 2024) is hot off the press with a March 5th publication date. It’s a novel smartly done by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti. Kate is a bestselling author of three novels and works with psychotherapy and life coaching clients in Toronto. Elizabeth Renzetti also lives in Toronto and is a bestselling author and journalist. […]

Spring Pop-Up Writing Circles

Spring Pop-Up Writing Life women’s writing circles on Zoom
Nourish Yourself. Honour Your Voice. Write Your Stories.
You are invited to join me for a spring pop-up writing circle (or more than one!) to honour signs of spring and your own writing practice. For those who find these circle themes familiar, you’ll have an opportunity to reconnect to your writing. For others new to the circle and perhaps even new to writing, you’ll have an introduction to the gifts of writing with companions nearby. In the two and a half hours we spend together on Zoom, we’ll have a mini retreat of connecting to ourselves and to one another.

In each of the Writing Life women’s writing circles, we apply the ancient wisdom of the circle to a modern application: a sacred ceremony of writing, sharing and listening where each woman is respected for her presence and contributions. No previous writing experience is necessary, just the desire to explore your rich lived experience and embrace the fullness of the stories from your life.

There will be writing practice suggestions offered during the circle and for you to continue writing, on your own.

Fee: $50 each (Please see info regarding payment, below the circle descriptions.)

Writing as Medicine
Tuesday, March 12, 2024, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific time

In spring, we identify new green shoots and relish in the places, practices and people that regenerate us. Practices that return us to a sort of balance are good medicine and a writing practice is one of them. The word “practice” means it is ever-renewing, offering grounding, and in our own self-expression, an invitation to wellness. As poet Gregory Orr wrote: “As a writer, my faith is that words can help us connect and […]

A Brief and Endless Sea

Barbara Pelman is a fine poet. I’ve known that for a long time as Barbara and I first met at a Patrick Lane poetry retreat in Sooke, B.C. in 2006. I’ve had many opportunities to hear several of Barbara’s poems as they were coming to life. Since then Barbara and I have been to many poetry retreats with Patrick who sadly died in March 2019, not long before his 80th birthday, and in more recent years with his fellow poet and partner-in-life Lorna Crozier.

Lorna has given Barbara’s new book, A Brief and Endless Sea (Caitlin Press, 2023), a lovely cover endorsement: “Barbara Pelman writes, ‘And seldom is there comfort,’ yet these poems, reaching back into the past and tentatively touching the future, do comfort the reader with their tenderness, wisdom, and grace.” The beautiful art work on the cover is by Phyllis Serota.

Patrick’s words about remembering the past come to mind from his marvelous memoir, There is a Season: “Without the past I can’t learn to live in the unfolding present. . . While the past can be a burden, it is also a gift out of time. The clear moments of memory must be understood. It is only then they can be let go.”

A Brief and Endless Sea is Barbara’s fifth book of poetry, including a chapbook. She begins this wonderful collection with, as seems most fitting, a cento for Patrick Lane entitled “Now is the Time to Light It.” (A cento is made up of lines from the poems of another poet.) The beautiful tribute begins:

Cleansed in the dark where the dead have come for blessing.
The spirit leaves us slowly, forever.
Everywhere the wind covers your passing.

That last line is repeated throughout the poem […]

Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice

It’s that time of year when the writing circles begin again. I always look forward to seeing old friends and welcoming new ones. Writing has been my spiritual practice for a long time and I can’t help but encourage it in others.

There are a couple of opportunities coming up. If you are in Nanaimo or not too far away, I invite you to join me either for a four-week Writing Life women’s writing circle, in my home, or for a seven-week writing circle called Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice that will take place at Bethlehem Centre in Nanaimo.

The Writing Life Circle’s theme this time is “Stitching Our Stories, Following the Threads.” We’ll meet from Wednesday, January 17 to Wednesday, February 7, 2024 (four Wednesday mornings), 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Our weekly themes will be: To Begin a Practice (Again); Piece by Piece; The Way of Memory; and Grounded in the Present.

To learn more about the Writing Life circle, have a look here.

 

 

 

 

 

The Writing Home circle, open to everyone, is based on my book of the same name with its seven chapters related to the chakras. We’ll meet for seven Monday mornings at Bethlehem Centre in Nanaimo: January 22 to March 4, 2024 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. There will be tea, coffee and snacks available each Monday morning and on the last day we’ll have launch together in the centre dining room.

