Ian LeTourneau

Sherry and I are finalizing our plans for a trip to Paris. We plan on renting an apartment there for a few weeks and we’re starting to get quite excited. We plan to be there at the end of May and first week or two of June. If finances allow, I hope to take a train through the Alps to Rome. Of course, we will be escaping to the countryside a few times. I’m looking forward to taking in some literary stuff and red wine.

Now that Wyatt is getting to be on a better sleep schedule and I’m settling in at the job, I have time to read again. I picked up two books last time I was in Edmonton and have been reading them, rather than the pile of lit. mags that have been piling up since September (though I’m looking forward to the latest Fiddlehead, which has a large feature on Australian poets). The first one of the two books I read was Frieda Hughes’ latest, Forty-Five. It is in the same vein as her father’s Birthday Letters, autobiograhical and confessional, but lacks the power and range of his stuff (though that’s somewhat an unfair comparison, because I think Ted Hughes is one of the best poets last century). Where images from his book are still seared into my memory, I can’t remember much from her book, and I only read it a few days ago. It was competent stuff, though, just not amazing. I also picked up Simon Armitage’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I’m having difficulty with. There are random passages that are inspired, but on the whole, it is uneven in tone and diction. I’m not as fond of it as I was W. S. Merwin’s translation. i still have about 1/4 of it to go.

Got great news today in the mail. The Canada Council has awarded me a $10,000 project grant!!!!

Yeah!

Now I can work on some poems.

Here’s a pic from yesterday.

I’ve been working on this all weekend and surfed to the site to see if there were any updates. And there were. As of this writing, I’m about half done. Writing a commissioned piece with a specific theme is harder than I thought it would be. Which is obviously why I am procrastinating slightly right now…

Any friends or people in Edmonton reading this, come out to CBC downtown on Feb 21 at Noon.

Yesterday, I got asked to write an article for Legacy Magazine on Stephan G. Stephansson House. Stephansson was an Icelandic poet who homesteaded and farmed in Alberta in the nineteenth century. He is known today as one of the best Icelandic poet since the middle ages. He is more famous in Iceland than here, even though he never wrote a word in Iceland. I haven’t read him: he didn’t write in English and the only translation of his work is out of print now.

And today, I got a letter from Gaspereau Press saying that they were including two poems from Defining Range in an upcoming anthology of the best stuff they’ve published in the last 10 tyears, the first volume of which is set to be released in April. There are three planned and the first is poetry. I get 4 free copies and royalties. So, it’s been a good week so far.

Add to that the offer of more students for my job, bringing me to the equivalent of full-time and you can call me busy.

Yesterday, a huge box of books arrived in my mailbox: 150 copies of Defining Range, my chapbook of poems. The design is great. Thank you Gaspereau Press!

Frontenac House is publishing the book this year. I’m glad it’s not Red Deer–they were less than impressive last year. Here’s the book page on Frontenac’s site. The book looks very nice.

The book will be launched in Edmonton and Calgary. Edmonton’s event will be held on November 2 at Greenwood’s Volume II at 7pm. Info on the Calgary launch can also be found here, on the CBC site.

My poems will air on December 8 at 12:45pm on Wild Rose Country and December 10 at 7:40 on Daybreak Alberta. The broadcast schedule for other winners can be found here.

He looks good in Lavender. Actually, he looks good in every colour. I took this last Friday, October 6, 2006.