Al Purdy and the Canadian People: James Deahl (essay)

 

From 2007 to 2014 I organized eight annual Purdy Country Literary Festivals at my ZenRiver Gardens retreat in the hamlet of Malone, Ontario. One of the many projects which evolved from these gatherings was the anthology And Left a Place To Stand On: Poems and Essays on Al Purdy  (Hidden Brook Press, 2009). I've been going through old emails from long ago, found this essay by James Deahl, and decided post it. 

The Country of Our Defeat:
Al Purdy and the Canadian People

by James Deahl



  In the literary landscape of Al Purdy, upper Hastings County is the country of our defeat. It is also the country of his grandfather and a country Purdy could neither inhabit nor leave. Hastings County is a land of great beauty with its Canadian Shield topography and rugged, high townships; it¹s a country of harsh, life-and-death struggle, like the Scottish battle of Bannockburn, and a country of failed farms and their defeated lives.

  While Purdy¹s heart belonged to upper Hastings County (sometimes called the Hastings Highlands by folks who feel it resembles Scotland), he spent his most creative years in Ameliasburgh, Prince Edward County. Following his move to what he called ³A-burg², he wrote the poetry that embedded his work in the canon.

  But Purdy the writer did not start in A-burg. Before arriving, Purdy had spent time and great effort in Montreal trying to become a leading voice in People¹s Poetry. To this end, he associated with poets like Frank Scott, Irving Layton, Milton Acorn, and Louis Dudek. In addition to these contemporary People¹s Poets, Purdy was also influenced by the older Canadian tradition exemplified by Confederation Poet (and first Canadian People¹s Poet) Bliss Carman and E.J. Pratt.

  People¹s Poetry in Canada began with the Confederation Poets: Isabella Valancy Crawford, George Frederick Cameron, Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Archibald Lampman, William Wilfred Campbell, Bliss Carman, Frederick George Scott, and Duncan Campbell Scott, all born between 1850 and 1862. Their poetry led directly to what I call the Great Generation: A.M. Klein, Dorothy Livesay, Irving Layton, Anne Marriott, Miriam Waddington, Louis Dudek, Al Purdy, Raymond Souster, Eli Mandel, and Milton Acorn, all born between 1909 and 1923. These later poets were influenced by the Confederation Poets; and while some, such as Layton and Purdy, would eventually reject Confederation poetics, others, like Livesay and Acorn, never relinquished their admiration for the earlier movement. To completely understand the poetry of Al Purdy it is necessary to understand the People¹s Poetry tradition, why he joined it during the 1940s and Œ50s, and why he left it to become the man of letters we know.

  While People¹s Poetry started out as a movement to reflect the Canadian landscape and the Canadian people, it sometimes acquired a sharply political edge in the 20th century. Several of the poets who followed the Confederation Poets had Marxist backgrounds; Earle Birney, A.M. Klein, Dorothy Livesay, Louis Dudek, and Milton Acorn were socialists or even communists, as was Frank Scott, a founder and National Chairman of the CCF (later known as the NDP).

  As a result of the addition of activist politics, People¹s Poetry in general came to embrace a philosophical/political belief in ³the People². Many poets convinced themselves that progress could be clearly seen in humanity. In terms of social physics, this means that society tends to move from a state of disorder to one of order. Thus, society improves, becomes more fair and less governed by social Darwinism. Social justice becomes the rule rather than the exception. In this way, humanity is largely perfectible within history; that is, humans play a major role in personal and collective salvation.

  Of course, the poets mentioned above did not all believe this fully, and some came to reject such a strong belief in ³the People². But if a writer, like Purdy, refused to believe in ³the People² and instead simply believed in other people, could he still retain his People¹s Poet credentials?

  The area of the McGill University campus was a rich stew of modernist poetry, Marxism/socialism, and Canadian cultural nationalism. Montreal enjoyed a history of important literary magazines like The McGill Fortnightly Review (which involved major poets like Frank Scott and A.J.M. Smith), First Statement (which involved both Layton and Dudek), Preview (Scott, P.K. Page, and Klein), Northern Review, formed by the merger of First Statement and Preview, (Scott, Layton, Klein, Smith, Page, Livesay, and Ralph Gustafson), and Delta (Dudek). This is what brought Purdy, Milton Acorn, and many other poets to Montreal. Over the years, writers came to Montreal to meet Scott, Dudek, Layton, and the others in and around McGill; they formed lasting friendships (or became bitter enemies), developed their craft, began to publish in little magazines, and dispersed to other parts of Canada. Al Purdy went to A-burg, and when he went he possessed a rather different view of the Canadian people.

Al Purdy at his A-frame on Roblin Lake

  Having relocated to Prince Edward County (or The Country South of Belleville, one might say), Purdy set out to compose his major poetry. ³At Roblin Lake² appeared in The Crafte So Long to Lerne (1959). ³Indian Summer² and ³Remains of an Indian Village² followed in Poems for All the Annettes (1962). And then in 1965 came The Cariboo Horses and signature pieces like ³Winter at Roblin Lake², ³One Rural Winter², ³Roblin¹s Mills², ³The Country North of Belleville², and ³My Grandfather Talking ‹ 30 Years Ago². Later there would be a revised edition of Poems for All the Annettes (1968) with important poems like ³House Guest² and ³At the Quinte Hotel². And later still his amazing In Search of Owen Roblin, a coffee-table book published in 1974, offered an extended study of the United Empire Loyalists, Owen Roblin, and Purdy¹s own family. Even as his life was closing, Purdy kept working and re-working his eternal themes in ³My Grandfather¹s Country² and ³Selling Apples² (both subtitled ³Upper Hastings County, Ontario²), and ³134 Front St., Trenton, Ont.² (in to Paris never again, 1997).

  Clearly the people of what might be called Purdy Country, and his relationship with them, was a major topic of this great poet¹s creative life from when he moved to Ameliasburgh in 1957 until his death in 2000. It is doubtful whether any other Canadian poet ever engaged in such an extensive and passionate dialogue with the Canadian people.

  A related major theme was the land. For all his travels to every part of Canada, Purdy was a poet first and foremost of Hastings, Prince Edward, and Northumberland Counties. For nearly half a century he wrote of the land he loved, the land he was born to.

  This, understandably, has led most Canadian poets to consider Purdy to be a People¹s Poet and perhaps the finest exemplar of that tradition. But the academic critics would beg ‹ actually, would insist ‹ to differ. Virtually no professional critic accepts Purdy as being a People¹s Poet, even though Purdy knew all the major members of that circle.

  While In Search of Owen Roblin has all the elements of People¹s Poetry, the people in this long-poem are not depicted as either successful or happy. The people in the typical Purdy poem are survivors. Like the rocks of the Canadian Shield they endure, and their endurance should be celebrated. Indeed, such dignity as attaches to them comes from their hardscrabble lives in a land both beautiful and harsh. Although the Loyalists and their descendants, including Purdy himself, struggle to rise above the limitations of their new land, they usually face defeat. And to face defeat with hope and courage grants them their hard-won dignity.

  In Search of Owen Roblin comes with many photographs in the coffee-table book version. (This 36-page poem ‹ without the photos ‹ can also be found in Beyond Remembering, Harbour Publishing, which is the standard Purdy text.) In its original presentation, the photos reinforce the theme of defeat and decay. And yet there are many successful farms, families, small businesses, towns and villages in Purdy Country, like there are in any other part of Canada. While some Loyalists were defeated by the extreme conditions north of the Great Lakes, what Purdy is really talking about is the defeat of the Loyalist vision of an alternative America. Purdy traces village settlement as far back as Joseph Cronk in 1803. Owen Roblin died in 1903. And it was during that century that their vision failed, leaving Purdy to be born of ³degenerate Loyalist stock².

  In one sense, Purdy is both heir to and victim of these U.E. Loyalists. But a 20th century existentialist like Purdy could hardly have wanted their alternative America for his home. Purdy the Anglican? Of course not. But one senses his feeling of loss, his sadness, that their Canada has been replaced by this Canada we live in today. Thus, Purdy¹s attitude toward his people, their cultural tradition, and their history is highly conflicted. He cannot abide what they stood for, yet mourns its passing.

  In at least one respect, the Loyalist vision fit well with People¹s Poetry. The Loyalists sought to impose order on our wilderness. Thus, Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe established a city called London, set it in a county called Middlesex, and named the river that ran through them the Thames. And there were other counties called Essex, Kent, and Oxford. In this way, English order would replace Canadian disorder. But Purdy¹s analysis showed that for both the Loyalist vision and for People¹s Poetry, as practitioners like Acorn and Livesay understood it, order simply fell apart. The result was not an English garden nor was it a socialist social salvation; the result was failure and ruin.

  And no less conflicted, if less obviously so, is his relationship to the land. He loves its beauty. In ³My Grandfather¹s Country² the poet takes us along Highway 62, through the woods of red October, and into the Canadian Shield. And in ³The Country North of Belleville² the reader meets the ³green lands of Weslemkoon Lake where a man might have some opinion of what beauty is and none deny him². Surely a paradise on earth. But the reader will also learn that this is the country of our defeat: ³a country where the young leave quickly².

  Highway 62, running through the pioneer village of Ameliasburgh, and bisecting Hastings County as it pushes ever north through Belleville, Ivanhoe, and Madoc, and on to El Dorado, Bannockburn, and Bancroft, is the backbone of Purdy¹s vision of a Canadian North America. As might be expected, the Purdy vision shares ³a place to stand on² with the Loyalist vision. And, as the poet knows himself, both are flawed. Neither will produce a viable Canada.

t's  The island at the bottom of Hastings County is Prince Edward County, where Al Purdy and Milton Acorn built the A-frame on Roblin Lake. 

  So, what was the Purdy vision? While hanging out in Montreal, Purdy, who was starting to reject the poetics of the Confederation Poets, associated with members of the McGill gang who were promoting modernist American poetics. Layton and Dudek, for example, were introducing the poetry and ideas of Charles Olson, Wallace Stevens, Robert Creeley, Jonathan Williams, William Carlos Williams, and Cid Corman to members of their circle. To Purdy, this tack seemed better than following in the direction blazed by either the Confederation Poets (although he still liked Carman, at least a little bit) or the Georgian Poets (although he would always retain his love of D.H. Lawrence, a late-Georgian). While the modernist approach allowed Purdy to liberate his practice from the constraints of late-Victorian and Edwardian romanticism, he soon came to question the new American poetics as well as the notion that Canada should drift into being a northern extension of U.S. culture. He therefore set off for the Arctic and wrote the pieces in his North of Summer: Poems from Baffin Island, published during our Centennial Year.

  Purdy clearly understood that any viable culture that could be called Canadian had to be rooted in the land, in this land. Whatever garden might be established here, it would be a Canadian garden, not an English one. A review of Purdy¹s work shows that it was not the land that defeated the Loyalists. It was the Loyalists who failed the land. One should note that Purdy writes: ³This is the country of our defeat² and not³This is the country that defeated us². Of course the land north of the Great Lakes was a severe challenge to European settlers, Loyalists or the others who would come later; but it was a challenge we should have been able to rise above.

  When one looks at the vast region of the Canadian Shield today in the 21st century it is clear that Canadians avoid living there. Rather than cities, the Shield is dotted with small towns and scattered villages. Except for the Native Peoples, who have managed to survive all attempts to destroy their culture, there are no important centres of either business or culture in the English-speaking part of the Canadian Shield, save Ottawa. As Purdy once observed to me, White Canadians have failed to inhabit and understand their land. And this is a failure Purdy himself shared.