The new year seems an ideal time to embark on a heart-opening and creative journey through writing. I find that people gathering in a circle to write are encouraged by the jewels they discover in their own life story, assisting them in the awakening of the wisdom and creativity they […]

Crushed Wild Mint by Jess Housty

Jess Housty (Cúagilákv) photo by Rhon Wilson

I first “met” Jess Housty (Cúagilákv) in the pages of This Place is Who We Are by Katherine Palmer Gordon published by Harbour Publishing in 2023. Jess was one of the Heiltsuk (Haíɫzaqv) community members featured in a chapter entitled “Haíɫzaqv Unfettered” about the community of Wágḷísḷa (Bella Bella, British Columbia) on unceded ancestral territory where the Heiltsuk people have lived for at least fourteen thousand years. Haíɫzaqv citizens devoted many years to protest campaigns and eventually defeated Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

At the time of publication, Jess was the executive director of the Qqs Projects Society, a Haíɫzaqv charitable non-profit organization supporting youth and families. As well as being an active community volunteer, and parent to two young boys, Jess was endeavoring to immerse them in their language and cultural traditions.

Jess has a reverence for the land, ancestors, traditions, and the language of the Heiltsuk people as evidenced in their gorgeous first book of poetry, Crushed Wild Mint, published by Nightwood Editions (2023). As Eden Robinson says in her endorsement: “When the mountains of your territory are your ancestors, you paint the landscapes as Jess Hosuty does” and “Housty’s hyperlocality is precise medicine.”

Jess’s bio says they are “a parent, writer and grassroots activist with Heiltsuk and mixed settler ancestry. They serve their community as an herbalist and land-based educator alongside broader work in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors.”

Prayer and praying are noted in several of the poems in Crushed Wild Mint, particularly in the first two sections of the book.

In their first poem, The Future, the poet writes:

We each deserve to settle into the ease
of ceremony, to nestle
amongst our grandmothers’ skirts
and spill love back into our […]

Writing for the Love of It

In the photograph taken by my friend Wendy Morisseau, I’m sitting in my living room in Nanaimo where I usually lead women’s writing circles called Writing Life. After many years, I’ll be offering some writing circles again, open to everyone, at Bethlehem Centre in Nanaimo. The setting is a tranquil one on Westwood Lake where we will write together, for the love of it.

The “Writing for the Love of It” circle, is on Monday, November 13, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. You’ll find a link below for more information and for registering through the Bethlehem website. It will be a New Moon that day so a special time to set an intention for writing for the love of it.

No previous writing experience is necessary, just the desire to explore your rich lived experience and embrace the fullness of the stories from your life. Lunch and snacks are included in the fee which will offer us some social time as a new community of writers. If you’re from out of town and would like to stay overnight the night before at Bethlehem Centre, contact Karley Burrows at guestservices@bethlehemcentre.com or call 250-754-3254 ext 721.

I think of the writing circle as way to gather in a modern interpretation of an ancient practice. We gather around a candle in the centre of the circle so we can share what matters to us.

Here’s a wonderful endorsement from Stephanie Binewych Clark who has been in several of my writing circles in Nanaimo and now that she lives in Ontario, via Zoom:

I’ve attended many of Mary Ann’s circles and look forward to many more. Mary Ann has a depth of knowledge of poetry, writing, and books (she has also […]

First I Fold The Mountain

bookmaker
first I fold the mountain
then the valley

The haiku above opens poet and paper artist Terry Ann Carter’s eighth book of poetry, First I Fold The Mountain: A Love Letter to Books (Black Moss Press, 2022). Terry Ann is also a bookmaker and very possibly “a paper queen wearing stars in my hair.”

The quoted line is from “Tearing Down the Papers Just Before Summer,” a poem “after American poet Malachi Black.

Part l of this beautiful collection, Tearing Down the Papers, gets its title, as does the poem, from “an expression that bookmakers use when preparing large sheets of paper for book interiors.”

The poem’s speaker says:

Pulling from my fingertips
so as not to rouse the kitten

this late night meditation on book
making on thoughts of wizardry.

This poem and those that follow, are celebrations of Terry Ann’s creative wizardry and are such a delight to read and see on the page.

“Each gorgeous poem is the pleasure of experiencing a creative life and responding to the wonder of being alive on this earth,” says Micheline Maylor, a poet and past Poet Laureate of Calgary, in one of the book’s endorsements. I very much agree with Micheline.

Other “tearing down” poems in Part 1 include “Tearing Down the American Papers” (after Walt Whitman) and “Tearing Down the Ghost Papers Found in the Bottom Bureau Drawer” (after Emily Dickinson).

One of the poems, “Papery,” is a gorgeous reflection of childhood memories including “my father cuts a square out of a grocery bag.” As for mother: “My mother prefers paper dolls.”

