Welcome back

Comments: Dear Shelagh,

I call you by your first name because I have known you for so long and, I feel, so well. We have all said to ourselves many times - I must write and tell that person - but never get around to it. I am a CBC fan and so have been listening to you for a long time. You always make me feel as though I am in the room with you and you are doing the interview or providing information to me alone. It is a great gift that you have and you appear to do it so naturally.

Geri Sheedy

Stop the glottal stop

I'm still smarting from the cancelation of Talking Books, I'll have you know! Well, maybe this new magazine-format replacement will grow on me.

Apologies in front for any effrontery, but whether on Sounds Like Canada or The Next Chapter, there's a non-verbal sound Shelagh makes in the microsecond between opening her mouth and saying her first word, not exactly a glottal stop, but a click of some sort. Not annoying, endearing, you could say, a bit like Jian Ghomeshi's noisy updraft of air before his words begin.

Looking forward to your coverage of poetry. One of Montreal's university stations, CKUT, plays an hour of spoken poetry every week, what an ear-opener, and I really don't see why CBC Radio could'nt do the same, or at least intersperse recitations within your three-hour music programmes on Radio Two (while you're at it, bring back radio drama, too, anything but that Afghan propaganda). I'm not in the 1% who buy poetry books, I borrow them from the library, and would love it if Tom Howell sank his lexicographer's teeth into Anne Carson's "Short Talks", or Lisa Robertson's "The Weather". Like, do you need an MA in literature, or drill a hole into your cranium in order to comprehend these Canadian verses?

I. Young

Just a note say "Welcome back, Shelagh". You were certainly missed and I hope you'll be with us for a very long time.

Bill

Hi Shelagh!
The perfect combination for a Saturday afternoon: your warmth, always-welcome voice, interviewing skills, talking with writers about their books. Heavenly! I'm so glad you're doing this program.
Cheers!

Vicki Frederick

n.b. We also received several notes of complaint about problems with links to our website from elsewhere on CBC's site, as well as our on-again-off-again podcast last week. Thanks for all your patience as we sort out the glitches. It ought to be working smoothly very soon.

Posted by Tom Howell at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Our friends in CBC's podcast department have solved the glitch we encountered last weekend, and Saturday's show is now available here.

Posted by Tom Howell at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here's my understanding of what's happened so far in the series of small conversations about poetry on this show. (So far, there have been two on-air conversations, plus a couple of off-air ones.) The participants to date are: Shelagh , me (Tom), John Steffler the poet laureate, and political candidates Elizabeth May, Tom King, Peter McKay, and Bob Rae.

1) Our first encounter was an admission. Poetry? I said, Never read the stuff.
(This was almost true. Explanation to follow.)

2) The second encounter was an argument. I said that poetry requires a special kind of reader. Without a poetic orientation, one can only superficially read poems.

For evidence, I borrowed the poet laureate, John Steffler. John wrote just one 'parliamentary' poem during his tenure in Ottawa. It's a complaint - and a wish. He teases politicians about how prosaic they are, and offers a bit of hope for them. When the (fictional) prime minister - who gets fooled and ridiculed by his own rebellious tongue - finally becomes a poetic person, it's a happy ending to the poem. Becoming poetic is a worthwhile journey, says the poem, one that politicians should take time for. That's why, after talking to John Steffler, I bugged a handful of politicians to show off their poetic side. They gamely co-operated (it's election time, after all), and it helped me to imagine what would happen to public debate if poetry was treated with a greater sense of indulgence in our culture.

At least, that's what I thought we were talking about. But one colleague told me she didn't hear that line of thinking at all, so was mystified when I went on to boast about all the neat allusions I'd made to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem framed by a gormless narrator who is turned into a 'sadder and a wiser man' by a confrontation with a poem. But that's the problem with trying to be poetic - even close friends miss your point. And by the time one tries to explain it prosaically, the magic is gone.

With this problem in mind, I'm venturing into the world of Canadian avant-garde poets. I figure they'll sympathize.

Yours, with a vague gesture towards clarity,

Tom

Missed this segment? Listen again:

And here's Shelagh's original challenge:

Posted by Tom Howell at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It's Tuesday, three days after the debut of The Next Chapter.
Great title, eh? It was Jacqueline Kirk (she's been my books
producer for almost a decade) who came up with it.

On the days before the launch, I was ruminating on what it means.
And frankly, nervous about the debut. After all these years I
still get nervous starting a new season. And to add starting a new
show to the mix--well, let's just say I no longer have fingernails.
And now episode one is ether. Onto the next, next chapter.

I think this is a great time for a program about Canadian writing.
As Margaret Atwood said last week in the Globe " For decades,
we've been punching above our weight on the world stage in writing,
in popular music and in many other fields". (Margaret, by the way,
will be on The Next Chapter October 11th, talking about debt as a
recurring motif in religion, literature and the structure of society).
And I don't think we've had an exclusively Canadian writing program
since Robert Weaver's groundbreaking series Anthology. So, high
time.

And yes, I'm a homer. The books I read, even not for work, are Canadian.
I love mysteries and Peter Robinson, Louise Penny, Brad Smith and Bill
Deverell are on my bedside table. Bonnie Stern and Rose Murray and their
new cookbooks comprise my gastroporn. The music on my I-pod is all by
Canadian artists, many of whom you'll hear on TNC. (I do have to confess to
having Gnarls Barkley on the pod. I just love "Crazy").

And I'm a homer in more ways than one. My studio is at home now, as well,
a cabin that is thirty paces from the house.
Enclosed is a snapshot of it and flowers I received from a friend on the day
it opened (um, that would be yesterday). Tempting as it is to work in a sweatshirt
and jogging pants (like I jog), I will still get dressed up for interviews. And put lipstick
on, as I did even early in the morning on Sounds Like Canada. The guests deserve
my being at my best. Or as close as I can come.

This week, I hope you'll tune in for Miriam Toews and Joseph Boyden. Great books
from the both of them. Oh, and Tom the poetry guy better deliver on his promise to
read a poem...

Shelagh

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Posted by The Next Chapter at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)