The year in review: what I'm not going to say & do, and people I'd like to mention

I won't bother to tell people how much I've read or watched or done (as if that matters); nor bore anyone with any end of year de profundis reflections on my life because, frankly, I happen to be a pretty happy & grateful guy who's never considered writing a form of self-imposed misery and thankless drudgery (as all too many surprisingly still do), as if somebody's always holding a gun to my head. As if there really is such a thing as the 'starving artist' in affluent North America. Writing and blogging are their own uniquely enjoyable rewards.

And unlike Geof Huth I won't be sending, as a sort of symbolic purge, all my scribblings to any academic institution around here: though my wife's been urging me to remove all my teaching- and-poetry-related folders piling up high in the closet. I measure progress, not in numbered boxes but by the amount of heart-satisfaction every form of self-expression gives. And I'm certainly not going to make any silly prognostications about the future of poetry in 2011 and thereafter. I think poets ought not to take themselves too seriously.

In 2010 and really throughout most of my adult life I wrote what I liked and liked what I wrote. But that's not to deny that really no more than about 20% of what I've done is really publishable. The books, though falling randomly into my lap, always seemed to fill a need for knowledge & inspiration, and there is no shortage of first-rate poets, critics and exceptionally talented people out there with something significant to say about art, life and the cosmos. The authors, poets, & critics I read are really a sort of privilege I don't share with many, except, of course, Amazon.com. The name-dropper, in any sort of company, is really the most pernicious killjoy there is.

I'd like to say as well that I'm a Canadian, first and foremost, a product of a distinctively modernist (Anglo-Saxon) tradition of which I'm proud, and to our language, landscape and mannerisms I've always headed my own poetical fires. My blog was intended for an exclusively Canadian audience, the hope being that a type of Canadian poetry network could arise through interactions & sharing of resources but my interests took me to generally more receptive and sympathetic groups elsewhere. With some exceptions, I've found the Canadian mainstream crowd to be a particularly arrogant & cliquish bunch. I know what I like but am also a pretty assiduous student of different  styles, methodologies & traditions. I hope anyone who's visited my site has seen that: if not, I've got some work to do.

Finally, I would  like to begin a tradition, at every year's end, of showing my gratitude to the few out there in the blogosphere who've helped make blogging for me a particularly enriching experience. To the following people I say thank you for a year of sharing, critiquing and respectful bickering: Ed Baker, Curtis Faville, Joseph Hutchison, William Michaelian, Vassilis Zambaras, & Irina Moga.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou"