Published!: EEL PIE ISLAND DHARMA: A HIPPIE MEMOIR/HAIBUN

Thank you Tai & Kim Grove and Hidden Brook Press for publishing this gorgeous reprint! And thanks to the many others who walked with me along the dharma path, offering friendship and guidance.

First, to Dr. Eric Amann, the 'godfather' of Canadian haiku. It was Eric's early encouragement and publication of my first haiku in his seminal magazine HAIKU back in the mid-1960s which started me on the haijin path.  

To fellow Eel Pie Island communard Weed (once Chris Whitehouse), who gently pushed me into letting him put EEL PIE DHARMA (original title) online in the early 2000s on his amazing & eclectic website.

Thanks to my close friend & editor, Sylvia Hegge, for copy editing so many times she now wears glasses  :  )

To all my old UK friends & sister & brother hippies: Debbie, Scotch Doogy, Marion, Eddie, Dominic, and to the1,000s of other fellow travelers in those magickal times.

Thanks to haijin snow flea (John Hamley) for writing the insightful introduction.

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 LAUNCH next Wednesday, NOV. 21 st at Imperial Pub(lic) Library in Toronto 
54 Dundas Street East (edge of Ryerson University campus)

The launch of EPID will be next Wednesday at The Imperial Public Library as part of:

AN EVENING WITH MILTON ACORN & FRIENDS                   
(Terry Barker, Anna Yin,  Brandon Pitts, Joyce Wayne, David Fox, Morley Ellis,
Jim Larwill/Wilber Walnut & an OPEN SET round robin of poems by & about
Milt - & anecdotes!)

copies of EPID will be available at a discount from the $17.95 cover price
package deal of Eel Pie Island Dharma and ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun for $25   

copies of Milton Acorn's new selected (James Deahl, Editor) will also be available:

IN A SPRINGTIME INSTANT (Mosaic Press) 

                                          *******************

Our Newest Arrivals

We are proud to bring you three of our newest books from the North Shore Series.

Links for these three books will be up soon.

You can find info about the series at:
http://www.HiddenBrookPress.com/Book-NShore.html