  One result of this failure is we now live in a country that must be considered in many respects as having become the Northern Territories of the United States. Purdy realized the extent of this process of Americanization, and this is why he offered to host the first Controversy of Poets at his A-frame home in A-burg. This meeting of People¹s Poets was to explore what could be done to revive the tradition of populist poetry in Canada. Arrangements were made for this gathering, but Purdy became ill and died before it could be convened.

  Nonetheless, that ³place to stand on² remains. One could still discover Canada, as Purdy encouraged us to do. Upon his death, Purdy was called The Voice of the Land. In my view, this is a most appropriate title. Purdy was not the Voice of the People (as Milton Acorn tried to be), nor was he the Voice of Canada (as Robin Mathews tried to be). Rather, Purdy was the Voice of the Land, a land, perhaps, still awaiting us.

  The establishment in recent years of an annual Purdy Country Literary Festival by Chris Faiers has aided in creating a focus for People¹s Poetry. The festival is based in Marmora, one of the high townships mentioned by Purdy in ³The Country North of Belleville², and is a gathering of People¹s Poets promoted by the Quinte Arts Council.

  At the time of our last communication, in which we discussed the need for a Controversy of Poets, Al Purdy was a former People¹s Poet who was sharply sceptical of the claims that movement made, yet anxious to see its tradition continue after his passing. And so it does.



Works consulted:

Atwood, Margaret (Ed.). (1983). The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse In English. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

David, Jack & Lecker, Robert (Eds.). (1982). Canadian Poetry. Toronto: General Publishing and ECW Press.

Lynch, Gerald; Ganz, Shoshannah; & Kealey, Josephene T.M. (Eds.). (2008). The Ivory Thought: Essays on Al Purdy. Ottawa: The University of Ottawa Press.

MacKendrick, Louis. (n.d.). Al Purdy and His Works. Toronto: ECW Press.

Purdy, Al. (2000). Beyond Remembering: The collected poems of Al Purdy. Madeira Park, British Columbia: Harbour Publishing.

Purdy, Al. (1974). In Search of Owen Roblin. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

Purdy, Al. (1997). to Paris never again. Madeira Park, British Columbia: Harbour Publishing.

Toye, William (Ed.). (1983). The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Oxford University Press.


      --   end of piece  --

Snow Melt Meditation (haibun)

 

Snow Melt Meditation This was forecast to be day two of a rainy patch. After brunch it remained overcast, but no rain, so I decided to chance the rain and go to ZenRiver Gardens and hang out. Chase and I got there early, at 11:30 am, and as usual he bolted for the neighbour's yard so he could sniff their dog's smells. The rain was holding off, so I decided to collect more beer cans from the several embarrassing piles. If I'm going to take my friend Thay, the head monk from Zenforest, to visit ZenRiver, I decided I should at least clear off more of the hundreds of crushed beer cans. beer cans, pop cans paint cans rest intermingled   It took half an hour to fill 2 cotton 'green bags' with 50 beer cans each. Embarrassing. The rain still hadn't arrived, so time to look for another project. The wet spring soil appeared perfect for transplanting, so Chase and I wandered off to steal some pine trees from the deep woods nearby. My goal is to plant evergreens along the boundaries of ZRG to provide privacy, shade and the sighing sound of pines in the wind, far more relaxing than artificial windchimes. While planting the second pine, a friendly neighbouring property owner stopped to chat. Of course he wanted to know where I was getting the pines, and not being experienced at prevaricating, I said from behind Dan's. He was teasing me to amuse his son, who was recovering from the painful removal of two wisdom teeth, but I decided next time to answer the way his smartass cousin would, by saying, "from the ground", something stupid like that. young pines at attention firmly planted for Zen guard duty   I had planned to work slowly, my intent being to plant just one pine for the day. But the distraction of my neighbour's visit, and the satisfaction the immediate visual effect the two new pines produced, encouraged me to continue planting. Another two trips to the woods, another two pines installed in their new home along ZRG's boundaries, and it was definitely time for a break. The rain now started, which was good for watering in the four new residents. I was tempted to leave, and Chase ran to the car and sat underneath it. But I thought of my buddy Morley, and also my friend Thay, and decided to sit on my shack's porch and meditate during the rain. I'm learning to just start meditating. To not slow down the process with rituals of any kind, and after giving Chase three well-deserved biscuits, I sat in the pine rocker and began. I've been practicing meditation for 40 years, as long as I've been writing haiku poetry. Sometimes I've been a devout and regular meditator and haijin, but most often not. Meditating sometimes just lightens my 'monkey mind' thoughts, which is fine. Sometimes I compose poetry during inspired moments, and every now and again I get to sit with the Buddhas. Every meditation session is different, as varied as a trip to a foreign country, yet as familiar as a visit to my ZRG retreat. Several times I have experienced what I'll call 'phenonena'. Today's session was unexpectedly deep. Once when I opened my eyes: white snow melt froth flowing river free   A red curtain appreared behind my eyes, and I was positive the sun had come out. Again I opened my eyes, but the rain was as strong as ever, the sky dull. I shut my eyes, and the sun in my mind burned so brightly I again had to open them to check. Still raining, still overcast. I am usually a good judge of time; friends can vouch for this. I was sure I had been meditating for 15 minutes, maximum. Once or twice before I have experienced a sense of the ground moving at ZRG as I come out of a session. This happened again today. I glanced at my watch, and the session had lasted half an hour! Chase jumped on the side table to escape the wet deck and to visit, and I realized the meditating was definitely over. I was disappointed, the meditation had been so deep, the light so bright, the phenomena so enjoyable, the river carrying the white lightness of the spring snowmelt so bubbly and fast-flowing. This is from the Spring section of my 2008 collection ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun, Hidden Brook Press.  It was initially posted a month after I started the blog in 2011. Rereading it makes me feel good - I hope it does the same for you.   spring freshet (northern snow pack runoff) on upper branch Moira River at ZenRiver Gardens, Malone, Ontario

Sorrow Falls to Hillview - a fall haibun

I generally don't feel exuberantly creative in my old age, but I still enjoy daily fall hikes where I live on the edge of the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario. Following is from my 2008 book, ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun. Hidden Brook Press   

Yesterday I felt it was time to revisit our trails. Sorrow Falls is the shortest drive, and it is one of the prettiest and most encouraging of reminiscing for me. It was on the Sorrow Falls trail and at Callaghan’s Rapids Conservation Area that I experienced my return to Buddhism and spirituality four years ago.

