Kent Bowman, war objector, poet, musician

I just learned of Kent's passing in an email from Allan Briesmaster. 

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Kent Bowman at the age 83, on May 7th, 2025. Beloved husband to Gay Claitman for over 45 years. Cherished father to Sabrina and Josh (Rachael) and grandfather to Noah. He will be greatly missed by his extended family and friends in California, Vancouver, and Toronto.

Kent was born in Los Angeles, California, and came to Canada as a war objector with his close friends Mick and Hugh. He completed his Master's degree at Simon Fraser University, and worked in Vocational Rehabilitation his whole life. An avid poet and musician, Kent enjoyed sharing his joy of music and poetry with his community in Toronto. Kent lived a full life with his family, pets, and friends, and he will be missed.

A family gathering will take place at a later date to celebrate Kent's wonderful life. In lieu of flowers, donations to Amnesty International, The Alzheimer's Society of Ontario, The Walrus, Scott Mission, Interval House, or a cancer charity of your choice would be greatly appreciated.

                                             

                                                           .    .    .    .       

Kent published this poem about my ZenRiver Gardens retreat and the PurdyFests  held there from 2007 - 2014.

Zen River Memories

Savouring this backroad rendezvous

North of Seven,

Filled with promise, contemplation and peace.

Escaping a world driven insane by endless reports of disaster,

I watch the river find its time laden course,

While the rest of the world Scurries towards ultimate oblivion.  

From And Left a Place to Stand On:

Poems and essays on Al Purdy

Edited by Allan Briesmaster, John B. Lee, Linda Rogers and R.D. Roy

Hidden Brookk Press, 2009

Mick Burrs reads this poem for Kent at Ellingtons Cafe on YouTube. Both gone to a higher plane. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC244RczX_s

Doug and Chris tour ZenRiver Gardens video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ennzc5WFKOw

email from Nick Drumbolis today:

Appreciate you thinking of me Chris. Goodman Kent, a prize to all who took the time to stoke that smile. His voice ringing on in memry, unmistakable across any room. Apart from his music wch i never got to hear, he oozed mirth & warmth, a welcome soul. Too much checking out's got me down.

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"books without bite suck" art

Nice email and vid link from PurdyFester  and CLMer Jim Larwill:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0R7lEgyyyQQ

Hey Chris,

Nice to hear from you.  The other day I was going through some old pictures and came across this one of you from the last CLM AGM.  (Younger days.)   Not sure who the other person is.  Maybe Peter F?   You would know if it is.

Same old same old here.  Working on my YouTube channel and it is coming along.  Here is a link to a short that includes a friend in Los Vegas of all places.  (It is a long story.)   Any way lots of other videos if you want to check them out, but I think you will get a kick out of this one....

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0R7lEgyyyQQ

Interesting times we are living in.  (Or about to die in?)  Seems what we said might happen in the old CLM days is being pushed by the US.  I wonder if Yankee Go Home tee shirts are still considered hate speech???  I still have a couple of them in the bottom of a drawer somewhere.  And a package of stickers.

Anyway... how are you doing?  Well I hope.

yr old comrade

Jim

Jim Larwill is an Omnigothic Neofuturist. 

You can watch his You-tube videos at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXNKeq1xZcCY4QJ2_vI6oxg

You can read his poetry and essays at: http://web.ncf.ca/wolf

You can read "i Wolf" the Carnivoreque literary theory of "human" origin at: http://web.ncf.ca/eu386/iWolf

Through the Nights: Allan Briesmaster

I am blest being beside you through the nights.

Housed, fed. No pressing threat. No frivolous wishes.

And without any need to dream of you -

although you grace my dreams from time to time.

We might go on a travelling adventure,

to rediscover some far-different land

that welcomes us again at port and shore.

We celebrated in a sweet embrace there.

But being asleep together is itself

embrace - with its accompanying steady,

near- indiscernible hum of breaths (except

for patchy snoring both can tolerate) -

dissolved from daylight boundaries in this

warm, unimpeded, open-ended flow

while we enwrap within our mutual gift

that self-maintains its effortless repair. 

from Later Findings

Ekstasis Editions Canada, 2024

Later Findings is Allan’s tenth full-length poetry collection.

He lives inThornhill, Ontario with his wife Holly, a visual artist.  

New Book:"Later Findings" by Allan Briesmaster

A decade or two ago Allan and Steven Michael Berensky (RIP) edited the seminal anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era.

Dear Friends,

 

I'm excited to be able to tell you that my copies of Later Findings, from Ekstasis Editions, were delivered yesterday.

 

Because many of you said good things about my previous book, Windfor, I'm hopeful this new one will be equally well received, even though there are differences in tone and subject matter.

 

Let me know if you are interested in getting a signed copy at the reduced price of $20. I'd like very much for you to have one.

 

All the best,

Allan

p.s. pls add $5 for postage

from the book:

That Lyrical Light

Sunlight at noon and midafternoon
Is prose. Only when slanting low
does the daystar bestow
cadence and song on changed air
for eyes that widen:

               making winter woods a slow
pageant of stripes of trunks -
their long blue shadows drawn
across that lavender coverlet,
the fadingly-lit, crusted snow;

              filling luminiscent cups
of purple and yellow crocuses
close to cold ground with overflow colour
soon after April dawn or toward
a tender palette of sundown;

              yellowing the wavy green
in summer leaves wind-shimmered
along the treetop crests that sigh
at coming twilight just before
full shade engulfs them;

             striking, once fog dissolves
from a late-September north lake,
the fringes of maple ruddy with
a year’s lost warmth. Down-glittering
on puffs of air to frosted grass.

Tansience and brevity gain
such lovely strange dilations,
that must forerun the all -
too-common dominance by
broad day and starless night.

The Long Bond: new book by Allan Briesmaster

Hi Allan,

I picked up "The Long Bond" at the start of my nightly walk, so it accompanied me while I searched our rural skies for the annual Perseid shower - couldn't be more poetic than that  :  )-

Great production, and of course I'm already somewhat familiar with many of your perfectly crafted poems. I also really like the inclusion of several prose sections at the back. As you state, one of our shared goals is finding a wider readership for CanPo, and I believe that including prose in our collections can help non traditional poetry readers better understand our work.

I vaguely knew of your many involvements with the TO poetry scene, and I found it interesting that much of what you did from the mid-80s through the 90s followed what I'd been doing from the mid-70s to the mid-8os. It's as if the torch had unknowingly been passed. Here's the list of poets and musicians I featured at The Main Street Library Poetry Series:

http://riffsandripplesfromzenrivergardens.blogspot.com/2011/02/readers-main-street-library-toronto.html

Pretty much a Who's Who of that generation. I also published the first collections, usu. in chapbook form with my Unfinished Monument Press, of many of these poets. Among these are Robert Priest, Lynn Kositsky, James Deahl, Bruce Hunter, jones (Daniel), Margaret Saunders, David Reid, etc. . I often then arranged to get these same poets their first Canada Council reading by featuring them at this series. 

memories, memories  . . .

Again, thanks and congrats for "The Long Bond",

peace & poetry power!
Chris