Chris Faiers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  emails between Henry Martinuk & Chris (DVDs of 2012 PurdyFest being prepared) Hi Henry, That's great that you'll make it to the EVENING WITH MILT & FRIENDS next Wednesday nite! It's going to be an evening to remember, that's for sure  :  ) Trust you'll recount your 'almost meeting' with Milt when he arose from the back of the restaurant (Crest Grill?), saw you & your friend gaping in admiration, & bellowed, "You little shits don't know anything!"        ...   that's such a perfect Milt anecdote  :  ) And it's great that you've done up the DVDs on PurdyFest. They will become a  piece of Canadiana history!  Many thanks! I've been in regular contact with Montreal Canadian poetry archivist & retired librarian Marvin Orbach. Marvin has his own collection of CanPo at the Univ. of Calgary, & I've been sending him almost weekly batches of my poetry collections, & also of old Unfinished Monument Press books & chapbooks. As our friendship has grown, we've become almost daily correspondents, & I've even copied him on many of my poetry-related emails for literary posterity (if our crazy hillbilly planet - seemingly so bent on self-destruction - does survive into another century or 2). So I know Marvin would love to have copies of your DVDs: here's his snail mail:  Marvin Orbach 22 Radcliffe Rd. Montreal West, P.Q. H4X 1B9 and his email address is in this header. I'm going to post this correspondence on my blog, so the downlow ain't so low no more ...  :  ) looking forward to seeing you next week  :  ) thanks for doing all this ... peace & poetry power! Chris ... and Chase ... wffffffffff ,,, (we're both a bit tired - returned just a few mins ago from long hike on the Cross-Canada Trail)                                    ......................................   On 2012-11-16, at 2:39 PM, Henry Martinuk wrote: Hi Chris, congrats on your new book. I'm looking forward to next Wednesday at the Imperial Pub in Toronto for your book launch and the Milton Acorn celebration. I've just finished the Acorn Symposium DVD from this year's PurdyFest and I'm working on the Another Dam Poetry Reading video now. Hopefully, I'll be able to put all the video I shot this summer at PurdyFest on DVD for you by next Wednesday. I'm going to give you the DVDs as a thank you for PurdyFest. I'll try to have a couple copies burned for others who may want to purchase the DVDs. I'm still not sure if I'll have enough time and don't know how much to charge for the DVDs yet so keep it on the downlow until I figure it out. See you on November 21st! cheers, Henry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eel Pie Island Dharma A hippie memoir / haibun by Chris Faiers Published by Hidden Brook Press ISBN 978-1-897475-92-8 $17.95   order from your local bookstore.  (A TIP: If you order from your local bookstore you will not have to pay delivery. Give them the isbn, the title, our email address and our phone number and they will order it from us with their purchase order number. They don't have to pay for the book in advance so it is even quicker.) !! This book will be available at Amazon around the world soon!! ALSO Available at e-book stores around the world. click on one of the three links below or to your favorite e-store. amazon.ca - http://www.amazon.ca/Eel-Pie-Island-Dharma-Hippie/dp/1897475926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353106393&sr=1-1 amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/Eel-Pie-Island-Dharma-hippie/dp/1897475926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353106438&sr=1-1&keywords=Eel+Pie+Island+Dharma+A+hippie+memoir+%2F+haibun+Chris+Faiers   Barnes & Noble.com - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eel-pie-island-dharma-chris-faiers/1113752776?ean=9781897475928 Blurb about the book: This book is one of the most important historical document of the 60s, a memoir in haibun form. It is part of the Hidden Brook Press, celebrated North Shore Series – the 28th book in this renowned Canadian literature series. This memoir of a sixties survivor has become a haiku/haibun classic and an oft-quoted reference for the heady ferment which was the tail end of the 1960s. Meet a Beatle! Attend the first Glastonbury music festival! Fight cops and skinheads at the infamous 144 Piccadilly squat! Hear a banshee and walk across Ireland ... live in the derelict Eel Pie Island Hotel with hippies, junkies and bikers ... be seduced by school girls ... drop acid in Cambridge ... sleep in a cave on Formentera ... Before the draft for the Vietnam War called, Chris Faiers was a shy bookworm. But he read his Kerouac, and when the draft notices kept coming, "Canadian Chris" hit the dharma road feet first and didn't look back for three years.   About the Author Eric Amann, publisher of Haiku magazine, gave Chris early encouragement circa 1967. Chris has been writing and publishing haiku his entire adult life. His work has consistently been at the forefront in the development of English language haiku and haibun, and the online version of this book is likely the most widely read English language haibun. His poetry has been widely published internationally in literary magazines, anthologies and scholarly texts and broadcast on radio and TV. EPID has become a frequent reference for documentaries and historical books. Chris is also known for lyrical and political poetry. In 1987 he was honoured with the inaugural Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award. Chris has been active as an organizer of poetry events and associations. He founded Unfinished Monument Press in 1978, and the Main Street Library Poetry Series in Toronto in 1979. In 2007 he began coordinating annual Purdy Country Literary Festivals (PurdyFests). Chris was a founding member of Haiku Canada and the Canadian Poetry Association. He is an honourary life member of the Canada-Cuba Literary Alliance. In 1989 he moved to an Ontario village on the edge of the Canadian Shield, where he earned his living as village librarian. Now retired, he wanders remote trails and acts as steward of his ZenRiver Gardens retreat. Chris’ 2008 Hidden Brook Press collection, ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun, relates some of his experiences in this wild and untamed countryside. He continues to develop and promote this new subgenre of “shaman haibun” which he helped create with ZR:P&H. You can follow his poetry and activities on his blog Riffs and Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens. Previous Collections by Chris Faiers ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun (Hidden Brook Press, 2008) Small Press Lynx (co-editor with Mark McCawley; co-published Unfinished Monument Press, Greensleeve Editions, 1991) Eel Pie Dharma: a memoir/haibun (Unfinished Monument Press, 1990) Moon City (haiku - Greensleeve Publishing, 1989) 13 Bohemian Dreams (Unfinished Monument Press, 1988) Mr Library Man (Haiku Canada broadsheet, 1988) Foot Through the Ceiling (Aya/Mercury Press, 1986) 5 Minutes Ago They Dropped The Bomb (Unfinished Monument Press, 1984) The Unfinished Anthology (co-editor, Unfinished Monument Press, 1984) Island Women (HMS Press, 1983) White Rasta in Wintertime (Unfinished Monument Press, 1982) Unacknowledged Legislator (blewointmentpress, 1981) Sleeping in Ruins ( haiku - Unfinished Monument Press, 1981) White Rasta (Unfinished Monument Press, 1980) College Streetcar Runs All Night (Unfinished Monument Press, 1979) Dominion Day in Jail (Unfinished Monument Press, 1978) Guest in a Garden (haiku - C&C Printing, 1969) Cricket Formations (haiku - C&C Printing, 1969) Reviewers: If you would like to write and publish a review of this book please contact the publisher for a free copy of the book and author contact info. Please feel free to use any material from this website.  On request we will email you high res pics of the cover and author if needed. Contact - Richard Grove / Tai 613-475-2368 or writers@hiddenbrookpress.com

a deadend hippie job: Twickenham Cemetery

(but I dug it)

