Marion Agnew

Just to the years. Not me. I'm still here. Goodbye to 2020. Hello to 2021. Here's a random photo, the earliest I downloaded in January last year. No, my name is not Beth, but that's what I tell people when they're making me fancy coffee drinks. It's easier to spell, nobody feels impatient or stupid, and I don't have to drink out of a cup meant for Marianne, Maureen, Maran, etc.  Ah, Beth, we could never have predicted 2020.  Let's do all we can to make 2021 a good year.  Think about the people whose work we've deemed "essential": caring for our health, and the health of our elders. Stocking grocery shelves and packing grocery orders, growing and harvesting and packaging food, driving the trucks that bring it closer to us, cooking it and  bringing it to our homes. Doing all of those same things for prescription drugs. Keeping networks and systems generally functioning so we can connect virtually.  We owe them so much. We can pay them back both i...

Is it an accident that two of my favourite books of the past year both address the concept of receiving or claiming credit? (No.) In If Sylvie Had Nine Lives , by Leona Theis, Sylvia wonders why there's no real way to get credit for all the things she manages to not shoplift.   And in Marina Endicott's The Difference (AKA The Voyage of the Morning Light ), Kay wishes that people could know just how many pieces of cake she has managed not to eat, how chubby she might have been. Sorry, I don't have page references for these ideas--you'll just have to read the whole books (you'll thank me later). My point here is this: in December of most years, I look at what I'd hoped to accomplish and see where I fell short. It's harder, in spite of all the urging from self-help self-care gurus, to think about what I did get done. I try--I even write a list every Friday of things that happened that week that I'm proud of. But it's easier to focus on the areas where ...

Last month, I showed a stack of books that constitutes part of my antiracism reading since June. I’ve written about How to Be An Antiracist most recently, here ; about Me and White Supremacy , here ; and about So You Want to Talk About Race , here . Today I want to highlight Black people in Canada. Although all people currently living in North America share history, Canada also has its own history to reckon with. And the two books below are excellent places to start. The Skin We’re In , by Desmond Cole , has won All The Awards, and deservedly so. Cole, a journalist and activist, writes about one year (2017) in journalism in Canada, primarily Toronto. Thirteen broad topics, all different and all depressingly the same, shed light on parts of Canada’s past and present that most of us would prefer to ignore. It’s full of research and great explanations, straight talk and vivid descriptions. I appreciated how Cole doesn’t mince words. Early on, he sets up the reader for what to e...

We’re approaching the shortest day of the year, which marks the official start of winter. We’ve had some snow, and some lingers in the grass, but more snow has stuck around in other years. Parts of the lake are freezing already, and skaters are at play.   Squirrels and bears and foxes around us have been preparing for a full season already. The stretch of grass between our porch and my car is lumpy with squirrel treasures, buried there for “later.”   Recently, the dark fox came trotting up near the house, carrying something. It scouted and pawed in various places, apparently looking for soft dirt to bury its prize. I couldn’t get close enough to see what the prize was. I'd feel like a busybody if I looked for it now, though I confess to wandering around where the fox might have had easier digging. (No luck.)     Our human rituals are slightly different. A thermostat drives our heating system, so the heat comes on some nights as early as August, before...

My reading life (and, you know, everything) changed a lot in 2020. Woefully late--far too many years too late--I've begun reading difficult books that relate to racism.  "Difficult" as in "worth doing." "Difficult" as in "prompting re-evaluation of uncomfortable life moments."   NOT "difficult" as in "poorly written" or "wrong."  I can heartily recommend most of the books I've read about Black lives in North America--certainly all of those by Black writers.  This one, How to be an Antiracist , by Ibram X. Kendi , especially. It's valuable not only as a reader but as a writer.  As a reader, I felt that Kendi was my host and companion on a journey. He shows the same generosity of spirit demonstrated in Braiding Sweetgrass , by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who also teaches by invitation and in community. In some ways, How to be an Antiracist is like other nonfiction. As you can see above, the book is explicitly des...

Monday was the one-year anniversary of the official launch of my book, REVERBERATIONS: A DAUGHTER’S MEDITATIONS ON ALZHEIMER’S. The whole world looks a lot different today, in many respects. Pandemic, unprecedented, year of the weird, couldn’t have predicted, etc. But some things haven’t changed, and I want to talk about some of them. First: Family. Families may change in their makeup, but the concept of family—people with whom you belong—stays the same. I’m especially grateful to my family, especially my siblings.   It’s difficult to write personal essays at all. It’s especially difficult when you’re writing about family experiences, which other people may (or may not) have shared. My sister and brothers have been as kind and considerate as I could have hoped, letting me say what I believed to be true while keeping their muttering sotto voce . They’ve been kind advocates for the book, too, which I appreciate.   My launch anniversary coincides with a birthday. This...

Folks, the books. They are coming--all kinds of books. Almost as if everyone recognizes that we will gratefully receive them, coming into winter (as we are in the northern hemisphere).  I've been reading them, and commenting, and thinking, and even posting about them here and on Instagram (where I am spending more time, and where I am, unsurprisingly, marionagnew. Come say hi). I will have more to say about the books below ( I've written about one h ere, and another one here ), and I will share thoughts here in the coming weeks.  For now, look at this lovely stack of books. And not for Americans only! Canadians, the books at the top and bottom are by Canadian authors.  In order, top to bottom: * Black Writers Matter , edited by Whitney French. Regina, Saskatchewan: University of Regina Press, 2019. Twenty-five Black Canadian writers consider so many subjects. So much to be learned from these pages. * How to be an Antiracist , by Ibram K. Kendi. New York: One World, an imp...