The speaker of the poem says: “I paste over the record covers and create / secret houses for imaginary friends . . “

The poem brings us into the present with:

Today I work in my studio […]

You Are Here

I started to get excited by maps in my first grade classroom when Mrs. Lett pulled down the world map in front of the blackboard and used her pointer to show us where we lived: Eganville, Ontario, Canada. Having seen the many possibilities of personal mapmaking since then, I created a memory map of my childhood backyard. I’m remembering maps sketched on serviettes and discovering ways to explore emotions by mapping them. And I’ve mapped my spiritual journey to Turkey, specifically Catal Hoyuk, an ancient site in central Anatolia, Turkey, which has one of world’s oldest authenticated map.

You Are Here

When my partner Sarah and I sold our house in Guelph, Ontario, she drew a map to show Avril, the new owner, where all the neighbours lived. At a gathering at our home, with the map in one hand, Sarah steered Avril to each neighbour to introduce them and show their position on the map of Kirkland Street. The map viewing began with “you are here.”

I wonder if Avril kept her hand drawn map or passed it on to the new owners when she sold the house at 38 Kirkland? Through the years I’ve seen many hand drawn maps on the corners of newspapers, on serviettes and on the backs of cigarette package flaps. Although I haven’t kept a collection I was intrigued to see that someone has.

Kris Harzinski began the Hand Drawn Map Association (HDMA), an archive of maps and other diagrams drawn by hand, when he found a collection of maps people had drawn for him over the years.  He says in the introduction to his book, From Here to There (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010): “The maps had become much more than useful […]

A Curious Happiness in Small Things

A Curious Happiness in Small Things (Raven Chapbooks, 2020) – such a perfect title for a book of poetry, especially this book of praise poems by David Haggart.

The poem from which the book takes its title is about the narrator’s ride in the back of a pick-up driven by a woman “near eighty” down the hill on Mt Maxwell Road. Mount Maxwell is on Salt Spring Island, B.C. where David has lived since 2000.

Happiness in small things appears in other poems in the collection too such as “The Truce” about a boy and his Nanny which ends:

I have learned to be grateful
for the least bit of light.

“Moments in Time” describes some natural wonders such as “a polar bear out on the sea ice,” “caribou heading north,” and “a couple of deer delicately picking / their way through a meadow” and ends with:

And last night —
the first adult conversation you have ever had
with your seventeen-year-old granddaughter
how all of this matters
how it all belongs.

There is little punctuation in David’s poems beyond the odd em dash (in place of a comma) and periods at the ends of stanzas. And that works well! One line leads to another, one poems leads to another. As Robert Hilles wrote in his cover endorsement: “Like all great poetry books, you can’t read just one of these poems. You will be drawn in by the compassion and wisdom and after every poem you will want to pause and reflect.”

David’s “wonderful” daughter, Rebecca Hendry, wrote the beautiful preface to the book. She writes: “In this book you will find love songs to his family, to the glory of nature, and to the fierce beauty of the North. You will find fragments of the […]

Summer Pop-Up Women’s Writing Circles

Nourish Yourself
Honour Your Voice
Write Your Stories.
Summer, a time of year with little or no structure . . . a free-floating time of musing, pondering and shifting. It’s also a perfect chance to take a “time out” to connect to oneself while being in the nurturing company of other writers.

This summer I am offering some unique ONE-AT-A-TIME POP-UP circles to keep you connected to a sustainable writing practice and a nourishing writing community. And this is an opportunity to see what a Writing Life circle is like before signing up for a four-week or six week circle.

Some writing circles are in person and one is on Zoom so you can enjoy the circle from wherever you are.

Fee: $60 for each 2-1/2 hour session (includes refreshments)
except for the Zoom circle which is $50
There are angel funds available so please let me know if a lower fee would be helpful.

Location: My home in Nanaimo (about 15 minutes from downtown)
The July 13th writing circle wherever you live, on Zoom.

Please Do: Check your calendar to see what dates you’re available. Let me know so I can save you a space. E: creativity@maryannmoore.ca

Confirm your space sending an e-transfer to creativity@maryannmoore.ca.  If mailing a cheque, my mailing address is: Mary Ann Moore, 76 Colwell Road, Nanaimo, B.C. V9X 1E6

Maximum: 6 writers
Minimum: 3 writers

 

All that we are is story. From the moment
we are born to the time we continue on
our spirit journey, we are involved in the
creation of the story of our time here. It is
what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind.

Richard Wagamese

 
July 2023
Create a retreat for yourself for a morning in July whether on Zoom or in person in Nanaimo.
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Thursday, July 13, 2023, 10:30 a.m. […]