Here

I kind of love living here.


This past week was long and difficult, but somehow confirmed for me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Coffee and Oranges

Sunday Morning
Wallace Stevens

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

IV

She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophesy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

V

She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirts lingering
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sing,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Songs for Late Nights

I've been pulling a lot of late nights recently. And I'll be pulling a lot of late nights this week. Such is the joy of this time of the academic year. Since you probably aren't all that interested in hearing yet another rant about a paper, I thought instead I would share some of the songs that I tend to have on repeat as the hours creep past midnight and there is no end in sight.

I Don't Feel It Anymore (Song of the Sparrow) -- William Fitzsimmons & Priscilla Ahn

Bloodbuzz Ohio -- The National

Re: Stacks -- Bon Iver

White Blank Page -- Mumford and Sons

How it Comes is How it Goes -- Jay Malinowski

Set the Fire to the Third Bar -- Snowpatrol & Martha Wainwright

Wake the Earth -- The Honey Trees

The Darkest Side -- The Middle East

I Won't Be Found -- The Tallest Man on Earth

Cicadas and Gulls -- Feist

Take a night off

Sometimes, no matter how busy you are, you just need to take a night off and hang out with some friends.

Tell me a story, dear

from "Tuscan Cypress" in An Italian Garden
A. Mary F. Robinson

XI
Tell me a story, dear, that is not true.
Strange as a vision, full of splendid things;
Here will I lie and dream it is not you,
and dream it is a mocking bird that sings.

For if I find your voice in any part.
Even the sound of it will break my heart;
For if you speak of us and of our love,
I faint and die to feel the thrill thereof.

XVI
Come away Sorrow, Sorrow come away -
Let us go sit in some cool, shadowy place;
There shall you sing and hush me all the day,
While I will dream about my lover's face

Hush me, O Sorrow, like a babe to sleep.
Then close the lids above mine eyes that weep;
Rock me, O Sorrow, like a babe in pain,
Nor, when I slumber, wake me up again.


There is always that one class that you struggle to engage with. The one that you have to drag yourself to. The one that you put off doing the work for because it doesn't interest you at all. That class for me this semester is Victorian Lit. I was excited for the class. I love Victorian novels, and the last time I took a Victorian Lit class it was rather enjoyable. But the works we are studying are failing to engage me and the approach of the class does nothing but frustrate me. I once had a wise professor tell me that the key in each class is to find something that you love, something that fascinates you, and to focus as much energy into that as you can. Well until tonight all my efforts to do this in Victorian had been for naught. And then I read A. Mary F. Robinson. I think I found my in. Her works aren't particularly happy - in fact they are characterized by the horrors of the world and marked by a deep sorrow - but my favourite poets almost always have this. I love the opening lines of poem XI. So, tell me a story, dear.

The way to fairyland

There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth, they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland. -- L.M. Montgomery

I love this idea. If you read this blog on a regular basis you've probably figured out that I'm rather fond of the idea of fairies and magic. After all, one of my all-time favourite books is J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is also way up there, so you can't really expect anything else. This is one of those little things that helps make me who I am, but that I avoid talking about with most people. It tends to make you sound like you're six if you start talking about how cool fairies are. So I would like to thank L.M. Montgomery for validating my affection for all things magical. And for reminding me that I'm not a totally bitter curmudgeon just yet.

Focus

Sometimes you just have to focus on one thing at a time. That's what I've been doing lately and it is helping me keep my balance.

What the Light Teaches

from What the Light Teaches
Anne Michaels

     4

Sometimes I was afraid to touch him,
afraid my hand would go right through him.
But he was alive, in a history
made more painful by love.

I prayed to the sky to lift our father's head,
to deliver him from memory.

I wished he could lie down
in music he knew intimately, and become
sound, his brain flooded by melody so powerful
it would stretch molecules, dismantle thought.


I went on a photo excursion today. I didn't really have time, but the weather was gorgeous and the sun was beckoning me to come out to play with my camera. So I obeyed it. It was the kind of light that begs to be photographed. The kind with weight. The kind with soul. The kind that has something to say. I'm a bit obsessed with light, and I realize that I might sound crazy, but I'm okay with that. If photography has taught me one thing it is that sometimes I have to get over myself and just sound or look crazy (I had more than one bemused look today from other people out enjoy the weather). As I was walking the title from this poem kept popping into my head. This is possibly my favourite section from this long poem. I know it's not about light, but I don't think that's the point. When you get this kind of light it has something to tell you about more than just itself.


