Here’s a random sample from my letters. I’m contemplating a project, here online, to add to the choices for supporters of my Patreon Pages. This is an example of one of middling interest. Opinions are welcome. I think the comments section is still functional, and I’ll start keeping track of what might be there tomorrow. The section would be called The Letter-writer. If you think this is a good idea, and if leaving comments is not your style, email me at [email protected].
April 17, 2005
Victor Enns
200 Lenore Street
Winnipeg, MB R3G 2C5
Patricia Blondal* Memorial Retreat
c/o Manitoba Writers Guild
2nd floor, 100 Arthur Street
Winnipeg, MB R3B 1H3
I would love another stay at the Patricia Blondal Writer’s retreat. It has totally revitalized my writing career. I want to go back another month there this summer, preferably July.
Patricia Blondal’s small town in A candle to light the sun was called Mouse Bluffs. She didn’t fool Manitobans, and likely she didn’t give a hot damn. Mouse Bluffs had a swinging suspension bridge, just like Souris, this bridge in all likelihood.
I have been a good tenant, and would hope that the retreat views me as one of their success stories. My new collection Lucky Man debuts April 26. It was completed there last summer. The first four poems in my submission for the retreat this summer were all written just last summer and are published this spring in this new collection, which includes an acknowledgement to the Blondal retreat.
During my stay this summer I would be working on two primary and one subsidiary project. I enclose samples. The first primary project would be The Jimmy Bang Blues Project, which is a sequel to my most successful work Jimmy Bang Poems. Jimmy is reincarnated as a seriously depressed bluesman. His blues are prefaced by An Abject Dictionary. This is going to be incredibly tough territory, and not the only thing I can be working on while I’m at the retreat. I am working on a collection of middle-aged love poems, remembering a time when love poetry was the heart of the matter. This is a reprieve to darkness, as love moves toward the light. The last poem included is from a project still a long way out. It’s 1963 ** a collection of poems jamming the historical year (Pearson more than Kennedy) into a significant year in the life of an 8 year old who loses his innocence through bullying, reading and sexual assault. There is only one poem finished yet in this series.
Image by Allan Hessler, book available from Radiant Press.
I can’t be exactly sure which project will generate the most new poems, but a stay at the Patricia Blondal Memorial Writer’s retreat always generates new poems, up to 10 a week. Many are discarded, but many are deeply worthwhile and will end up as published work.
I ask for the privilege of being able to return and continue my work as a writer, in the one month a year I am able to steal from my life as an arts advocate and a father. Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Victor Enns
*Her novel A Candle to Light the Sun was a highlight of our reading list for David Arnason’s Canadian Literature Class.
** This was boy, (Hagios 2012) the first published of the three. The middle aged love poems will be published by Radiant Press in the fall of 2019.