It was an overcast day, but within the first one hundred yards a great blue heron rose and flew parallel with our path - a nice omen. The walk continued uneventfully but enjoyably. I inspected my shaman carving on the top railing of the wooden bridge. I had done this carving during a rest stop on one of Chase and my ten mile winter hikes last year.

As always, the trail’s natural calm transmitted to Chase and me, although on the long walk through the cedar forest Chase decided to go on a solo exploration to sniff among the mossy fallen stumps.

redheaded woodpecker

stirs shaman instincts

while Chase explores

After half an hour we reached Sorrow Falls. Beavers had completely cut off the creek’s flow, and the ledges of the falls were exposed. Even the basin was dry. We clambered to the tiny island above the falls, where I’d previously hung prayer flags, and then began walking upstream on the dry creek bed.

dry leaves

fill the basin below

moss-covered falls

  

This is where I found my fish suiseki several years ago. The fallen leaves hid any potential finds, though, and it wasn’t until we were a few yards from the new beaver dam that I found a gorgeous multi-coloured beauty. I lugged it beside the trail where I stashed it for future removal.

I considered turning back at this point, but we decided to continue along the flat section of trail and then began climbing the long slope. At the crest of the hill, in a small clearing to the west, was a frozen whitetail deer. Chase must not be a natural hunter, for he had dashed ahead, and never saw nor winded the deer. I could see the deer’s body and head and even his eyes. After a few seconds, it bounded off.

your white flag

tells us it’s time

to head home

from review of ZR: p&h in World Haiku Review 

Vol. 7 #1. March 2009 by former Haiku Canada

President Terry Ann Carter

 One of the finest haiku in the collection is this one:

dry leaves 

fill the basin below

moss covered falls

With its allusions to opposites (the dry leaves, the waterfall) the presence of absence, the shape of the dry basin clearly outlined against the growing moss covering fallen stumps which gives its own olfactory resonance, this haiku captures an ordinary moment with extraordinary skill.

The Buddhist Monastery

Following is one of my favourite chapters from my memoir/haibun Eel Pie Island Dharma. It's about the fall of 1969, after I'd resisted the draft for the Vietnam War and escaped to England. It was first self-published in 1990 with Unfinished Monument Press, then professionally republished in 2012 with Hidden Brook Press (thanks publisher Tai Grove). Thanks also to fellow Eel Pie Island communard Weed who kindly posted this online circa 2003. I believe it's one of the earliest English language book length haibun.   

EEL PIE DHARMA - a memoir / haibun -  © 1990 Chris Faiers

Chapter 11 - The Buddhist Monastery Mark Valiant at first seemed an unlikely person to have a deeply religious side.  He was an ex-cop, and the story goes that as he was becoming more and more sympathetic towards the youth rebellion, one day he took the plunge, and took it in a big way.  Mark took a strong dose of STP, a psychedelic even more hallucinatory than LSD.  He tripped for three days, and after that experience he was a changed man.  He quit the police, grew a beard and took to hanging around L'Auberge Cafe. Mark was one of the regulars in Martha's crowd, sort of an older brother for Martha and a surrogate son for the Holmes.  He had been the unofficial "elder" who took charge when Martha's parents left on their holiday to Ibiza, the one I ruined with the flooding bathtub. A couple of times Mark led Sunday expeditions to a Buddhist monastery several miles away.  It was always exciting to get up early for a change, and to watch London slowly coming to life from the top deck of a double-decker bus. A path led down a lane to the monastery and the temple beside it.  The service consisted of all present sitting in meditation in the comfortable chapel for about a half hour or forty-five minutes.  It was very relaxing, and the meditations were led by a monk, who sat in front.  The layout of the chapel and pews wasn't that dissimilar from a Christian service - with the notable difference that no words were spoken, no hymns sung.  It was up to each of us to make our peace with the world. One morning a cat found its way into the chapel, and halfway through meditation it let out a yowl, and decided it wanted to go elsewhere.  It was amusing to see the startled look on all our faces at this unexpected interruption, but the monk calmly got up and let the cat out to wander off, and we resumed meditating. My impression of these mornings is of a tranquil blue atmosphere.  There was a subtle presence of blue energy always present after we had begun meditating, and my feeling was that the monk was pleased with the aura, which I'm sure he was very aware of. After the meditation session we would gather in the vestibule of the chapel, and drink tea and discuss religion.  Everyone present was offered an equal chance to speak, either to pose or to answer questions offered by the others present.  Not surprisingly, after the relaxing effects of the meditation, most of us didn't have much to say, the words would have just come between us and the immediacy of the experience of sitting calmly in the blue atmosphere of the chapel. One Sunday morning in early winter, when I was making one of my last visits to the chapel with a couple of other Eel Piers, it began to snow.  Many years later I still clearly remember the experience of walking down the narrow lane, crunching the white powder under my scuffed boots, when this haiku popped into my mind: walking to meditation  though fresh snow 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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how I came to live in the abandoned Eel Pie Island Hotel in 1969

This posting is a follow-up to yesterday's pic of the Eel Pie Island Hotel. Following is a chapter from my memoir/haibun Eel Pie Island Dharma. I self-published it in 1990 with  Unfinished Monument Press. Fellow Eel Pie survivor Weed posted it online in the early 2000s, and Tai Grove published a professional edition with Hidden Brook Press in 2012.  