Following is chapter 14 from my 1990 haibun which is scheduled for republication this fall by Hidden Brook Press as Eel Pie Island Dharma. The odd line layout is the way most haijin published our haiku in the 1960s. 

 

Twickenham Cemetery

I got a letter in the early winter of 1970 from my parents informing me that 'for my own best interests' they were no longer going to send me any money.  I held out for as long as I could, and then when starvation became a real likelihood, I began working for temporary manpower agencies.  A day or two's work would supply enough money to last me for several weeks, and then I'd head out in the early morning dark for another menial job, usually with another Eel Pier also on the verge of starvation.

The winter and the spring passed in this manner.  My temporary assignments included work in a book depository, cleaning a filthy flooded basement on a downtown office building, organizing office files and a stint sweeping floors in a textile factory.

It was a hand-to-mouth existence, but it didn't bother me too much, because at least I was alive and not dropping napalm on civilians in Vietnam.  One of the L'Aubergers commented to me one day that I should get a job, as I seemed to be becoming more and more spaced out by the hippie lifestyle.  Roy had been talking about applying at the Twickenham Cemetery, and so I decided to accompany him.  Somehow I managed to get up early for the visit to the cemetery, but Roy didn't.  I decided to go ahead with my plans, as I'd already ruined a good morning's sleep, and I might as well go for a walk on this beautiful June morning.

The Twickenham Cemetery was several miles away, and I enjoyed the early summer walk.  To my great surprise, I was hired on the spot, and a pair of garden shears were handed to me and I was told to clip the grass around the graves in the plot by the entrance.  I realized that this was a test, and I bent my back and went to work..  It was peaceful in the cemetery, and very relaxing stooping among the trees and gravestones, many of which were a hundred years old or more.

The morning passed pleasantly, although I was beginning to feel faint, as I didn't have any money for food, and I hadn't eaten.  I hummed Rolling Stones' songs to keep my mind off hunger, and by the end of the day I'd clipped my way through half the plot.  Just as I was finishing, two of the local schoolgirls appeared - Lesley, of Eve of St Agnes memories, and her pretty girlfriend, Carol.  They had gone to visit me at the Hotel, where someone had told them that I had gone to the cemetery to find work.  The two nubile girls must have made quite an impression on the other workmen, and I sailed off at five o'clock weak with hunger but accompanied by my two sexy friends.

And so began my induction into the working class.  To be at work by 8am required that I get up by seven, and that meant getting to bed before midnight.  No more all night dope sessions.  I bought a second-hand bicycle, and the three mile ride each morning was just about enough to wake me up before I reached the cemetery.

The days fell into a pleasant routine.  A couple of hours clipping the dewy grass, and then into our shed for ten o'clock tea.  A quick flip through the daily tabloids, and then back to the grass and birds and flowers until lunch.  For lunch I'd bike into the nearby hamlet and have bacon and eggs at a workers' cafe.  Some days I'd bring a bag of nuts and raisins and a juice, and spend a relaxing hour lounging in the sun in the park-like setting of the cemetery:

Breaktime     coal smoke, thermos tea          tabloid ink

The fifty or so acres of the cemetery were surrounded by a low fence completely overgrown by a privet hedge.  There were five of us working full time, so the grounds were immaculately gardened.

George was the foreman.  He took his job seriously, but he was an open-minded and tolerant boss, and so long as we did our jobs, he didn't interfere.

Fred was a rough-looking character - he had a ferocious look about him, like a living caricature of an axe murderer.  His thick black brows almost covered his sunken eyes, and his body was ill-shaped but extremely strong looking.  Fred was a gravedigger, and he looked as if he didn't wash off the dirt from his labours for weeks at a time.  I soon learned that under his coarse exterior beat the proverbial heart of gold, and Fred wouldn't hurt a fly.

His mate was Tom, a sly character with whom I never established any rapport.  Lanny was our other mate.  He was simple minded and lazy, and the story was that he had never been the same since his father had been blasted to bits right in front of him during the blitz in World War Two.  Lanny was amiable enough if you left him alone, and very quiet.

