Robin Blaser (1925-2009): The Globe and Mail has posted a moving tribute to the beloved poet Robin Blaser, who passed away today just shy of his 84th birthday.
Blaser (who proudly became a Canadian citizen in 1974), proved an integral and influential figure in the west-coast poetic flowering and established himself as an important voice in the experimental movement whose influence still sings in the works of some of the greatest poets of both his and subsequent generations, not the least of which include [George] Bowering, Steve McCaffery, Daphne Marlatt, bp Nichol and Erin Mouré
Complex Napoleon: Emperor, battlefield genius, revolutionary….and chick-lit author? It’s been announced that an English edition of Clisson and Eugenie, a romantic novella penned by Napoleon Bonaparte himself, is set to hit bookshelves this fall. Some maintain that the story will reveal the legendary French leader as “an accomplished writer of fiction,” while others feel that he was wise not to quit his day job of European domination.
An excerpt of the Napoleon’s work (courtesy of The Guardian):
The spa baths at Allès are one league from Champvert. Many went to enjoy the coolness of the climate. Clisson found there an emotional landscape. It was a place of enchantment, and he missed not a single day. Unknown as he was, he wandered amongst the crowd of good people. He gazed with interest at the beauty of the women and their dresses, mostly made of linen. People feel comfortable while taking the waters and he was able to engage in a great number of inconsequential conversations, which brought him relief from his melancholy and solitude.
For the Word Nerds: I was excited to read this LA Times blog post on the recent paperback release of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. Much like A.J. Jacobs’s run through the Encyclopedia Brittanica, author Ammon Shea spent a year poring over each page of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the LA Times has reprinted a few of their favorite highlights. (I’ve already tried to work “quomodocunquinze” into a conversation this morning…with little success.)
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