Back in Slocan Valley

Lovely waking up in the cabin in New Denver yesterday morning. Peering out the window, through the trees, across the lake, at the mountains and the Valhalla Glacier. This morning it's rainy, so I can't see across the lake, but the trade-off is that I get to hear rain pummelling the metal roof, which is a fantastic, comforting sound.


The drive out of Vancouver, as soon as I got into the mountains, was great. Mountains make me sort of happy. And they let you drive on them, but only at their pleasure.

Yesterday I visited the school and met the elementary class I'll be working with for four days, starting in a couple of hours. They had all written acrostic poems with their names to introduce themselves to me. They seem pretty neat and very enthusiastic. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. This will be a very different kind of writing-teaching. Can't use the Boot Camp model here: more of an easing them into the world of surprising language, giving them a sense of what poetry can be beyond Shel Silverstein and Dennis Lee. It'll be an interesting challenge.

Kenneth Koch's Rose, where did you get that red? is making more sense to me now. While I don't want to use his specific projects, I'm going to adapt aspects of his approach to poems that excite me and that I think will excite the kids. But there are so many possible starting points, and so many directions to go from each starting point.

Better get to it.

Over and out.