And then there were twelve...

Read & Write: The Pencil Project

Read poems & write something & help kids read poems & write things.

A fundraiser for the Sarvajanik Highschool in Navsari, India.

On sale Sept. 18 & 19 at the Queen West Art Crawl in Trinity-Bellwoods Park (Booth E7).

Read&Write: Paul Vermeersch

And now the sharpened spear is ever sharper in the mind, and swifter and more beautiful.

Now, how's that for an ending?! This is the final pencil of the Pencil Project, courtesy of poet Paul Vermeersch. Paul was my first - the first person I ever worked with at my first indie bookstore, and the first published poet I had ever met. He's published several collections, including Burn, The Fat Kid, Between the Walls, and most recently, The Reinvention of the Human Hand (and the award for best book titles ever goes to...). These days Paul teaches at Sheridan College, and is also the poetry editor for Insomniac Press. Paul is one smart motherf*cker, and I have to admit I was pretty intimidated by him at first. One time I asked him what his plans were for the weekend, and he said he was very excited to see the new Spiderman movie. I didn't take him for an action-movie kinda guy and I must have looked confused, because he looked at me and shrugged and said "I can't be an artsy-fartsy poet guy all the time." And I thought that was pretty great. Paul's pencil poem is the lengthiest of all the pencil poems (and about 13 characters over the limit), but I came across it as I was reading his latest collection and knew that it had to close the show. Lucky for me, he gave me permission to use it. It was also a bit of a challenge to engrave - it was a tense moment indeed as I watched these pencils all a'quiver underneath so many passes of the laser. But they worked! And I love that when you use this pencil (if you can bring yourself to actually use it, I know I can't), the shorter it gets, it becomes more beautiful. And there you have it folks - twelve pencil poems in twelve days. They will all be on display and for sale at the Queen West Art Crawl this weekend in Toronto. And for all you out-of-towners, I'll be posting details sometime next week about how you can get your hands on 'em.

Read&Write: Nick Thran

This kid can fly...

At this hour my hands are at least as good as wings.

...no, seriously - he plays basketball. I ain't ever seen him play, but I'm sure he can jump real high. Nick Thran might be second-last (pencil wise), but to me he's number one. I don't recall being quite so excited about a new book as I was when his first collection of poetry, Every Inadequate Name, came out. Perhaps this is because we were both working together at Book City when it was published - two youngish kids who cared way too much about their whatever jobs, each of us just waiting for bigger and better things to come along. And they did - he wrote a book, met Sue Sinclair, married Sue Sinclair, moved to New York to study at NYU, and is working on another collection! I sent a copy of Every Inadequate Name to my best friend Genevieve in Tokyo and after she read it she said, "he thinks just like us!" and I guess that's why I like his work so much. I want to share one of his poems here but it's almost impossible to choose just one. But since Nick's introduced me to some great music, I'll share this.

How Pop Sounds

You and a friend are listening to music.

Pop Music. You know what Pop Music is –

though you may not like it.

Forget you. This is about falling in love

with something dated.

About leaving, losing touch, then years

later hearing that same love skewed

in a new band’s blood. About turning

the volume up, and pressing repeat

until you’re touched again.

This is about wave, new wave, and new

new wave. How your first time lasted exactly

two minutes and thirteen seconds –

the perfect length, you thought.

Awkwardness, elation, guilt, and confusion

key to a verse/chorus,

rising and falling. Anywhere

and anytime. Over again

and again and again and again.

I’m sick of this song, your friend says.

This must be the worst music

ever invented. When was the last time

the sugar wore off? The last time

you looked him straight in the eye

and told him how you heard this same song

sung by a boy

at the edge of a candlelit dock

over the lake where his best friend drowned?

You don’t know shit, you want to say.

You don’t know how Pop sounds.

*My apologies for the shitty formatting. Blogspot's being a bitch right now and it's late at night and I want to go to bed and I can't fix it.

Read&Write: Souvankham Thammavongsa

A firefly is a tiny elegant speech in the dark.

