First Major Poetry Collection from Patrick Connors

 

The Other Life – Poems by Patrick Connors

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ISBN	PB: 9781771615402 PDF: 9781771615419 EPUB: 9781771615426 KINDLE: 9781771615433
Publication Date	July 2021
Author(s)	Patrick Connors

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George Elliott Clarke, “Pat Connors is an unpretentious and unassuming a poet as his hero, that bard of the everyman and everywoman, Al Purdy.”

Bruce Meyer, “Here is a voice whose precision, sense of focus, grace, and economy of language, are brought together in poems that are memorable and gifted. The beauty of these pieces is that if you blink, you will miss them. Keep your eyes open, and watch as Connors runs through his memories and his vision of what life can be.””

Dr. Georgia Wider, “…a collection of accessible meditations on hockey and hotdogs and friends and faith. His work is local, tactile, and specific in imagery…Connors speaks in the language of a working-class hero, a true people’s poet.”

Robert Priest, “Patrick Connors deceptively plain spoken poems give us a man in need of unadorned truth…he lays bare the heart and hopes of a seeker whose urge to reach the true light of faith refuses to be distracted by baubles and trinkets. It is refreshing to read these poems of spirit.”

Max Layton, “Strong, forthright expression of abiding faith.”

Lillian Allan, “Here’s a writer who spends much creative-time facilitating opportunities for other writers, so it’s indeed a happy occasion to see his first collection take shape.”

John B. Lee, “…the writer is attentive to the betterment of the self, and through the example thereby becoming an inspiration to others through what the written word aspires to achieve. Poetry becomes a

beacon to follow driving inward and illuminating interior darkness, the lifting that cup of light to lips for the speaking and to the ear for the hearing.”

Stanley Fefferman, “…Connors courageously puts on paper what’s in his heart about himself and what he cares about: poetry., hockey, religion, family, politics and love. His plainspeaking is supported by a craftsman’s attention to detail.”

 

Patrick Connors has been a mainstay of the poetry scene in Toronto for many years. His contribution and his commitment to the poetic life of the GTA and beyond is well know Finally, The Other Life, his first collection of poems, establishes him as an original and distinctive poetic voice. His considerable reputation is already well established and this volume will be read, enjoyed and cherished by his many admirers.

Author: Patrick Connors

$21.95 $14.99

 

This is the first major collection by Toronto poet Patrick Connors. Patrick is a people's poet in the tradition of Raymond Souster, Ted Plantos, Milton Acorn and of course his hero, Al Purdy. Patrick is a true political activist, and he's a topnotch emcee. Patrick saved the day by emceeing the final PurdyFest in 2014 when he stood in for me when I had to attend a close friend's funeral, my mother was dying, and the other major organizer disappeared at the eleventh hour. And ladies, he's a great dancer :  )-

- Chris

I was wandering through Marmora's Lions Club Park yesterday, when:

fresh snow

on the back

of the badly carved raven     

 

 

thoughts on improving trails at Callaghan's Rapids/Naylor's Common

 pics from 2oldguyswalking website

 

Hi Cathy,
Apologies for dithering over replying. I've had to do some reflection on the issue regarding improving trails at Callaghan's. My main concern is to continue the campaign to stop the vandals on ATVs from further destroying this beautiful habitat. But once this main problem has been solved, I'm not so sure how much I'd like to see Callaghan's 'improved' for further human use. To me it's meant to primarily be a conservation area, and the main stakeholders are the resident wildlife.

It's nice that we humans can enjoy visiting the main areas of appeal at Callaghan's - the bridges and islands to the north, the rapids to the south, and of course wading the river which connects them. One website even noted that the river itself IS the main trail for humans at Callaghan's.   But there is an incredible system of animal dens, nests, caverns and even special magikal and mysterious remote places - sacred even - areas where I believe it's best for humans to leave peacefully undisturbed. For those who are bushwise, there are abundant trails throughout the area, but we humans have to learn how to read these subtle signs in order to navigate them, and again, it's probably best for the resident wildlife if we don't venture too far afield.

