Linda Besner Down South

On February 19th, Linda Besner—author of The Id Kid—visited UNC-Wilmington as the first participant in the "The °C / °F Reading Series," curated by Alessandro Porco. "It was a wonderful event," Porco writes on his Facebook page, "students and faculty filled—and even spilled out of—the venue."

What's Linda Besner Reading?

Look No Further

Rob Winger celebrates Linda Besner's first book, The Id Kid, for "dis­play­ing a wry matur­ity and aes­thetic self-awareness most debut poets can only dream of":

"If you’re seek­ing 'a tiger rodeo,' 'de futuro ducks,' or 'stone­henge for black flies,' you’ll find them here. If you’re look­ing for inter­tex­tual nuance and ter­rible puns, they’re here, too. And if you’re seek­ing res­ol­u­tion for the sup­posed con­flicts between high and low, base and super­struc­ture, petty and pro­found, look no fur­ther."

Dark Horse

I've put together a small selection of Canadian poets for the Autumn/Winter 2012 number of the excellent Scottish-American literary magazine The Dark Horse. I first heard of The Dark Horse in 1999 when, during a fellowship at the Hawthornden Castle, I paid Stewart Conn an afternoon visit at his home in Edinburgh. Just as I was about to leave, Stewart pressed a copy of the journal into my hands, and encouraged me to send them poems. I never did, but I finally meet the editor, Gerry Cambridge, at the West Chester Poetry Conference in 2010. I was there with Robyn Sarah, Bruce Taylor and Molly Peacock for a panel on Canadian poetry.  At one point during the conference, Gerry began distributing recent issues of the magazine, which, in the intervening years, had clearly taken a quantum leap in terms of design and direction. We struck up a series of conversations which continued into an email correspondance (I soon became a subscriber). I know Gerry would love to see more submissions—and subscribers!—from this side of the pond. A long review of Todd Swift and Evan Jones' anthology Modern Canadian Poets appeared in issue 26.

First We Take Manhattan

The Best Canadian Poetry 2012 trip to New York last Friday—with well-attended launches at the Lilian Vernon Writer's House and the Corner Bookstore—was a triumph. That's Molly Peacock up there, standing beside me in front of the bookstore (they filled their window with our books, which was a lovely sight). We then celebrated in style with a three-course meal at Pascalou. You'll find a recording of our reading here.

Wunderkind

Danielle Janess praises Linda Besner's The Id Kid for, among other things, it's "mindbending boobytraps."

Holiday Recommendation, Ctd

The Id Kid gets more praise. This time from poet Amanda Earl, who compares the mouth-music of Besner's poetry to "pop rocks." You can read her plug here.

Holiday Recommendation

Sean Cranbury calls Linda Besner's The Id Kid "the razor strop for a very close shave by gale force winds." Read the rest of his recommendation here.

Fish Quill Finale

Thus endeth another Fish Quill Poetry Boat tour. After "washing the squashed mosquitoes" out of her hair, Linda Besner joined Leigh Kotsilidis to talk about her experience on CBC. Listen here. (Photos by Nick Thran.)

QUILL BLOG ON FISH QUILL

Quill & Quire covers the second installment of Fish Quill Poetry Boat, a nine-day canoe-powered reading tour down the Grand River, travelling from Elora to Ohsweken. (Organizers embarked on a similar trip last year. Write-up here.) The eight-poet team includes Signal authors Linda Besner and Asa Boxer. They get paddling August 4th.

Brad Van 2011

This is one mother of a poetry conference. I'm very grateful to organizer Brad Cran for inviting me and making room for Linda Besner and Christopher Patton.

Also nice to spot some Signal alumni on the bill: Stephanie Bolster and Elise Partridge.

The "It" Kid

Michael Lista raves over Linda Besner's The Id Kid. I'm delighted that he mentions nearly all the themes that drove our decision-making during the editorial process (life as performance, self as artifice, confession as mask-wearing). It's always nice to have a reviewer point out undetected patterns in the carpet. But it's especially satisfying when a reviewer sees exactly what you hoped he would see.

Northern Poetry Review

April was the five-year mark for the online lit mag NPR, founded and edited by Alex Boyd. They've just updated the site with new material, including an interview with Giller-winner Johanna Skibsrud and poems by Linda Besner from her first book The Id Kid. Also on offer is Jacob McArthur Mooney's review of four chapbooks by Cactus Press. I was sent these titles last year, and enjoyed them, and fully intended to blog about them. Alas, life intervened. So I'm happy that NPR is giving the books some deserved attention (you can shop for them here). My favourite poets in the group were Marc di Saverio and Sarah Teitel (photo above). In fact, Teitel's poems so impressed me that I'm happy to announce her first book will be appearing with us in the very near future.

Besner

Linda Besner has been doing a bunch of readings from The Id Kid, but photographic evidence has been scarce. I grabbed the above, snapped May 4th, as soon as it surfaced on the Pivot Readings Facebook page.

I also found this fun video -- courtesy of the reliably entertaining blog How Pedestrian -- featuring Linda reading her poem "Moonlight on Komatsu Extractor."

Tomfoolery

Over at Maisonneuve, Natalie Thompson speaks to Linda Besner (self-portrait above) about her "attraction to accidental slippages of tongue":

"When I find those unintentional language slips I enjoy creating something intentional around them. Like putting something that is broken back together with the half it didn’t know it had."

Signal Poet Gets TV Show!

Just kidding -- but it's a start.

They're in!

Our Spring poetry titles: The Id Kid by Linda Besner and Skullduggery by Asa Boxer.

Three Way

If you wanted to list the young poets who were likely to figure in many of our literary conversations over, say, the next decade, you could hardly do better than the names on this poster. And I'm happy to say two of them are ours. It's going to be a great reading. See you there?

Sunday Poem

WATER GLASS

Sure fooled me.

Had me right up

to the tinselly scraping

when I downed

the last mouthful

and the ice cube turned

out to be glass.

Arrowhead.

Shark's fin.

Lifting it out

nearly cost me a finger

never mind

the carnage it

could've caused

in the throat.

Awe around the table

as if I'd gone

inadvertent skydiving

or breezed through

a tiger rodeo just while

sipping, squeezing in

a lime. See

how the trick is turned.

Thrilling to be fooled so,

like when I went to check

the time in Paris

and a thief's hummingbird

caress left me gaping

at my naked wrist.

That was a touch

I never felt, but this time

I'm suffered to see

how I'm spared.

Everyone wanted to touch it, tap,

test their fingers on the edge.

Makes you want

to try your luck again,

the way a carnival bohunkus

gawps at the stage;

then jets his hand

in the air with ballooning

faith. Me, me,

pick me, mister.

Saw me in half.

I believe.

From The Id Kid by Linda Besner, which will be launched April 17, 2010.

The Reason Artists Jump Out the Window

Kevin Spenst interviews Signal Editions poet Linda Besner on the subject of revision.

The thing about revision for me is that it’s at this stage that you struggle most mightily to make a poem into something it’s not. And then you have to decide what else it is, and whether you can still feel—if not the same way about it, then feel something for it. I just finished Salvatore Scibona’s novel The End, and there’s a line in it I loved: "Disappointment was the result of an idea’s attempt to miscegenate with the visible world." The poem in my mind and the poem on the page are never quite the same poem, and it’s always painful to accept that.

Read the rest here. Linda's debut, The Id Kid, is ready to drop next month.