We're nearing the homestretch, homies. The tenth pencil of the Pencil Project is brought to you by poet Souvankham Thammavongsa, the mind behind the two tiny and elegant volumes Small Arguments and Found, both published by Pedlar Press, and the latter of which was made into a short film by director Paramita Nath . I've known Sou since, get ready for it, seventh grade! Well, actually, I knew her younger brother - he sat next to me in homeroom - but I was much more interested in his sister and before long, we were passing messages to each other through him, and writing each other letters like teenaged girls do. Junior high turned into high school turned into university and I finally re-connected with Sou just a few years ago, when she was doing a reading with Ken Babstock at the Runnymede Public Library a few blocks away from the Book City I was then working at. When I learned about the event, I volunteered to carry a box of her books down the street to sell and for her to sign. Though the books were small, I wasn't ready for how heavy a box of them would be - I still remember the ache in my arms and how embarrassingly out of breath I was when I finally got to the library. Alas, the heaviness did not end there. Sou read from Found, a book I hadn't had a chance to look at yet, and it was quite possibly the heaviest, most intense and moving thing I had ever experienced - all in a good way! I ain't gonna lie, I totally cried. Found is a collection of poems based on a scrapbook Sou's father kept while living in a Lao refugee camp in Thailand, which he threw out and which Sou promptly rescued. In it are stamps, addresses, a few careful and symbolic strokes through the dates on a calendar, and through this Sou manages to piece together a family and a past that I imagine still remain very mysterious to her. Her reading was all the more dramatic because Sou is the most precious little creature you've ever laid eyes on, as small and beautiful as her poems, with a soft voice that you have to strain to hear but that you continue to hear in your head long after she's spoken. Of all the pencil poets, Sou is the one I knew first and she was the first to contribute to this project, and I'm super pleased that she's a part of it.

Read&Write: Sue Sinclair

An ode to small things:

Pencil: Soft pink nose & silver eye, o little mouse, o little muse.

If there was a prize for the cutest pencil in the world, then this pencil would surely win it. Pencil #9 features a tiny little appreciation from poet Sue Sinclair, whose books include The Drunken, Lovely Bird, Secrets of Weather and Hope, Mortal Arguments, and most recently, Breaker. I met Sue when I started working at Book City over six years ago. She quickly became one of my favourite people, and to this day she's a pretty big deal in my life. In those days, working with Sue meant dancing in the bookstore, reading poems out loud for everyone to hear whether they liked it or not, and ogling the occasional fashion magazine. Sue lives in New York now, where she reads and writes about beauty and aesthetics, so hanging out with her these days means lovely dinners, long walks, ice cream and lots of talking. She's the person that I confide in with all my fears and hopes and concerns, and after a couple hours with her my head is clear and somehow I know myself better. For instance, after telling her about some recent changes and fun things that have happened lately, she pointed out that I might just be a Feminist! Who knew! I certainly didn't! Sue got married this past summer (and she managed to compose her pencil poem while getting her hair done!) and at her shower all the guests shared a poem. I knew right away which poem I was gonna read - a poem that Sue had actually read to me when we were stuck working at the bookstore one New Years Day. The problem was I had no idea what the poem was called, but had vague memories of scribbling a line or two from it down in my Moleskine all those years ago. This prompted an excavation of every journal and notebook I've ever written in to try and find those lines, and eventually I found it in a datebook from 2006. Clearly it had stuck with me, and reading it at her shower was the first time I had ever read a poem out loud to anyone, let alone a group of people. And it felt good! Here's the stanza I read from Don Coles' K. in Love:

I was with a few people the other night / And made some lighthearted remarks / About you. Anybody would think / I cared about you only / To the usual degree. But / Every time I mentioned your name / I was holding onto the table.

I finally managed to find the actual poem (it's in a collection of Coles' first six books, called How We All Swiftly) and only just today read K. In Love in its entirety. Here are some other bits from it that I like:

Think if by some accident we now / Forgot each other, how would / Our huge uncompleted feelings / Ever find enough to do in the world?

There must be enormous areas of pressure / Like huge dim balloons / Bobbing around in different places, / The result of deaths of / People who didn't finish explaining / How they felt about somebody.

Of course it's far from necessary / To die in order to quicken / This sensation of unfinished business. / I have a lot of previous selves, / Most of them dissatisfied, who think / Everything they have ever felt / Is only a first draft of what they could have felt.

Damn, that last bit is killer! D. Coles, I hear you, brotha! (Hey! Did you know that Ghostface Killah is also really a D. Coles?! Dennis Coles. There's yer G-Uknit factoid for today). Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Sue's pencil. She was so excited when she read it to me that it killed me to tell her that the "soft pink nose" she described was actually white - the pencils I used for the project all have white erasers at the end - so it wouldn't make sense! But I liked her line so much that rather than change it, I changed the erasers. Sue is the kinda gal that stands out in a crowd, so there's no reason why her pencils shouldn't either.

