The Counterfactual: A Workshop with Rhea Tregebov

 19 February 2013, 6-8:30pm

Location: 401 Richmond Street West, Studio 408

The counterfactual – what didn’t happen, the path not taken or the path not there – can be a fundamental source of creativity. This workshop will examine how departures from our own, or world, history generate writing. What is the mindset that fosters imagination? Whether we are writing poetry with autobiographical sources, or speculative fiction that builds invented worlds, one of the more alarming aspects of writing is the pressure to “make something up.” Iconoclastic micro-fiction writer Etgar Keret has said that he is interested in writing stories that are fundamentally true, not factually true. How do we separate the facts from the truth of our writing, and how do the facts, as well as alternatives to the facts, interact with what we have to say?

Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, Vancouver-based Rhea Tregebov begins her seventh collection, All Souls’ (Signal, 78 pages, $18) with a poem in which “You thought all the poems had grown up / and left home. You didn’t expect to find one / putting its little hands on your face.” A fine, fitting metaphor for the moment of poetic inspiration, which is notoriously difficult to place into words.
To read the complete review, go to Winnipeg Free Press or here.

Rhea Tregebov opens her seventh poetry collection by telling us about a visitation she had that unexpectedly put an end to a period of literary silence: “You thought all the poems had grown up / and left home. / You didn’t expect to find one / putting its little hand on your face.”

This is a book about cycles, such as the poet’s geographical progress from Winnipeg to Toronto, then from Toronto (“I’m such a sorry mess I’ll miss it”) to the West Coast, where she teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Most of all, it centres on the cyclical experiences of families, of watching children becoming adults and adults eventually dying (or in her father’s case, getting lost in dementia): “My father can’t draw the hands of the clock, / can’t draw its face. In his own hand, the pencil / falters, rests.” “Family Dinners,” the last of three poem sequences, is the heart of the book, uniting Tregebov’s themes of childhood, maternity, and decay with gardening, dining, and impermanence.

To read the full review, go to Quill & Quire or here.

TTQ – What inspired you to start writing poetry?
Rhea Tregebov – I was sick a lot as a kid, stayed home from school living in my imagination, very immersed in reading. So that living in my head was what got me started as a writer. Why it was poetry that drew me is a little more obscure, but I think it was in part a distrust of the causality (this happened because of that) that plot implied and in part a strong sense of the value of what went on in my, and by extension, others’, heads – that interior life. 

TTQ – How difficult is it for you to write a great poem?
Rhea Tregebov – Very rarely does the writing come easily. There are a few poems that have come just as gifts, but mostly it’s a question of revision after revision and a lot of sweat in working through to get it right. It feels like I often start with an amorphous block of marble and then have to write my way through, chipping away to the shape of the poem inside. In terms of figuring out what is my best work, that’s pretty hard too, but luckily I have some very adept fellow writers who help me out with that evaluation.

To read the complete article, go to http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.ca/2012/11/rhea-tregebov-all-souls-interview.html

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.

Rhea Tregebov is a poet, novelist and children’s writer. Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, she spent many years in Toronto and then was lured to Vancouver eight years ago by a job in the Creative Writing Program at UBC. Her seventh collection of poetry, All Souls’,was released by Signal Editions/Véhicule Press (Montreal) in September, 2012.  Her historical novel, The Knife-Sharpener’s Bell (Coteau Books), follows a Winnipeg family who make a reverse migration back to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. She’ll be at the Jewish Book Festival on Thursday November 29, at the Vancouver JCC.

What are you currently reading? Your thoughts on it?

I’ve just finished Linda Svendsen’s Sussex Drive, a wickedly funny Ottawa satire with a very frightening, too-close-for-comfort political message. And I’ve started Annabel Lyon’s The Sweet Girl, which features Aristotle’s daughter Pythias, and is a sequel to The Golden Mean, Lyon’s book about the philosopher. I find the way Lyon is able to enter the human mind of Classical times uncanny, unsettling, and fascinating. Since I can never read just one thing at a time, I’ve also started Rachel Rose’s new book of poetry, Song & Spectacle. I’m a long-time fan of Rose’s work, and admire as much the wisdom of how she sees the world as the technique that makes her such a skilled writer.

To read the whole feature, go to http://vancouverisawesome.com/2012/11/28/read-all-over-rhea-tregebov/

The title poem of Rhea Tregebov’s new book on this dark day…

All Souls’ Day

Some moon – full, and fall.

So close it grazes the houses.

The clocks gone back now – six

and it’s near dark. That moon

bright, though, and this city. Cars,

their lights, wash by on pavement

made for them. This sidewalk,

its dates marked in concrete

(1977, 1992), made for me.

By someone. That someone

a soul now perhaps, body

done, in earth. Winter soon.

© Rhea Tregebov

from All Souls’, Signal Editions, Véhicule Press, September 2012

ISBN: 978-155065-338-0

http://rheatregebov.ca

Thursday Nov 29 @ 6:30pm

MEET THE AUTHORS From Poetry to Prose and Back

Rhea Tregebov / All Souls’

Susan Glickman / Smooth Yarrow            

 Isa Millman / Something Small to Carry Home

Tickets: $14.00  BUY TICKETS ONLINE >>             or call 604-257-5111

Susan Glickman’s sixth collection of poetry, The Smooth Yarrow, just came out in May. According to Quill and Quire, “Glickman’s writing is defiant: like yarrow, it is lean and strong, not only beautiful, but possessed of myriad healing properties.” She is also the author of two novels for adults, The Violin Lover, which won the 2006 Canadian Jewish Fiction Award, and The Tale-Teller, which just came out this autumn, the “Lunch Bunch” series of children’s books, and a prize-winning work of literary criticism, The Picturesque & The Sublime: A Poetics of the Canadian Landscape.”