What if the world of books were one big dinner party? Or perhaps I mean some other metaphor—perhaps holding hands?*   Let’s stay with the dinner party for now. Sometimes a book is like a new guest at a dinner party of otherwise familiar people—a new energy that creates and directs energy into conversations in new ways.   Of course, that’s always true, in a sense—books live in a context. They’re produced by individuals who live at specific times when specific things are happening. Entire literary theories and theorists debate whether a book can be extracted from its time, and how to handle books that once expressed the best thinking of the time but that now are obviously (and painfully and dreadfully) flawed. But I’m not talking about that, today. What I’m describing is a slightly different experience. While reading Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s To Speak for the Trees , I felt that this book could happily chat at a dinner party (or hold hands) with two other books I’...

Sometimes it feels as if growing older requires consistently lowering expectations of others. Or maybe it just feels that way today. Today, some people are determined to live down to the few expectations I had left for them--I'm looking at you, election officials in Oklahoma, to say nothing of half of the voters who live there.  But. I have a choice. Today, I choose to celebrate people who are doing their best in impossible circumstances.  Random slightly fuzzy photo of a beautiful flower/weed  from the most beautiful place on the planet. Today, I'm celebrating public health officials who are saying hard things in rooms of politicians, and who continue to say these hard things, day after day after day. These people are giving good, science- and experience-based advice.  Their advice is too often ignored and wished away, lalala if I pretend to be responsible, if I raise my voice and tell people to get it together, maybe something good will happen, lalala. I can't imag...

Am I “between,” or am I “in transition”?*   “Between” feels stuck. “In transition” implies movement, but that movement feels passive.   What I need is a good verb. “Transit,” per the dictionary, is both a noun and a verb but it feels very noun-ish.   What are more-active options?   Walk (trudge, shuffle, stride, dance).   Work                 (revise, edit, summarize, write)                 (ask, pitch, request, send)                 (stew, saute, braise, bake)                 (wipe, wash, sanitize, restore).   Wait                     (recognize, acknowledge, celebrate, enjoy...

Last week, I wrote about pre-ordering books as an act of literary citizenship . I'm not nuts about that term, citizenship, because it situates some people "in," with experiences and voices that are somehow more "worthy" or "legitimate," and others "out," and thus "unimportant" or "irrelevant."   So I think more about literary community. And most of the time, I'm not in the big middle of the community. I'm the one hanging back by the snack table, trying to figure out how people on the dance floor get over themselves to have fun in public. Pre-pandemic, of course. The other thing about citizenship is that it brings a set of activities--approved and expected, or less so. Which is neither a pro or con of the concept of citizenship, just a fact.   So. I've just finished a couple of projects, and while working on them, I told myself about other problems, "I'll think about that after the deadlines."  Now...

In this Year of the Weird, I'm coming to understand that pre-ordering can be a significant act of literary citizenship.  Side note:  Here's a link to others' thoughts about the definition and meaning of the term "literary citizenship ." To me, being a good literary citizen is to contribute, in a positive way, to a community to which I also belong--in this case, the community that writes and reads books. And attempting to contribute as much as I benefit. An effort which, I gotta say, in this community, is difficult. Because books! I like books, and I read a lot of books. I have thoughts about them, and sometimes I write about books and those thoughts here. I rarely, if ever, review books--review meaning either "five stars" recommendations or engaged, contextualized criticism worthy of the academy.  Part of the reason I'm circumspect is that I often like books that others don't, for reasons others don't. I also don't like books that others ...

Last week I wrote about some of the Mattie Rigsbees I have known, and how Me and White Supremacy , by Layla F. Saad, has helped give me tools to see them with clearer eyes. You can read that here.   This is a Manitoba Maple I saw while walking and listening to an episode of It Was Said. I goofed around with editing tools on my iPhone. I have so much to learn about anti-racism. Besides reading, I'm listening.   Here are some podcasts I recommend, if you're interested in learning but feel as if you can't read all the things. Links are to web pages or Apple Podcasts. Note that although much of the content focuses on the US, Canada shares a great deal of its history and attitudes. 1619, by The New York Times . Also, this article in Politico about fact-checking the podcast is interesting. Here's a quote from the article:  Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past—histories t...

Sometimes a book—or a series of books, or a cultural shift—comes along that causes lasting change.    In the past five years, I’ve been part of many conversations about cultural appropriation, creativity, and Indigenous visibility. In the past four or five months, conversations around Blackness in North America have increased in frequency and intensity.   It’s come to a head, recently. I’ve spent the past month reading and working through Me and White Supremacy , by Layla F. Saad. It’s been intense. I may be able to speak about the experience coherently in the future.   For now, I want to talk about a recent re-reading experience, of a different book.   +++++   One of my favourite Book Groups (as they’re known in the US; Canadians don’t seem to mind saying “book club”) meets electronically. It’s small, just two of us. We used to be in groups together in Colorado, before we both moved.   One of our books back in the day was Walk...