 

Chapter 6 - Meeting Eel Pie

"Out of college, money spent  see no future, pay no rent  all the money's gone  no place to go ..."  Abbey Road, The Beatles

I nervously wandered off the curving streets of Richmond into the offices of the local newspaper to ask for a job.  I was surprised when I was taken seriously.  As a test assignment, the editor told me that a group of hippies had started a commune in an abandoned hotel in Twickenham, the next village along the Thames.  The directions were fascinating  -  the hotel was called Eel Pie Island Hotel, and it really was on a little island in the middle of the Thames.

I caught the double-decker bus to Twickenham, and quickly found the arched footbridge which led to Eel Pie Island.  It was about two hundred feet across the little bridge, with a beautiful view of the Thames.  When I had reached the island I felt I had entered a special place.  A footpath lined with neat little cottages wound through the centre of the island.  There was no missing the old hotel at the end of the footpath.  It was derelict, and I just walked in where the grand front entrance had once been.

Without any problems I quickly located the founder of the commune.  Cliff was an artist/cartoonist and an anarchist.  He was living with his American girlfriend, Ame, in a large room on the second floor of the hotel.  Cliff was a big bear of a man by English standards.  He had long, strawlike brown hair and an unkempt beard.  With his granny glasses he looked like a professor gone bad.  Ame was an All-American girl  -  fresh-faced and clean limbed with glasses  -  a professor's wife gone bad.

Cliff's easel and layout table and supplies spilled over one half of their large room, and in the other half was a big old mattress on the floor covered with quilts and blankets.  The scene was artsy and cozy and there was the musty smell of Thames dampness pervading.

It looked like an enticing way to live, very bohemian and independent and countercultural.  As I introduced myself to begin the interview, I was compelled to say, "I'm really a poet, not a reporter."

"What kind of poetry?" Cliff wanted to know.  "Mostly haiku poetry, it's a Japanese style," and I dug into my dolly bag to give them a copy of Cricket Formations.

"We want to build a commune of artists, especially politically conscious artists," Cliff explained.  "Why don't you pick out a room to use as a study and you could live here as part of the commune.  Only a couple of people have moved in so far.  You'd have your pick of rooms."

This was too good an offer to resist.  I dashed around the hollow building.  Too Much!  There were no flats available in the Greater London area.  I had been turfed out of two bedsitters in a week, and here I was being offered a room of my own in this picturesque setting.  Thoughts of the interview were forgotten.  I was a poet again.

EEL PIE ISLAND At first there were only a handful of hippies in the derelict hotel and I got a room instead of a story when I said I'm really a poet not a reporter Two years of my life sleepstoned hiding from the clammy Thames fog only our black and brown hashish smoke holding up the crumbling walls It's all so trite ten years later so far out and away from the foggy decay of spunksoaked mattresses Dougie, Crippled Eddie, Lorna Scotch John, Seamus Angie  -  Dominic Where are you now as the world discos towards 1984 to lift my head off the floor hand me a fuming chillum to kiss me tonight

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Eel Pie Island (words & pics)   |   Cliff Harper - The Education of Desire

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New TV Series "1969" based on Chris Faiers's "Eel Pie Island Dharma" memoir

 

Well, it isn't official yet, and the rights are still very open for bidding. But I thought I'd better put the concept out there while I'm still alive and kicking. (and make sure my copyright is honoured when some smart producer twigs to this idea)

I'm a latecomer to binge watching TV. In fact I haven't watched TV for most of my life, and I haven't owned a TV set for decades. But during the pandemic I began binge watching TV at a friend's house to pass the time, and I've enjoyed quite a few of the current series, which was a new cultural experience for me. In fact I am so impressed with some of the political content in the new 1923 series that I wrote my first blog post about TV yesterday. Several years ago two young English actors and novice script writers wrote an extensive movie script based on my memoir/haibun Eel Pie Island Dharma about my hippy, commune living adventures in the late 1960s. I self-published this book in 1990 as Eel Pie Dharma with my Unfinished Monument Press, and it was republished in a professional format in 2012 by Hidden Brook Press as Eel Pie Island Dharma. Considering the incredibly vibrant music of the times, the sound track to 1969 is a no-brainer. 

Yep, drugs, sex, rock'n'roll, adventuring through the late 1960s - the chapter titles tell the tales:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

A Psychedelic Basho 144 Piccadilly Squat The Day We (Sort Of) Met George Harrison The Isle Of Wight Concert Bedsitters & Jools Meeting Eel Pie Eel Piers More Eel Piers Alice Eel Pie Days The Buddhist Monastery The Schoolgirls Dominic And The Gnome Homes Twickenham Cemetery

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

The Clap Clinic Tripping Formentera The Night The Hog Farmers Got Swamped Skinheads The Three Fishes Tripping To Cambridge Lavenham Hare Krishna Glastonbury Magic Festival Ireland Wales The Rich Hippie Mescaline On The Barbican

 

 

fan letters today

Decades ago I realized I'd never earn a living as a Canadian poet. The greatest satisfaction I can receive for being a Canuckian poet is when my work touches someone's life or soul. This morning I received two unexpected such emails. The first is regarding a copy of ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun which I loaned to a new neighbour. The second emails are from the nephew of the two "bushrats" who befriended me when I moved to the eastern Kawartha Lakes area over 31 years ago. 

Chris
Bill and his wife came over this morning - gave them tour and he had really good ideas. Thank you for the contact!
And i want to buy the second book from you to savour. Only read summer section because i wanted to stay in sync with season. 3 lines, one haiku, in there stuck in my head.
Advertised yard sale but may have to postpone as storms are predicted for Sunday but i wont cancel yet... its only Thursday!
Best
B

                                                                       ~    ~    ~

Hello Chris, my name is Patrick Hill. I am a nephew of Joe and Bob Hill, I loved the poem you wrote and have shared it with the rest of our family. I was hoping that you had some more stories and or experiences you could share on these two? By the way, the medals were Joe's, he served in the merchant marine Lol. I have a family Facebook page filled with over 500 newspaper articles on the Hill family and their run ins with the law. Their mother was sent to jail for 3 months and she had to take her 4 month old baby with her, moonshine was her offence.

hope this reaches the right person
Cheers
Patrick Hill


                                                                     .    .    .

