I have been so tired. Hence, unmotivated, uninspired. But the colds are finally over so I’m working to find some resolve, get some reading, editing, heck, maybe even some writing done this summer. Just used “charm offensive” in Botched Mission. I sent several revised poems to collaborators Victor Bonderoff and Mark Deutrom. Here’s something island themed, as we prepare to exit paradise. Oh, this image is from Take Shelter, a movie I’ve been wanting to see and  I’ve been enjoying Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl,  recommended by my son. ‘Tis indeed “wickedly clever” and “razor sharp.” The novel’s premise could be, what if you gave into every bitchy impulse you’ve ever had? After all, nice is never enough.

THE HUMBLE MURALIST AND THE REPROACHFUL BUDDHIST

Island roads are only as long as the island,

invariably leading to the vortex every island hosts,

the village or burg hugging the cove or bay,

the place where sweaty, unsighted, unrepentant

cocaine and alcohol abusers

wind up in, gurgle down to rub

elbows with the vigorous Tilley-hatted,

swamping the gentry

with their nasty habit stench.

Island roads snake lowly

through a bucolic landscape;

swaying grasses, expansive elms,

lambs, cows, horses, llamas.

Do not be lulled.

Anxiety stalks the dales and hollows,

tamped down, concealed behind neat

rustic wooden fences,

skulking in the cottages

despite a glut of yoga, meditation,

acupuncture outlets and pottery classes.

Here there be much intestinal discomfort,

trembling, ceaseless aspiring,

straining, toward the light,

strong belief in our island selves.

Dolly for example is the biggest Buddhist,

the baddest, blackest sheep

herder on Vancouver Island,

happily bending over

for regular shearing

as long as the tax man

is tranquil about it

and she’s back at the ranch in time

to inject herself

into the tête-à-têtes.

Her resident good egg Greg studies

the recommended sutras,

working on his anger,

moving past it, out

of his townie flat to create

murals in the great outdoors.

Grandiose depictions,

towering trompe l’oeil.

Ostentatious? Yes,

but they have provided

our meek hamlet with an angle,

a tourist attraction.

Indeed, they have saved us!

A plug for poet and poetics dynamo Catherine Owen’s latest endeavour, book, The Other 23 & a Half Hours: Or Everything You Wanted to Know that Your MFA Didnt’ Teach You wherein I contribute to a discussion regarding multimedia work. Love the title and agree with the assertion. I don’t regret skipping out on the academy, finding and honing my voice, practice, style. Here’s the publisher’s blurb: There’s so much more to being a poet than starving in a garret. It might be counter intuitive, but Catherine Owen believes being a writer involves much more than writing.  In this provocative book she examines the moving parts of the literary community and explains what makes it tick. Starting with reading, which Owen believes is a fundamental part of being a writer, she considers activities such as reviewing, translating, hosting radio shows and even running small presses. With over sixty interviews as well as her own experiences to draw on, Owen sketches a compelling picture of what a literary life can be. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for the dynamism of the Canadian literary scene and the inspiration to contribute to it.

Earlier this year I was thrilled to be selected to participate in Art Song Lab 2015, a unique cultural event which pairs poets with composers. I feel fortunate to be collaborating with the talented Brian Topp. Our piece called Our Thirst, will premiere downtown Vancouver in a culminating concert, performed by classically trained performers. I’m grateful to ASL directors Ray Hsu and Michael James Park who encouraged me to apply and hope to see you at the Art Song Lab 2015  SONGLAUNCH,  Vancouver School of Music’s Pyatt Hall, home of the VSO, Fri, June 5 at 8 PM. Please find the program and ticket information here.

Dear British, American friends, the e-book of my novel is on sale May 5-7 for .99! “Haley has the gift of writing to suit her subject in all its raddled variety, from wired and jarring to lyrical and tragic.”

One could spend 24/7 on the Internet, and heaps of cash, promoting one’s book. Fortunately I have a life, though it would be nice to get ‘er done. I try. I’ll say it again, I need some elves. And or a boyfriend like Ryan.

A review of Goose Lane Editions Love Where The Nights Are Twice as Long appeared in a Saskatchewan paper, the Star Phoenix, the other day, characterizing our correspondence as, “Heather Haley and John –in 2010 give us the graphic carnal fling, start to finish,” which is a lazy generalization but at least it’s getting some coverage. Editor Dave Eso said that ours might be the most graphic exchange in the book, next to Susan Musgrave’s, but  how lame would an anthology of love letters be without sex?

“Heather Haley’s brash novel details the risky experiments that defined life in the subcultures of the late 1970s.” And 80s. And 90s, etcetera. I haven’t quit; stubborn that way.

I do wish they’d credited Gabor Gasztonyi for his lovely portrait of the author but thank you books editor Brian Lynch, and Connie Kuhns, for the review, I admire your writing. I will be sharing excerpts from the novel at the Storm Crow Reading Series, Thurs, June 18.

The Town Slut’s Daughter
 By Heather Haley. Howe Sound Publishing, 314 pp, softcover

A girl walks into a bar. Eventually, she gets out alive. This is the story of Fiona Larochelle, an emotionally abused teenager and runaway whose lost weekend begins in a filthy washroom in a Vancouver nightclub and ends years later on a Los Angeles freeway. Although the book is a work of fiction, the bit players are very real. When Fiona forms an all-female punk band, the Virgin Marries, she and her bandmates occupy the same historical space as D.O.A. and the Dishrags. It is the late 1970s. The Clash is coming to town. Everyone is spitting on one another.

Fiona and her friends look for independence in all the wrong places. Their world is violent and ignorant and they are handicapped further by drugs and exploitative sex. It is experimentation run amok and told in graphic detail. Everybody’s talking. They play music and argue politics. They play music and discuss art. They play music and talk dirty.

Author Heather Haley, a well-regarded poet, filmmaker, and former editor at LA Weekly, was in real life a musician and member of the Zellots, a groundbreaking Vancouver women’s punk band. Knowing she survived those difficult and dangerous times, it’s hard to resist making Fiona her avatar. The Town Slut’s Daughter reads (to me) as a recollection, as if Fiona is skimming over her life, trying to get it down before it is forgotten, trying to remember every single thing. There are images, lengthy diatribes, and famous people coming and going. We follow Fiona to New York, Las Vegas, and finally Los Angeles. She is running and constantly transforming.

When Fiona finally succumbs, a deeper story begins and Haley’s writing is powerful. Her depictions of Fiona’s drug-saturated sexual and emotional abuse and her final battle out of darkness are as disturbing and realistic as anything in a Marianne Faithfull autobiography.

One of my first literary ventures, expressions, was a zine, published in America of all places. Edgy of course, Rattler, edited along with ex-husband filmmaker, writer and musician Peter Haskell, featured a significant number of now established Los Angeles poets, authors and artists. Despite brutal economic times and evolving technology, true to their nature, alternative presses persevere; Poetry Is Dead, subTerrain, McSweeney‘s, Event, CV2, Broken Pencil, to name a few. In that spirit check out this new book on the subject, The Little Magazine In Contemporary America and an eclectic list of submission calls at Aerogramme Writer’s Studio.