More from What the Light Teaches.

This is the beauty of strength broken by strength and still strong

The Lonely Land
A.J.M. Smith

Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs 
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.

A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and the ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones -  
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.

This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong.


I fell in love with poetry thanks to a really fantastic prof in my first year of university. I fell in love with Canadian poetry when I read this poem in my second year. Right now I'm preparing a mini seminar on it for my Canadian ekphrasis class. It's moments like these that make me feel richly blessed to be a student.

Worse for Wear

"You look totally knackered." That's how I was greeted by a prof one morning last week. Granted, I was exhausted, but that's just never the first thing you want to hear in the morning. Yup, the stress and exhaustion are starting to show themselves. I haven't quite gotten to the crazy-eye stage yet (if you were an English major with me at King's you probably know what I'm talking about), but I'm pretty sure I'll be there in a couple of weeks. There are definite physical manifestations going on though. Serious headaches, eye twitches, serious shoulder and back pain, unfinished sentences, random crying jags, and increased sarcasm have all begun to make regular appearances. Such fun. (Yeah, that would be the sarcasm talking.)

Nights of Rain and Stars

I am naturally a night owl. I enjoy the middle of the night immensely. This is a good thing since I've become well acquainted with it in the recent past (not that we ever really lost touch, just that we were seeing less of each other than usual). So despite the fact that I've been swamped with and sleep deprivation is much harder to deal with when you can't have caffeine, sugar, or apples to help you stay awake, here are a few things I've been loving about these late nights.

1. Stars. You can actually see stars here, people. It's a crazy concept, I know, but so delightful.

2. Walking. I am really enjoying living somewhere that I can walk at midnight without fear of being stabbed or raped.

3. Rain. It's been rainy lately, and while this has its downsides, it means that the air is crisp and fresh when I'm wandering around at night.

4. An office. Or, rather, an office I can be in past 11. The building at King's closes at 11 and so you had to be out of the publications office by then. This was annoying. I now have a key card for the arts building and therefore have 24 hour access to my office. This rocks.

5. A library. Or, rather, a library open past 9. The King's library is great, but there is no way around the fact that it is a library at a small institution. It closes at 9. Not convenient for serious late-night work. The library here closes at 1 in the morning. This means that if I suddenly need a source from them, I can just pop on over at midnight. This also rocks.

6. Timezones. Most of my friends are still back in Alberta, which is three hours behind Nova Scotia. This means that even if I am awake at 3 in the morning, it is highly likely that someone back home will still be up and willing to chat. I always feel less desperate if I'm talking to someone while burning the midnight oil.

The Creation of a Monster

If you are academically inclined and a perfectionist then you have probably stood where I am currently standing. Let me set up the scene for you: you have a major assignment due, you've written it, you've edited it multiple times, you've sent it to other people to edit it, you're feeling pretty confident that you just have to do one last fine-tuning run through and it will be done. This is when it happens. In the blink of an eye, the paper that you were formerly on such good terms with becomes a monster. It comes at you, eyes blazing, mouth gaping, ready to swallow you whole. It doesn't take much to trigger this transformation. It could be that you read something in a secondary source, probably accidentally and just because it was lying open on the desk next to you. Or, as it is in my case, it could be that you had a last minute meeting with your advisor. Suddenly what you thought was really great is just kind of mediocre. You aren't being nearly as clear as you thought you were. You have massive amounts of work to do. And for a moment you are paralyzed, unable to even scream.

Explanatory Notes

I am a verbose person. I struggle with word counts and page limits. I've come to the realization as I've been writing my thesis proposal that part of the reason for this is that I write ridiculous numbers of explanatory notes. I'm constantly trying to clarify, to make things crystallize into a beautiful and clear diamond of meaning. Unfortunately, I usually just end up being wordy and therefore obscuring the point even more than if I hadn't tried to explain it. I'm in the home stretch with the proposal, but, surprise surprise, I'm over the page limit. Not by a lot. It's only four lines of text. Excising is always the hardest part of the editing process though. It requires you to be ruthless with your own work. And I find that it is harder the less I have to edit out. I can slash and hack, getting rid of whole paragraphs much more easily than I can carefully make tiny incisions to trim the text back one or two sentences. It's almost there. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.