Read&Write: Sarah Selecky

This pencil is for the party.You cannot know what your story is until you write it.

We're two thirds in, pencil people! The eighth installment of the Pencil Project comes from Sarah Selecky. In addition to being published in the likes of Walrus, Geist, Event, and The New Quarterly, Sarah also teaches short story and creative writing workshops. Out of all the writers and artists that have contributed to this project, Sarah is the only one I first met through craft. After seeing my stuff at at Trunk Show or two, Sarah contacted me a couple years ago and asked me to make some tiny acorn necklaces for the flower girls at her wedding. I believe it was my first commission! It was only after the acorn deal that I started to bump into her at the bookstore. This past spring, Sarah published This Cake is for the Party, her first short story collection. And when I found out that we (i.e., TYPE) would be selling books at her launch party, I enthusiastically volunteered - both because I wanted to celebrate Sarah's big day, and because the party was at OMG Baked Goodness over on Dundas West. Books, friends and cupcakes? Sign me up!

Read&Write: George Murray

Five years was twenty years ten years ago.

Just about the time I started this project, poet George Murray was putting the final touches on his latest project, Glimpse, a book of selected aphorisms published by ECW Press. Another case of perfect timing! George was kind enough to send me the proofs of his book and let me choose whichever aphorism I wanted. I didn't realize how overwhelming this task would be, as the book is full of pencil poem potential! (Glimpse is out now and I highly suggest you pick it up). I settled on the one above because it very accurately describes how I've been feeling these days. I turn thirty this year (I know, how did this happen?!), and never before have I been so conscious of time - how I've spent it and what I'm going to do with what's left of it. One thing I spend a lot of time doing is reading Bookninja - undoubtedly the best literary site in the world, founded and published by Mr. Murray. Some people watch the news or read the newspaper or listen to the radio to find out about the world and arm themselves with knowledge. I read Bookninja. And if you don't, then you should start.

Read&Write: Alayna Munce

If only...Ah, to give up forever all get-rich-quick schemes of the heart...

Well, friends, we're halfway there. The sixth pencil of the Pencil Project comes from Alayna Munce, a Parkdale-based poet and novelist, and the author of one my most favourite books in the entire world, When I Was Young & In My Prime published by Nightwood Editions in 2005. As a rule, I do not re-read books. It's a pretty stupid rule, but if the stack of books waiting for you on your nightstand is as high as mine, I'm sure you understand. And while I have not intentionally re-read Alayna's book from beginning to end, I pick it up often and just read a page here and there because, seriously, each page of her novel is absolutely stunning. Before I worked at TYPE I worked at Toronto's other indie, Book City. That's where I met my dear friend Sue (you'll read more about her later on), who just happened to be Alayna's roommate. I remember how tingly I would feel when I would call the house looking for Sue and Alayna would answer and I would have to keep myself from gushing like a teenager about how much I loved her book. Soon phonecalls turned into actual visits and a few parties and craft nights later, I'm proud to consider Alayna a friend, a woman who is just as beautiful and warm as the story she's written, if not more. Like, for instance, let me just crack open the book right now. Here we go, page 198:

Addicted to Tolstoy lately. I'm a sucker for his impossible blend of moralistic romanticism and brute realism. Plus, War and Peace is quite simply a page-turner. Who knew?

When I'm caught with a stranger in the elevator in Gloria's building I can't help thinking about the peasant Nikita from the story Master and Man who, from kind-hearted politeness, always says something to anyone he's alone with. In the elevator, I try at least to meet eyes, nod. It's exhausting. So many people. Some of them unwilling to meet you halfway, stonily thwarting your noble effort. Some of them too willing, bottomless pits. Makes me want to hole up in the apartment and never come out.

A five-story building of bachelor apartments, twenty apartments on each floor. When in human history have people lived alone like this unless they were hermits or outcasts?

I take a walk by the lake. When I get back to the building, I decide to take the stairs, both for the exercise and to avoid having to small-talk in the elevator.

There's a guy in the stairwell playing his guitar. I climb into his sound. He's singing a song with a chorus about the grand design. You go your way and I'll go mine. Ah, the grand design...He stops playing as I pass.

"Great acoustics in here, " he says, shy.