As the days fell into a comfortable pattern, so the year itself took on its seasonal changes.  After a few months I was promoted from full time headstone clipper to part time grass mower.  As a teenager I had earned pocket money mowing neighbours' lawns, and I had always enjoyed a Zen sense of fulfillment in the work.

The long London fall was spent raking and burning piles of leaves.  We'd load up the hand-pulled cart, surely a relic from another century, and then the lucky assigned person would pitch the leaves and wreathes and dead flowers onto the bonfire.  It was pleasant to work in front of the roaring fire and keep warm while enjoying the aromatic smoke:

Fall bonfire     crackling leaves          and dead flowers

In winter we had fewer chores.  The grass stopped growing, the leaves were all raked, and our main chore was the planting of trees for the spring:

In the dead of winter     planting trees          in the graveyard

Spring comes early in London.  By late January the first bulbs, snowdrops, are pushing through.  Quickly they are followed by the many coloured crocuses.  By mid-March the daffodils and tulips are up, and spring is in full bloom.

A grammar school was across the road from the cemetery.  One of my spring highlights was the day two of the young mini-skirted beauties wandered over on their lunch break to look for rabbits.  One girl was a gorgeous brunette, and her girlfriend was a blonde.  They were all of fourteen years old, and they were as interested in meeting the cemetery "hairy" as I was in flirting with these beautiful distractions.  It became a custom for the three of us to meet on our lunches and talk.

Spring was also the signal for the neighbourhood gardeners to begin work.  The area was a poor, working-class district.  Most of the local houses were council row houses without gardens, but a plot had been set aside behind the cemetery for allotment gardens:

Behind the graveyard     senior citizens digging             allotment gardens

Summer brought a couple of summer student workers.  They were looked upon as a necessary nuisance by the older workers, and so George assigned me to be their "ganger".  We had a great time.  Tony was Anglo-Indian, and an accomplished folk singer who had performed gigs at the Hanging Lantern Cafe in Richmond.  We would trade lines from Bob Dylan songs while we worked, and the days went by more quickly than ever:

Summer students     shouting Dylan          across graves

Working in the cemetery was almost vacation enough, although I did take a month off that spring and fly to the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain.  These adventures are told later.

Eel Pie was also entering its final days.  The junkyard landlord had repeatedly tried to get us out, but to no avail.  However, natural processes were destroying the "commune" both physically and spiritually.  Floor boards had been ripped up for two winters, and the very foundations of the hotel had been weakened.  Lead had been stripped off the roof and sold to metal dealers.  While Eel Piers were slowly demolishing the building bit by bit, more and more wandering hippies, musicians, runaways and finally junkies and bikers moved in.

Most of the original Eel Piers moved on to more secure squats in the heart of London, but I stayed on.  The bikers took to throwing stones through all the windows, and syringes could now be found littering the dirt-packed floors.

Finally I packed it in too, and my final months at the cemetery were spent boarding in a crowded rooming-house for Irish navvies.  I had spent the full cycle of a year working in Twickenham Cemetery.  It was time to take to the road, to find the romance and excitement that had sustained me in other places, with other people:

Green garden hose     spouting          a rainbow

Dewdrop     in spiderweb          on graveyard gate

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Eel Pie Dharma is protected by international copyright laws. Individuals may print off a copy of this work for personal use only to facilitate easier reading.

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Eel Pie Dharma - contents   |   previous chapter (13)   |   next chapter (15)

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Eel Pie Island (words & pics)

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Comments: 
(Chris's reply to Pearl's comment re prayer flag haiku for Haiku Canada's 35 anniversary holograph anthology) 

thanks Pearl  : )
glad the one in your set brings back happy memories of zenning at PurdyFest ...

This year's fest is nicknamed 'AcornFest' to honour the release of Milton Acorn's new selected (which we're going to feature at the Symposium, etc.)

Hope you & Brian can make it to another fest one of these fine summers ... (there's always a spare campsite ready for you!)

peace & poetry power!
Chris/cricket  ...  and Chase (hey, I left my pawprint on most of those flags!)

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On 2012-05-25, at 10:56 AM, Pearl wrote:

Pearl has left a new comment on your post "Happy 35th Birthday for Haiku Canada!/memories of ...":

Good to get a bit of zen river in those prayer flag haiku you made.



Posted by Pearl to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 25 May 2012 07:56

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