Thank you so much for responding. I can hardly wait to see what comes to mind after the beers. Family lore has it that Joe was involved in the 1961 bank robbery, but the info is scarce. I have read the book, and seen the play at our local outdoor theater, 4th line theater.

I was having a visit with two of my cousins and they told me that Joe was involved with a bank robbery in Norwood, but never got caught.
This family has a long history of breaking the law and family feuds, we lost a great uncle in 1905 to a drive by shooting (horse and buggy). Lots of info on assaults, pig stealing, cattle stealing, cattle poisoning, arson, moonshining, murder, attempted murder, etc. 

I would love to share the info with any historian, it is all public information, you just have to know where to find it. Lol.
Cheers and I look forward to our next chat.
You must have also known Hindu (Yeomans) that lived by the bridge at deer river.

Patrick Hill



here's their poem:

a bushrat's intimations of mortality at Callaghan's Rapids

in memory of Joe and Bob Hill


guy at the liquor store
old dude like me
12 pack on the conveyor belt
asks if the snow on my empties
is from ice fishing on Crowe Lake

'nope, just snow drifted into my porch
haven't been on the ice drinking beer
hoping for a pickerel bite in decades'

'Say, you must know some friends of mine?'
I answer with the Hill brothers,
Joe & Bob
old bushrat brothers who taught me
to fish & hunt when I moved here
quarter century ago
both been dead for a decade or more

'Don't know them,' he replied
what about Fred Smith?
yeah, he was a neighbour for a while
beautiful wife
'yeah, she left him for down south'

I say, 'I'd rather have liquor than a wife!'
half joking - maybe not
yeah, Joe & Bob Hill
they had a bunch of other brothers
but it was those two bushrats
who showed this big city kid
the ropes of rural life


Cordova outlaws - yeah
some tall true tales from those two
fought like all brothers
told some nasty stories on each other
maybe true
medals from World War Two
but which one!
or both

hydro crewmen
dynamite, booze
cooking in camps
on the hydro line cuts
which civilized this area
if Al Purdy had held a steady job
he'd a been one of them

Bob & Joe
tried to teach me to fish pickerel
Scott's Dam - bottle of rye
in my back pocket
sipped it to impress them
& dull the black fly bites

flies leave me alone now
they don't like bushrat blood
anyway - 
but flies sure loved my
virgin rye-laced freshness

after the LCBO drop-off
Chase & I wander Callahan's Rapids
the haunted trail - den-laced cedars
tracks everywhere - underground creeks
as well - careful every step
Chase & I take or we could be stranded
broken legs

and I think back on Bob & Joe Hill
can't remember if I promised not to write about them
crazy blood brothers who lived in this
halfway land of muskie rivers, creeks, swamps
Bob bragged he'd fucked on every island
in Cordova Lake
a challenge I've never followed
(well once or twice)

Bob & Joe
dead too young from alcohol
& doctors who don't respect bush people


Bob & Joe's stories reverberate:
the big bank robbery in Havelock
robbers had a boat stashed across Belmont Lake
when the dirt track ended the cops' chase lakeside
they paddled across smooth as silk
money & robbers never found -
some still looking for both


never thought before
but was it them?
my old bushrat buddies
Joe drove a new Lincoln
but his money I bet
came from his slicko gambling
slyer than the Campbellford
doctors & lawyers from campsite poker
he'd suck them in with mispronounced words
lose a few hands to the city suckers
then bang down big when the pot grew large

or ...........
all this aft's walk I thought of Bob & Joe
long, long gone to that big swamp in the sky
bushrat brothers, Bob measured his winters
by muskies lying on the snow of Blairton Bay

guess I'm the next generation now
not half as tough, but still upright
growing craggy & beer bellied
still walking the trails they showed me
the secret fishing holes
the icy islands where they lived & loved


Chris Faiers

January 20, 2014

My Summer of 1969 -

Chris on the deck of China Tea Steam Navigation Company, Thames River, Richmond, England - summer of 1969.


Following is the first chapter of my memoir/haibun of that  tumultuous and magical year, 1969. I self-published this as Eel Pie Dharma in 1990 (while the memories were still fresh). Tai Grove republished a professional edition in 2012 with Hidden Brook Press as Eel Pie Island Dharma. Fellow Eel Pie Islander "Weed" kindly posted this online in the early 2000s. The first draft of a movie script based on my memoir was completed last summer by Tom Hanson and Sam Gillett of Twickenham.

 

Chapter 1 - A Psychedelic Basho

At community college I began writing bad poetry around 1967.  When I realized that I was not cut out to be a science student, I immersed myself in arts courses and declared myself a poet.  Some poems submitted to the student magazine reminded the editor of haiku.  Having never heard of haiku, I didn't know what to make of the comment, but browsing through a literary magazine I found a classified ad offering copies of Haiku magazine from a Toronto address.

Haiku duly arrived, and I fell in love with the haiku form.  The similarity between haiku and the brief poems I had been attampting was obvious, and soon I was submitting haiku to the editor of Haiku, Dr Eric Amann.