And, feeling genuinely sociable for the first time in weeks, I say, "I'll say."

Read&Write: Derek McCormack

Clever 'Corm.

Get the lead out.

I feel like everyone in the world (or at least everyone in my world) knows Derek McCormack, so it's kinda weird for me to "introduce" him here. Derek is a novelist and columnist for the National Post. He is seriously into fashion, country music and Halloween, and to call him a Minimalist would be an overstatement (see pencil above). Derek's written lots of stuff - including a collaboration with illustrator Seth called Christmas Days, and most recently the novel The Show That Smells. This past summer the Montreal theatre group Sidemart Theatrical Grocery produced a musical adaptation of his previous novel, The Haunted Hillbilly, which premiered in Toronto at Summerworks. When asked for permission to adapt his novel, Derek was thrilled and gave the company his blessing, so long as "they didn't take the gay out." And believe me, they didn't! Aside from being "among the best writers in the country" and an "evil little blessing," 'Corm also works with me at TYPE. All those gorgeous art and design books at the front of the shop? Yeah, he's responsible for all those. The man's got amazing taste and I look forward to working with him every single Saturday, where we chat all day long and listen to Morrissey and the Magnetic Fields. One Saturday we were looking at Dolly Parton's Twitter page and Derek, speaking to no one in particular and to everyone in general, threw this gem into the world: "You think you're smarter than Dolly Parton? You're not." Oh, my darling 'Corm!

Warhol/Parton, taken at the SFMOMA last month.

Read&Write: Micah Lexier

Sign on the dotted line...

Pencil #4 is designed by Toronto artist Micah Lexier. Micah is seriously into paper, cardboard boxes, numbers, and arrows. When he comes into the shop, we often fondle books together and are intrigued more by paper stock, trim size and font than what the book is even all about. One of Micah's most recent projects is an installation at the Bank of Montreal head office in Toronto, entitled I AM THE COIN, in which he's studded an entire wall with 20,000 custom-minted coins, each bearing it's own letter and spelling out a short story (called "I am the Coin") by Toronto writer Derek McCormack (who introduced me to Micah, and who you'll hear more about very soon). If you can't check out I AM THE COIN, I encourage you to read the story and watch the time-lapse installation. I'm so honoured to have Micah involved in this project, and I'm already lovin' my Micah pencil. I hope you will pick one up (or 12) and write your own poem on it. Fill in the blanks, kids!

Read&Write: Lynn Crosbie

Spoiler alert.

You have been dead 28 years. I see what is left in the stars.

Do you have goosebumps? 'Cuz that just gave me goosebumps. The third installment of the Pencil Project is courtesy of Lynn Crosbie. Lynn writes a kick-ass weekly cultural criticism column for the Globe, and is the author of Miss Pamela's Mercy, VillianElle, Pearl, Queen Rat, and Liar (and that's just the poetry) and her appreciation of Michael Jackson written last year is most definitely worth a gander. Lynn describes the line above as a crystallization of her new book - consider this wooden pencil the official teaser! A G-Uknit exclusive, yo! A leak, if you will. I met Lynn over the summer when she walked into the bookshop (as she often does) one fine Saturday afternoon needing something to read. I love when Lynn comes in. Mostly because she swears like a sailor and I really love swearing and people who swear. But I was super nervous because how the hell do you recommend a book to Lynn Crosbie? I mentioned that I was reading Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You. And she bought it. And I was more nervous. But she liked it. And she called and told me she liked it. And that made my day.

Read&Write: Kyle "Young Buck" Buckley

If you've ever walked into TYPE Books, chances are you've met Kyle Buckley.I want a forgetfulness based on my own thinking in transit.

And if you've met Kyle Buckley, chances are you left the shop with a copy of his first book, The Laundromat Essay tucked under your arm and with your twelve bucks tucked into our till. And if you've already read his book, then chances are he's managed to get you to read the likes of Tao Lin, Cesar Aira, and Jean-Philippe Toussaint, too, 'cuz homie handsells like a motherf*cker. He has impeccable taste and will hook you up - talk to him and never read a bad book again. He's also really into college basketball. I've been lucky to work alongside Kyle at TYPE for just over two years now, and I'm super pumped that he's part of this project. In fact, Kyle was the first person to see my pencil prototype and enthusiastically jumped on board. He's such a team player! Go read his book if you know what's good for ya, and come buy his pencil at the Art Crawl, y'all.

