Samantha Jones's and the Worry Maps of Doom is what is driving my creativity this week.

This got me thinking about who sang to me and sent me down a rabbit hole of re-reading Patrick Lane's and Pat Lowther's poetry, doing almost a complete re-read of Sheila Watson's "The Double Hook" one evening, and even committing to tracking down a replacement copy of Ted Hughes's "Crow" and Kenneth Koch's "The Art of Love" to replace volumes I lent out that were never returned. That's what is driving my creativity this week. Who sang to you?

This pisses me off. The poetry in the book is good, great even in places. It could stand on its own. "Pictographs" was published in 1975, long before the concept of cultural appropriation entered mainstream dialogue....So, what would this book have looked like if Fred had partnered with indigenous knowledge keepers from the different nations whose work is featured in Corner's original book? What masterpiece could have been?

These images are haunting and the poetry really packs a punch. Poetry and painting really are two sides of the same coin. Every single poet I know is as equally moved by visual art as they are by words. There are endless books and articles on how artists and poets draw on the same well of creativity. One could spend the rest of one's life exploring this space, and now that I mention it, that sounds like a pretty good idea. There are worse ways fight against the entropy of an uncaring universe.