the green notebook,

, reading Carrie Olivia Adams, Blue Rodeo vs. The Tragically Hip, + Law & Order references Alice Munro,

In this month’s substack, Carrie Olivia Adams writes about gravity. “For example, while I’m not afraid of slides,” she writes, “I don’t trust the gravity of the fall, so my body tenses to try to master the forces. And while physics will tell you that regardless of an object’s mass, it will accelerate at the same rate due to gravity in a vacuum, this is not true if the object is me.” She moves her conversation from slides and gravity into how writing poetry, at least for her, allows for a feeling of control of the line, of the movement, whether lift or fall, or sudden speed. It is an interesting approach, although I think mine more a process of discovery than any particular element of control. I’ve always thought control a bit of a fallacy, especially in writing. One wishes to find the right word, or right sequence of words, and not force words in. A collaboration, if you will, between the writer and the words themselves, to see where they might go. To help direct, when needed, and to listen, when required. I don’t necessarily wish to write what I already think I know but to help discover what I haven’t quite figured out yet.

Not that I think Adams is arguing for that level of control. She simply wishes not to fall, I suppose.

From her Intervening Absence (2009):

Iterations. The distant rustle of wings. The ground below.
I believe he is stuffing his pockets with bones.

*

Today, a further snow day for everyone. Enough that Rose’s school announced today’s closing yesterday afternoon, along with a cancellation of tonight’s choir practice. Aoife had wished to still go in for the sake of exchanging Valentine’s Day cards, but in the end, she decided that she didn’t want to get dressed. A snow day, a Thursday. Already tomorrow is a PD day for both of them, and Monday the Family Day holiday. Hello, five day weekend. Rose is making a cake from a mix.

*

Law & Order does an Alice Munro episode, even referencing her and her work mid-episode, for the sake of connecting a narrative. The Lieutenant compliments the work of a documentary filmmaker—most likely aware her daughter was being sexually abused by the stepfather—during an interview, comparing it specifically to the work of Alice Munro. But her work is different, the Lieutenant said, as she’s a novelist. The filmmaker nods, yes.

No, Law & Order, no. She was not a novelist. Whatever else you are doing with this episode, at least get your facts right. You mention her by name.

The writing just feels lazy. Get your god-damned facts right.

*

I am behind on more things than can be dreamt of, in your philosophy. The days of the past few weeks have been breathless, moving task to task, keeping my head above water. Our spring poetry festival organization moves ahead, I work a stack of reviews, I am putting together a mound of spring chapbooks. Every evening: Fold, staple, repeat. Fold, staple, repeat. I address and fill envelopes. Everything moves as it should, working up to a particular deadline of our Vancouver trip, attempting the space in which to take a small breath. So that I might breathe.

I’ve been watching an accumulation of music documentaries over the past few months, most of which I’ve garnered through the CBC Documentary Channel. Last night was Blue Rodeo: Lost Together (2024), an interesting counterpart to catching the four-part documentary, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (2024), a few weeks back. Both documentaries talk about their subjects as being the quintessential Canadian band. This is our band. Maybe so, maybe so. I liked Blue Rodeo well enough, but it always felt too mainstream for my tastes, by the time it appeared. I was somewhere else, perhaps.

The recent four part documentary on Kingston, Ontario’s The Tragically Hip is one of the finest I’ve seen, I think; made with incredible research and a deep love by Mike Downie, the elder brother of the late lead singer of the band, Gord Downie (1964-2017). They were, they are, our quintessential Canadian band, offering soundtrack through the 1990s and into the aughts as clearly and as well as such as Gordon Lightfoot and Anne Murray ran through the 1970s. Two years ago, it was Doug and The Slugs and Me (2022) that equally knocked me sideways, an absolutely stellar documentary on the late Vancouver band, founded and led by Doug Bennett (1951-2004). I was surprised by how many of the songs I not only knew but really liked, part of a soundtrack of my teenaged years. A documentary by a neighbour of the Bennetts, friend of his three daughters, it was impressive to realize a twentysomething filmmaker managed to get an on-camera interview with Bob Geldof as part of it. Did you have any idea that, before he returned home to Ireland to found The Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof lived in Vancouver and wrote on music for The Georgia Straight? I had no idea.