Of course the three main trails from the parking lot to the river need improvement, and if Hastings Trails group is content to limit their help to repairing these, that'd be great. Signage would be nice at the parking lot, and years ago there were outhouse toilets/change areas right at the rapids. I just don't want to see too much 'improvement' at Callaghan's for human enjoyment to the detriment of wildlife. I've walked at Callaghan's for over three decades now, and for  hikers the railway bed is a great challenge. You can park on Tiffin Road and walk into Callaghan's along the railbed in half an hour. Or park on Morrison Road and walk in 45 minutes each way. There are rarely used trails off the rail bed if you look carefully. At least one of these leads to a back road in Riverside Pines and is a pleasant twisting and turning challenge through almost undisturbed nature.

Much of the above thoughts occurred while I was walking the short trail at Naylor's Commons a couple of days ago. I  wonder if Cathy Trimble and her group are aware of this small system of public trails? Anne Philpot, of the Marmora Historical Society, arranged for this public park and coordinated several summer student trail building projects through the area. Much of Naylor's Common is a reed-filled swamp located on the eastern edge of Marmora. The students also built a wooden viewing structure overlooking the swamp. The entrance off Highway #7 is a bit hidden, it's just before the Timmy's. There's a large billboard covered in plexiglass with a map of the three short trails - the main trail leads from Highway 7 to Mary Street, the dirt road leading to the Marmora Mine.

Enough blather . . .  it's so encouraging how much enthusiasm exists in our greater area for preserving and enjoying nature.

peace,
Chris            

At-risk butterflies in Callaghan's Rapids/Marmora area

 This article in yesterday's  online InQuinte jogged my memory about an encounter I had last summer while wading at Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area. A young man on the opposite bank was messing about with small nets, and we met in the middle of the river and began chatting. When I asked about the nets, he said he was a field tech working on a special project, I believe from the University of Guelph. Our area is home to some rare at-risk butterflies, so one more reason for us to continue our work on stopping the stupid destruction of Callaghan's by the ATVers and other thoughtless visitors.

 

Province announces money for species protection in Quinte

• January 08, 2021 - 10:43 AM
• InQuinte.ca staff
• News, Quinte

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Three species protection projects in Quinte are getting funding from the Ford government.

The local amount of $872,000 is part of a $4.5 million provincial investment announced on Wednesday.

$522,000 in grant money will go to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre to help it lessen threats to at-risk turtle populations in Cloyne in Lennox and Addington County and another $270,000 will go towards the implementation of a recovery strategy by Wildlife Preservation Canada for the Eastern Loggerhead Shrike in Greater Napanee.

$80,847 will be used by Natural Resource Solutions to help it support the recovery of at-risk butterflies in Marmora.

Each grant will be spent over a three-year period.

                                                                      ~    ~    ~

Right on. Hopefully part of the funds can block of the trail destroying their habitat. Thanks Chris good find!

Cheers!
Matt
 

Amerikan paradox: death rattles of a fading empire/rebirth of a true democracy?

Yesterday the world witnessed the death rattles of a fading empire when Trump supporters attempted a coup d'etat by invading the Amerikan congress. I hope this was the final Trumpian trump card (sorry) and that things will settle down in the short term there.

However the paradox of the U.S. remains. It is impossible for the primary 'leading light' of world democracy to also be the world's numero uno empire. Over the winter holidays a friend and I watched the excellent 10 part doc series on the Vietnam War produced by Ron Howard. We watched 10 numbing hours of Amerikan napalming, atrocities, and politikal lying from every level of Amerikan government and military from the top to the bottom. 2020's Black Lives Matter protests remain fresh in our minds as well.

Every empire in history has followed this downward trajectory in its dying days: the over extension of troops on foreign soil and the parallel suppression of opposition on home turf.