After initial rejections.  I was thrilled when Eric Amann accepted several haiku for his magazine.  Encouraged, I began to devote myself to writing haiku.  Basho, the wandering haiku poet/priest of medieval Japan, was added to my role models.  The lonely life of a commuting college student in Florida presented a few of my early poems:

Christmas vacation tame ducks starving   by the campus lake

Rain   gray doves  strung on a wire

Light breeze     striding across campus           a thin professor

Almost from the beginning of my student days I had been fighting an appeals battle with the draft board.  Unfortunately I had registered in Georgia, just before our family moved back to Florida.  In retrospect, and after corresponding with former classmates many years later, I believe that I was an easy target for the Atlanta draft board.  Living out of the state, drafting me wouldn't stir up any local antagonisms, and the fact that I was also a resident alien (as a Canadian citizen by birth) probably didn't help my cause.  Ongoing struggles to keep my student status caused me to intensely question the Vietnam War, and I was living day-to-day with the life-and-death questions of duty to country versus participation in an unethical war.  This personal turmoil provided a fertile ground for writing haiku poems.  Often I had insomnia, and I would think back over my life.  A family vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains provided:

Cavern pool   tourists watching                    blind fish

Memories of a far off Halloween in Canada when I was five years old inspired:

Halloween     a young boy   in a skeleton suit

Some days I would escape to the beach after class:

                                                                     blue sea
                                                               bobbing red and white
                                                                 lobster trap buoys

Summer moonlight     rotting on our roof         a starfish

As I became more and more disillusioned with the Vietnam War, I began to hang around with the other radicals and longhairs on the campus.  Miami was, and is, a very reactionary city, and psychedelia, which had flowered in California in 1966, was just reaching Miami in 1968.  I was one of the first long hairs on campus, and the second guy on Key Biscayne to grow long hair.  The centre for the slowly evolving hippie community in Miami was Coconut Grove, an artistic haven located around the Dinner Key docks and the adjacent waterfront park:

Bay wind blowing   Coconut Grove sailboats         tinkling rigging

First green appearing     buds on the new stake hedge           and chameleons

The flower     of this old tree         a treehouse

At the peak of the Vietnam War, in June 1969, I received three draft notices in a week.  It was time to leave.  I flew from Miami to Nassau:


                                                         lobster antennas
                                                     waving from the twin caves
                                                            of a cement block
                          

Mounted sailfish   lining the walls   of Nassau airport

From Nassau I caught a flight to Luxemburg, and then I caught a train from Brussels to London:

Luxemburg  black paint on pink brick              U. A.

I lived with my cousin and his wife on the outskirts of London for several months.  It wasn't a comfortable arrangement for any of us.  I continued writing my haiku, always carrying a notebook with me in a tote bag.  One of my first visits was to Piccadilly Circus, where the traffic island in the centre of the world's busiest intersection had become an international hippie rendezvous under the statue of Cupid.  The day I visited Piccadilly there was a bust for hash smoking.  A bobby was about to arrest me when he spied my London guide book, and he let me go:

Piccadilly Circus     Cupid's fountain spraying                hippies

By now I had a large collections of haiku, many of them published in Haiku and numerous other small haiku journals which had sprung up in the United States.  I spent many days visiting Kew Gardens, and after one afternoon of meditation, I explored a side road on my way back to Kew Station.  I found a little printing company, and somehow got the courage to go in.

I'd like to publish a collection of my poems, I shyly told the balding, potbellied printer.  Despite my hippie appearance, my American accent tipped him that I might have money, and he got me to show him what I wanted.

When he saw my Luxemburg poem with the swastika, he wanted to know if I was a fascist.  I convinced him that I wasn't a fascist, only a poet, and he agreed to print my poetry in little booklets for £50 for 500 copies.

A week later I went back and picked up the box of my first chapbook, Cricket Formations.  I lugged the booklets down the hill to the post office in the hamlet of Kew, and spent the afternoon mailing them all over the world.

---

Poetry Publishers Lament: Tai Grove/Chris Faiers

Following is a found poem created by Tai Grove, Hidden Brook Press publisher,  from an email I sent him. Great minds and all that  ;  )-

Tai is starting a distribution company, and if anyone on the Canuck poetry scene can accomplish this miracle successfully, it's Tai.




The Small Publisher Warehouse

Shelves loaded to the ceiling!
A common towered sight
for so many Canuck small presses.
Poets & academics want their books
published,
small presses link hopes
with authors for countless reasons
(often just to make a quota
to keep their government oiled
subsidies flowing),
with the end product,
tree book towers.
The forgotten books,
live for decades piled
piled, piled on top of each other
tipping ignominiously,
toppling towers into the gaping
iron mouths endless appetite.
Shredded, recycled into cardboard
boxes to carry our Wheaties,
the power house for obscure poets
that languor in obscurity, in
the shadows of tree book towers.






hi Chris

thanks for your email. the crux, the future, of publishing CanPo and CanLit has to be is POD. to comment on your remark about stacks of warehoused poetry books – thank goodness i only have small stacks of books, nothing that cannot fit in my office. most of my stacks are from the pre-POD era when we had to print a minimum of 200 books just to get the press to jerk forward to spit out the first book – we would sell 25 and stack the rest and admire our hard work while we feared the stack might fall on us and crush our goals of publishing yet another stack of books. now POD makes it possible to publish with few books insulating the walls – some i can’t even give away. my garbage man said to me the other day. “so, you are cleaning out the basement again are you” as i helped fling 6 cobwebbed sagging boxes into the iron monster’s jaw, feeding its endless appetite for obsolete CanPo. I was thinking that they need to make bio fuel out of old shredded fermented poetry books. the problem is that the cars that ran on the CanPo fuel would sit at the curb and contemplate the journey for too long before going anywhere. The only journey such a car would take is to the town of Obscurity, via Poverty Highway, at the intersection of Hope and Ego, in the very deep dark valley of Anonymity.

i could not help but see the poem in your email to me. i stole your words and wrote this. it is not worth the paper it is written on (no paper) but it is worth a chuckle.


 

Glastonbury Fayre 1971 - When I was a naked, tripping hippie Starchild!

I was surfing the web last night and read an article in THE GUARDIAN about Glastonbury Music Festival.  Memories! memories! (mine follow) Fellow Eel Pie Island communard Weed posted this online in 2005, from my self-published 1990 book, EEL PIE DHARMA. Tai Grove, publisher of Hidden Brook Press, encouraged me to do a professional reprint in 2012 as EEL PIE ISLAND DHARMA. There's now a great selection of pics online about this seminal festival, and I've pasted one I found of our pyramid below.

