An Open Letter to Matrix:

How did you get so perfect? “The New Canadian Pornography” by angela rawlings, “The Writer’s Hobbyhorse” by Steve Luxton, featured poetry by Anastasia Jones about Betty, Veronica, etc.—all touch on stuff I am trying to write, and present (much like a baboon presenting red ass) ideas for looting—er—inspiration. Um, weird metaphor. Maybe I should go back to reading Matrix for more inspiration.

Anyway, my Stampede poetry project (so far) is aimed at exposing the absurdity of the romanticized rural, the cultural violence of the Western pastoral that Steve Luxton is interested in—though instead of writing about Western heroes like Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickock as Luxton does, or about Billy the Kid (my favourite book of all time, tied with XEclogue by Lisa Robertson, is The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje), I am writing about “Cowboy Poetry” and “St. Ampede” and uh Wonder Woman. I’ve been writing a lot about sex, sexism, gender, slang and violence with the Booty MS (TWAT Team material—still no word on WHEN WHEN WHEN it will be published) and the Stampede project is a way to continue writing the good fight, but this time in context of gender modeling in a very specific place I know very well—good ol’ cowtown. So you see, the rawlings landscape pornography, the Jones treatment of comics characters’ inner lives, the Luxton discussion of the Western Romance, all give me a prod in the direction of sitting down and getting to writing the Stampede. So I will. Go write.

Thank you, I love you,

Jill