Hi all,
First, a few notes:
I will be part of a reading at Small Gods Brewing Co. (9835 Third St.) March 12 at 6 pm Pacific in Sidney. Tickets are $10 for reserved seating and $5 general admission. I’m so looking forward to letting a few more poems from my new not-yet-a-book come out to see the light. Would love to see any local folks there! The link is here.
Monika Davies and I have a drop-in writers’ group on the third Saturday of the month, so March 18, from 1 to 3 pm at the Sidney library, and then will have a drink at Small Gods Brewing Co. afterwards to celebrate. We’d love to see you at either or both. The drop-in is a ($5 suggested) pay-what-you-wish kind of thing. More information here. I’ve been having such a great time coming up with prompts for these.
I’ve been thinking about this quote lately:
“These words
they are stones in the water”June Jordan, “These Poems”
I remember the fountain at the garden centre, a big round blue vessel with a hole at the top for the water to come out and a track twisting around and around the outside for the water to flow down to the bottom. Almost silent until you put little stones in the track. The sign with the price said the louder you wanted the fountain, the more stones you should put in the little streambed. The stones troubled the water, furrowed it like worried eyebrows, mussed it up, made it sing.
Is that where music comes from? The stones in our path? Maybe if there was nothing to slow us down, no impediments, there would be no music, no reason to sing.
Sometimes I want my words to furrow the eyebrows, to make people stop, even stumble, in their usual path. Making a person think in a new way is always uncomfortable, always muddies the water a little.
That fountain made a beautiful sound with all those stones.
FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
While looking through the files to find something to share with you this month, I found this odd, old little poem. What do you think?
Family
There is a tree somewhere who is your sister and she loves you with a quiet certainty that you could use to heat your house, if you had to. She wants nothing from you but a little of the breath you exhale. She will support you if you lean your weight against her trunk. She fears nothing but beavers and the insidiousness of root rot. She loves you easily with no expectations that you cannot meet. After all, it is easy to exhale all that she needs from you to live.
NOTES
Please feel free to reply to this email, either by hitting reply (it will only go to me), or by commenting on the Substack website (there are little speech bubble things at the top and bottom of the letter) if you’d like to be part of a larger discussion. You can also “like” the post if you want.
Also feel free to pass this along to any friends who might be interested. They can subscribe, if they like, by hitting the big blue button that says “subscribe”.
And thanks, as always, for reading.
Yours,
Kelsey
kelseyandrews.ca
"Is that where music comes from? The stones in our path? Maybe if there was nothing to slow us down, no impediments, there would be no music, no reason to sing." I love that.
"Sometimes I want my words to furrow the eyebrows, to make people stop, even stumble, in their usual path." LOVE THIS! I believe that art hurts...and we are here to both create and create discomfort. Now, that doesn't mean we can't also be touching and funny and playful and whimsical...but making a whole bunch of people stumble is such a wildly fantastic goal! Lovely post, as always! :)