IN SEARCH OF DUENDE

 Frederico Garcia Lorca. IN SEARCH OF DUENDE. Bibelot, 1975.

A remarkable find at the Rotary Book Sale. This book has been on my list for years, and it does not disappoint. Contains essays -- the famous exploration of duende and another on the sacredness of bullfighting -- as well as poems in both Spanish and English. Watching the Knowledge Network series on Andalusia has also been helpful with pronunciation of names and and location of places in Spain. Lorca, 1898 to 1936. Executed by firing squad during the Spanish Civil War.

the shadow-maker

  

Gwendolyn MacEwen. The SHADOW-MAKER. Macmillan, 1969. 

A find at the Rotary book sale. A Governor-General Award winner from the 60s. I love her use of internal rhyme and the sound of her lines. Favourites are the dream sequences--from The Sleeper section. 

NINE HORSES

 Billy Collins. NINE HORSES. Random. 2002.

A surprise arrival from the Bookman. My favourite in this collection is "Elk River Falls", in which the water "unbuckled from itself / and plummets, shredded, through the air / into the shadows of a frigid pool, / so calm around the edges, a place / for water to recover from the shock / of falling apart and coming back together..."

INDIANS ON VACATION

Thomas King. INDIANS ON VACATION. HarperCollins, 2020.

Stephen Leacock Award Winner for Humour, and much much more. Funny, ironic, and endearing. A couple from Guelph, Mimi the artist and Bird, the journalist, retired, are on a quest for a lost sacred bundle stolen by Mimi's uncle when he ran away to join the Wild West Show. The Quest has been the couple's excuse to travel, to retrace Uncle's itinerary as documented in the postcards he sent home. Travel. Ancestry. An intimate long-term relationship. Mimi is positive and encouraging and knows her man. Bird is grumpy, obssessed with his decaying body, and travels with an entourage of "problems" to which he has given names,  Kitty=catastrophizing. D & D = Depression and Despair. Eugene = self-loathing, etc. The reader fears some catastrophy and recognizes the typical tourist challenges of self-guided travel. So many good conversations between Bird & Mimi, Bird and fellow travellers, and Bird and his "Issues". 

STICKBOY

 

Shane Koyczan. Stickboy. Parlance, 2008.

I have been a fan of this BC writer for 25 years, since I first heard about his win in San Francisco of the top Slam Poetry prize. Saw him perform at an early-century Café Deux Soleil on Commercial, Vancouver. Read & enjoyed Visiting Hours. Acquired some sort of CD, since disappeared. Revelled in his 2010 Olympics ceremony performance which includes this same theme of bullying. Watched the doc about his search for a father on Knowledge Network. Followed him on IG, when it worked. And jumped on this copy of Stickboy found at the Rotary Book sale.

I really enjoyed this book. Read most of it aloud to myself. It is smooth and affecting at the same time. I kept thinking: should be required reading for every teacher-in-training. Shane takes us inside the head of an unhappy child and how that unhappiness manifests in the real world of school and sport fields.

For a bit, I thought I must have missed the reference explaining the title, but info on Amazon or Goodreads suggests: an ironic reference to “sticks & stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”; an ironic contrast to nicknames “Fatboy” or “Fatass”; & a stick-drawn figure with firecrackers and dynamite sticks as appendages, ready to explode at any moment.

Accessibility. Insight. Humour. Survival.