Here’s a new way to avoid studying. I’ve been updating my curriculum vitae and also my acknowledgments. Back when I was psyched about publishing my as yet unpublishable manuscript, I wrote an acknowledgments page, which was obviously a bit premature, but seemed like an important part of the process. Sucks that it’s not a matter of public record, but hey! I have a blog; anything can be public. So, if you were to read to the end of a book of Natalie Simpson poems, here’s what you would find:

I am indebted to the editors of the magazines that have published versions of some of these poems: West Coast Line, Queen Street Quarterly, dANDelion, filling Station, endnote, phu on line, (orange), in grave ink, sudden magazine; to derek beaulieu’s housepress, ryan fitzpatrick’s MODL press, rob mclennan’s above/ground press, and to No Press for publishing some of these poems as chapbooks; to Jon Paul Fiorentino and Robert Kroetsch for publishing “Sentencing” in their Post Prairie anthology and to derek beaulieu, Jason Christie and Angela Rawlings for publishing several poems in their anthology Shift & Switch. I am also grateful to the many event organizers who have allowed me to read to enthusiastic audiences and with distinguished colleagues: the Markin-Flanagan Program, the Alley Alley Home Free Fred Wah symposium organizers, the Bodies and Texts Symposium committee, the 2001 Free Exchange commitee, Jason Christie’s YARD series, past and current editorial collectives of filling Station and dANDelion magazines, the Word on the Street, the Spoken Word Festival, and of course and always the phu collective.

I think it’s really important to acknowledge readings as well as publishings, because getting to do readings is kind of the point of being published. Also, publication can be a somewhat hollow accomplishment, but giving a good reading and seeing how the audience reacts to your work is the best thing in the world. I love that moment of connection, when you feel that you control the energy in the room through nothing more than your voice and your words; it’s a tremendous sense of power and of vulnerability.

Acknowledgments are actually pretty hard to write. I think the best acknowledgments page I’ve read was in Julia Williams’ The Sink House. She strikes the perfect balance between sincerity and dignity; it’s very sweet without gushing. Mine are accurate but somehow incomplete. I should add a thank to you to everyone in the Calgary writing community generally, and maybe more specific thank yous. Hmm, I’ll have to spend more time on this. Screw my civil litigation exam.