We are watching the final throes of the Amerikan empire. I hope this vicious empire can fade as quickly from the world scene as the U.S.S.R. did three decades ago. Of course the new empire on the horizon is China, which is decidedly undemocratic. The balancing act facing the Amerikan nation is to fade as graciously as possible from world dominance while restoring itself as a true beacon of democracy. This is probably an impossibility, but it is the only way forward for the Amerikan nation to survive.  

                                                                  ~     ~    ~

      

In my callow youth I was a Canadian raised in the cauldron which is the U.S.A.  I came of age at the height of the Vietnam War. Perhaps I had a unique perspective as a foreign national, so even at ages 19 and 20 I organized relentlessly against the war and the draft. In reactionary Miami my high resistance profile attracted surveillance, and in June 1969, still age 20, the draft board sent me three induction notices in a week. As an Amerikan might say, time to get the heck out of Dodge.

For me the Vietnam War pretty well ended that summer. I ended up living in an abandoned hotel on an island in the Thames on the outskirts of London, England. I wrote about this time in my hippie memoir, Eel Pie Island Dharma (self-published in 1990, professionally republished in 2012 by Hidden Brook Press).      

                                                          ~    ~    ~

Hi Chris, nice blog post. and Happy New Year. I saw on FB that someone wrote "due to covid, the Americans couldn't invade and topple another country so they tried to unseat their own. " or something like that -- this was a joke yesterday. All those thousands of right wing men (and women) and somehow they didn't bring their guns? What, they carry guns to the grocery store in most states. What was that about?


-----
Judy Haiven, PhD    
 Writer/ Activist
retired Professor,                                      
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, NS
Mi’kma’ki

THE AIR, THE SKY - Stuart Ross's Annual New Year poem

 Dear friends, family, colleagues —

I hope this note finds you all well. And I hope the New Year brings you all days of joy, moments of comforting reflection, warm memories of those precious to you, and maybe a lovely adventure or two.

Here is my annual New Year Poem. I am grateful for the time you spend reading it.

This mailing is dedicated to the memory of my dearest friend Michael Dennis. Please read his poems.

As always, if you want to be removed from this list, just let me know.

Take care.

xox Stuart


THE AIR, THE SKY

There are creatures in the walls.
We hear them scurry and scratch,
gnaw on the insulation
and maybe the electrical wiring.
At night they write poems
on tiny typewriters
about how they hear creatures
outside the walls. They
hear us using our blenders
and pencil sharpeners and various
other contraptions whose purpose
they could never conceive of
and neither could we if no one
had invented them. Another

thing there is is air. There’s so much
of it. You find it between the leaves
of poplars and in the tunnels of ant hills
and bobbing on top of lakes and rivers.
Let’s go breathe some air. Let’s paint
a picture of it. If you don’t get the angles
just right, it doesn’t judge you. The creatures
In the walls mistake the word “poplar”
for “popular” but the “u” doesn’t judge them.
Everything makes mistakes. I have made
twenty or twenty-one of them. Tom Clark
wrote a book called Air. Page 20 has
“A small / black worker ant / moving

diagonally” and Page 21’s got
“A moon in the blue morning.”
The moon is surrounded by
infinite sky, which we’re
connected to by dollops of air.
Perhaps if I wrote a book called Sky
I’d become more poplar.



Stuart Ross
1 January 2021
Cobourg

--
___________________________________________________
Winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize
70 Kippers (w/ Michael Dennis; Proper Tales Press, 2020)
Sos sola una persona (trans. Tomás Downey & Sarah Moses; Socios Fundadores, 2020)
90 Tiny Poems (above/ground press, 2019)
Motel of the Opposable Thumbs (Anvil Press, 2019)
Espesantes (above/ground press, 2018)
Eleven Elleve Alive (w/ Dag T. Straumsvåg & Hugh Thomas; shreeking violet press, 2017)
Pockets (ECW Press, 2017)
Certain Details: The Poetry of Nelson Ball (editor; WLU Press, 2017)
Bad Engine: New & Selected Poems, by Michael Dennis (editor; Anvil Press, 2017)
A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Wolsak & Wynn, 2016)
I am on Patreon! @ www.patreon.com/stuartross