Read&Write: Elizabeth Bachinsky

It's the first day of school. Don't forget your pencils.

This borrowed pencil, I hope, will make it to the end of this poem.

Here she is, the first poemling of the Pencil Project, courtesy of Elizabeth Bachinsky. Elizabeth lives in Vancouver and has published three books of poetry - Home of Sudden Service (which I know I've referred to on this blog before), God of Missed Connections, and most recently, Curio. I've been a fan of Ms. Bachinsky for a few years now and we share some mutual friends (you'll hear all about them later). This summer, I attended the wedding of said friends and had the honour of shaking my tail in very close proximity to Liz on the dancefloor, but was still too shy to introduce myself. I resorted to creepy Facebook stalking and newly-wed name dropping to get her to contribute to this project and lucky for me, she was happy to oblige. Elizabeth's line comes from a new poem she just wrote in Montreal called "Sharpened Pencils". The timing for this collaboration couldn't be more perfect! I encourage you to check out her work if you haven't already. And in case you didn't know, she's a serious babe.

I wonder what tomorrow's pencil will bring?

Read&Write:The Pencil Project

So, remember that sneak peek from a while ago? Well, the Project is finally complete. I think I mentioned sometime before that Labour Day always feels like the beginning of a new year (even though I haven't been a student in forever) so it’s fitting to reveal what I've been working on all summer long today.

The Principal's office at Sarvajanik Highschool (Navsari, India)

Read&Write: The Pencil Project is a crafty, collaborative fundraising endeavour that combines several aspects of my life that don't always get to play together. You see, when I'm not making things, I spend a couple days a week selling books and hanging out with other book people - writers, readers, poets, etc.. And when I'm not working or crafting, I'm hanging out (or dreaming of hanging out) in a sleepy little village in northern-ish India. When I was there earlier this year, I attended a Republic Day assembly at the local highschool - the same highschool where my folks first met and graduated from in the sixties. The students at this school are mostly the children of farmers or field workers and, as I discovered during my visit, neither the school nor the students have very much money. The Republic Day celebration included an awards assembly and as these bright young kids marched up to the stage to accept their prizes from the Principal (there was an award for needle crafts!), it was heartbreaking to see that many of them (the older students in particular) didn't have shoes on - not even cheap, plastic chappals (i.e., flip flops - the footwear of choice out there). "Surely we can do better than this!" I thought, and managed to scrounge up a couple hundred bucks to donate to the school, that would be passed along to the kids. The donation didn't mean much to me - a month or two of going without a trip to Soundscapes, skipping out on some new skinny jeans, that sort of thing. But the more I thought about those kids, and the more time I spent with the Principal and staff of the school, the more obligated I felt to do something for them.

Primary school students with their Republic Day awards (above); a typical classroom (below).

While I don't have huge amounts of money to donate (I make things and sell books, remember?), I do have hands and a group of fabulous and talented friends, so with the help of some crafty pals and a dozen mostly-local writers, poets, and artists, I came up with Read&Write: The Pencil Project – a series of twelve original one line poems or aphorisms, engraved onto wooden pencils. Reaching out to the people I work with or have met through my adventures in bookselling, I managed to convince some truly exceptional writers to donate an original line of text (it had to be a less than 75 characters) which were then burned onto pencils (with the help of Debbie and Karyn) at the workroom. The pencils will be sold in an effort to raise some much-needed funds for the Sarvajanik Highschool and its students. With The Pencil Project, I hope to encourage folks to read poems, to write something, and to help some kids on the other side of the world read poems and write things.

Starting tomorrow (the first day of school!), I will reveal a different pencil poem everyday, and the entire series will be on display and for sale at my booth at the Queen West Art Crawl on September 18th and 19th . I hope that you’ll check ‘em out, in person or here on G-Uknit, and tell me what you think! Happy Labour Day, y’all.

Most of the desks in the classroom above were very tidy except for this one, which was way in the very back corner of the room. A closer look revealed the name of the vandal:

I'm not kidding.

Sneak Peek

Here's the prototype for a top-secret project I'm working on this summer (thanks in large part to the lovely ladies and laser engraving machine over at The Workroom). It's pretty exciting, just you wait and see. All I can say for now is, forget Twitter - it's all about fittin' shit on pencils. Also, anyone who can tell me who spit this line wins a set of whatever it is I'm doing here.