Isa Milman is a poet and visual artist who lives in Victoria, BC. Born a displaced person in Germany in 1949, she grew up in the United States and came to Canada in 1975. She’s a graduate of Tufts University, and holds a Masters of Rehabilitation Science from McGill, where she taught for a decade. She is the author of Between the Doorposts (Ekstasis Editions, 2004) and Prairie Kaddish (Coteau Books, 2008), both of which won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for poetry. Her latest collection, Something Small to Carry Home, was published by Quattro Books in April 2012.

Bluesy, opinionated, sly, self-chastising and tender, Rhea Tregebov’s All Souls’—her first collection since 2004—commands a range of tones wider and bolder than anything in her previous six books of poetry. Inspired by crises both personal (divorce, adult children, aging parents) and societal (global warming, financial implosion),All Souls’ bracingly addresses the quandary at the heart of our present moment: the fear of change and the fear of standing still. Enriched by a sharp palate and crackling with confidence, Tregebov’s new poems capture life in all its rueful aspects, and do so with a lyricism of considerable beauty and power.

Reading from Rhea Tregebov’s 7th Collection of Poetry, All Souls’

MAINSTAGE: VOICES FROM OODENA/VOIX D’OODENA September 23, 2012 { 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm}

Oodena, the natural amphitheatre at The Forks, has been a gathering place for centuries. THIN AIR celebrates that history with a collage of commissioned work from writers who have made a mark on the local scene. Gather on the stairs for a magical evening of words in many flavours. Bring a jacket—the air is cool as the sun sets.
Admission is free. Books for sale on-site. Inclement weather: Centre Court, The Forks Market

The poems in The Secret Signature of Things are immersed in the rich landscape of British Columbia. In the first section of the book, Menagerie, Joseph takes on the voices of 10 resident creatures, some native to B.C., some domestic. By inhabiting this variety of creatures, Joseph extends the usual limits of the lyric, allowing the reader to imaginatively enter into the point of view of the subjects of her poems – crow, carp, swallow – whose voices she assumes. Joseph employs a lean, streamlined lyric, reliant on the clarity and integrity of her images.

To read full review, go to: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-secret-signature-of-things-by-eve-joseph/article1714924/

Reviewed by Rhea Tregebov

Globe and Mail Update Published on  Monday, Sep. 20, 2010 12:37PM EDT

Sunday, September 26^th at 3 pm.

 Ekphrasis Twelve at the AGO

This project brings together twelve recognized poets, dancers and musicians taking inspiration from the permanent collections at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Ekphrasis, one form of art commenting on another, goes back to Ancient Greece and continues on as a vital form in our century. Artists of every stripe have long found inspiration in the artistic expression of their peers and forbears. At the AGO, you can have it all: artworks that inspire and a diverse collection of creative responses, works of art in their own right.

Join poets Rhea Tregebov, Alison Watt, Sue Chenette, Sue MacLeod, John Reibetanz, Jim Nason, Helen Humphreys, Joanne Page, Julie Salverson, dancers Julia Aplin and Hope Terry, and jazz cellist Kye Marshall for an afternoon of poetry, music and dance.

Walker Court at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Regular admission prices apply.

 Ekphrasis: a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another… and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness… For example, a painting may re-present a sculpture; a poem portray a picture; a sculpture depict a heroine of a novel; in fact, given the right circumstances, any art may describe any other art (Wikipedia).

Even more impressive, here’s the same three year old reciting all 30 lines of former US poet laureate Billy Collin’s “Litany”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y&feature=player_embedded

Here’s the text of the poem:

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine. 

© Billy Collins

I know YouTube videos are suspect, but this three year old seems genuinely to love the poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzk8E_RKeQ4&feature=player_embedded

Here’s Tennyson’s text:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

1851

Triny Finlay’s second collection of poetry, Histories Haunt Us, intends to unpack past events in order to comprehend their impact on the present. Finlay’s method is delicate, elliptical. The book’s first section, New Astronomers, opens with a series of five poems examining loss in the context of the speaker’s fragile psychological state: “pills and group and pills and group and pills” (Abstract Loss, 4).

To read full review, go to: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-histories-haunt-us-by-triny-finlay/article1674454/

Reviewed by Rhea Tregebov

Globe and Mail Update Published on Monday, Aug. 16, 2010 12:28PM EDT

The Daily Review, Wed., Aug. 4

‘Out beyond the window’

George Sipos

George Sipos’s new collection is technically brilliant and free of the romanticizing common to poetry about nature.

Review by Rhea Tregebov: To read complete article, go to:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-glassblowers-by-george-sipos/article1661508/

A glimpse of the amazing La Muse Writers’ Retreat. Rhea reading new poems, some written there. Two links: one (5 1/2 minutes) and the second one  (less than a minute). The baby cooing is John and Kerry’s daughter Gloria, one of  the muses of La Muse.

Part 1

Part 2