IanLeTourneau.ca

I’m currently at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan in the middle of a two-week retreat, most of which I’ve spent with a nasty cold. But now that I am feeling better, I’m looking forward to walking outside again and feeding the chickadees and nuthatches that the monks have trained to land in your hand. (And getting some writing done!)

I haven’t had a chance to post the first review of Terminal Moraine. It appeared in The Star Phoenix on January 24th. Enjoy!

Came across this review yesterday for Defining Range. Nice to finally see a review of my work, and I’m glad it was postive and not just a fluff piece.

NOTE – you’ll have to go about half way down the document, as I do not know how to directly link you there…

Just read about the shocking amount of plastic swirling around the centre of our oceans.

Click here for an article.
Click here for a video.

Looks like from this day forward I will use canvas shopping bags for groceries and buy everyone some for Christmas. Let’s call it my new crusade.

…the University of Oxford has just launched The First World War Poetry Digital Archive. This historical period has always fascinated me. In grad school, I studied the literature of the period, and some of it — Wilfred Owen’s poems, Frederic Manning’s novel Middle Parts of Fortune — I return to often. Some of the most powerful writing emerged from that period.

WW1 Gravestones, The Somme – Image © Oxford University

I had a look around the archive, and I was impressed. I urge you to do the same.

Below is a picture of Sherry and Wyatt, dressed up in their home-made costumes.

Here’s a photo of Sherry receiving her medallion and cheque from His Honour, The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Norman Kwong, at the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Awards today in Edmonton.

Couldn’t resist taking this photo, as Wyatt all on his own, climbed into the chair and picked up the newspaper. Too cute!

Yeah, that’s right. Tomorrow I will be dining with His Honour, Lt. Gov. Norman Kwong, at a luncheon in Edmonton. My wife, Sherry Coffey, won an Emerging Artist Award. She will receive a medallion and a cheque for $10,000. Pictures, if we can manage to find batteries for the camera, to follow tomorrow.

I haven’t had access for a few days due to some kind of corrupt plug-in. I’m not sure what that means, but for some reason it makes me think of the Conservative Party. Vote ABC!

The last week’s been pretty busy. On Sunday I went to see Garnet Rogers play. He ended his performance with two songs, one about memories touring with his brother and driving across Canada and the other a version of “Northwest Passage,” his brother’s famous song. It was a moving end to a night of some really great tunes.

The night after that I went to the all-candidates meeting. The night was organized by topic and the last one was arts. I waited all night to ask a question. For the previous topics, there was a opening scripted question and then the audience got their turn. As soon as the last candidate answered I put my hand up. Then the chair said, “that’s it for the night” and asked for closing remarks. So I decided to go ask the candidates afterwards what their position on the arts were. Furthermore, I decided to ask our incumbent MP Brian Jean first, since he may end up representing me again. It would have been better to beat my head against the wall. Anyway, I told him my concerns and that he’d see me again. I won’t be voting for him, but he did seem like a genuine, hard-working kind of MP.

Then Wednesday Wyatt came home with an infected eye. We took him to the doctor and he stayed home from daycare for the rest of the week. Here is a picture of him after his haircut today.

I went out to the grocery store earlier this evening and when I came home, Wyatt was pretty excited and he was telling me about a “Kye-ya. Coat-aye.” Then Sherry showed me the photo of what they saw in the backyard.

If you’re in Edmonton or Athabasca this weekend, I’m reading at Audrey’s at 2pm on Sunday and at the Athabasca Multiplex at 7pm. See you there!

Wyatt turns 2 today!
Here he is this morning on his new tricycle from his grammy and grampie from New Brunswick.