EEL PIE DHARMA - a memoir / haibun -  © 1990 Chris Faiers

---

Chapter 24 - Glastonbury Magic Festival

Word went out through the hippie grapevine of a magic festival to be held in Glastonbury.  Glastonbury was a legendary sacred site in England, with a cathedral where one of the apostles had planted a rose bush which bloomed all the year round.  Nearby loomed a mysterious conical hilltop, called a tor, which was rumoured to be hollow.  Glastonbury Tor was said to be a 'sending station' on the system of ley lines, a power grid which lay over the English countryside, and which is the planet's equivalent of the magnetic fields which surround the human body which acupuncturists use.

Jeremy and I had earlier visited another of these mysterious tors, Michael's Mount off the Cornish Coast.  Another such tor is Mont San Michel off the French coast.  In the olden days festivals were held to replenish the 'dragon power', or earth magic which kept fields fertile and the inhabitants prosperous.  Supposedly the twelve signs of the zodiac were laid out around Glastonbury Tor, and from the small chapel on top of the Tor one could see the zodiac's unusual shapes blended in with the English countryside.

This was an event not to be missed.  The festival was to be held for the summer solstice, June 21, and I left my dossing friends in Cornwall and began to hitchhike.  I got a ride as far as Salisbury, travelling quickly through the ancient fields of Stonehenge country.  Walking through Salisbury, a hippie/student came up to me, and gave me a hit of acid wrapped in foil.  He bragged how he and his mates had put hits of acid into the milk bottles which the local police used for their tea, and how that day a couple of cops had gone to hospital with hallucinations, while the other policemen wandered about in a happy daze all day, smiling at everyone.

I thanked him for the acid, and not knowing what to do with it, and not wanting to be caught with it in my possession after hearing his story, I put the foil packet in my mouth and resumed hitching.  Rides followed quickly.  First a van full of black musicians on their way to a gig picked me up, hoping to score some dope.  Then a mysterious business-type man in a sleek Jaguar told me to hop in.

As we sped through the darkening evening his conversation became more and more questioning.  He seemed to know a lot about the forthcoming festival, and was eager to know as much as I could tell him about it.  I realized that I was beginning to babble, and then it occurred to me that the acid had been dissolving in my mouth, depite the tinfoil.  So I was starting to trip, and at this point, speeding through the night, my mysterious driver told me he was the police chief for the area, and that he wanted to know what to expect from the festival goers.  I tried to put his mind at ease, that we weren't going to be smuggling dope or sacrificing virgins.  I also realized that I wanted to get out of the car before a full-blown acid trip took over.

He let me out on the outskirts of Piltdown, after pointing me in the general direction of the farm where the festival would be held.  I wandered down the lonely highway in the dark with only starlight to guide me.  The white lines in the middle of the road began stretching and blurring in an effect I knew was the result of a mild acid trip, but the effects weren't overpowering.  At the juncture with the road I was to follow the next day, I slipped into a field and fell asleep, exhaustion overcoming the weak acid dose.

I awoke late the next morning, still feeling some effects from the acid, and lay in the field watching the clouds make incredible patterns in the clear blue sky.

Finally excitement at the thought of the festival overcame my lethargy, and I started to walk down the country road.  Surprisingly I got another ride, this time from a local who also had heard a lot about the festival.  He was dubious about the quality of our hippie magic, as the weather had been overcast for the past few days.  His tone wasn't ironic, and I realized how many of the British, especially in the countryside, still believe in magic and a lot of the Celtic mythologies.

The road was becoming jammed with fellow festival goers, and when my ride let me out, I joined the throng.  This was a more serious and committed type of hippie.  We were the true believers for the most part, not just students growing their hair long for a wild summer.

A local farmer let us use his fields, with his stone farmhouse as headquarters.  By the time I got to the site it was dinner time, and some self-styled diggers had set up a kitchen beside the farmhouse in the barnyard.  I ate some stew dippped from a huge iron pot, and soon was reviving old friendships with people from the Richmond scene and elsewhere.

There was a magical excitement in the air, and the view over the festival site was typical of Somerset's hilly beauty.  I wandered from the throng at the soup kitchen, and fell asleep on a hill in the middle of a field.  A very odd snuffling noise awoke me very early the next morning:

Asleep in a field  a browsing cow   my alarm clock

I was too excited, for once, to fall back asleep, and made my way down the hill to where some vans were unloading around the base of an unusual structure.  The rock'n'roll bands were going to play on a platform part way up a scale model of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which we were going to build with construction scaffolding which an enlightened builder had loaned us.

Everyone was smoking dope and unloading trucks in a flurry of manic activity, and I joined in.  I was proud of the muscles I had developed as a gravedigger, and I spent hours unloading scaffolding.  After unloading, I joined the construction crews, and very quickly the pyramid began taking shape.  One job I had to perch on a rail high in the air and saw off the end of a piece of pipe with a hacksaw.  Halfway through the job, someone handed me a carrot carved into a chillum and stuffed with pungent hash.  We were a crazy looking construction crew, but somehow through the haze of hash smoke, the pyramid grew skyward.  Boards were laid for the performance area, about twenty feet off the ground, and the scaffolding continued to a peak about seventy feet above that.

After working on the pyramid all day, I took off for a tour of the festival site.  The farm was about a hundred acres, with hedgerows dividing the area into several major fields.  Tents were appearing everywhere, and many hippies were building huts in the hedgerows.  Banners and tents and colourful people were everywhere, like some medieval camp before battle.

For a bunch of spaced-out freaks, things were amazingly well organized.  Six-foot deep latrines were dug, and metal pipes were laid across them.  Another free kitchen sprung up towards the bottom of the site, and everyone looked like they were going to be housed and fed.  At the bottom of the hilly fields, the pyramid stretched into the sky, and after several days of building, the musical part of the festival was about to begin.

I settled in a giant wigwam tent, at the bottom of the fields about a hundred yards from the pyramid.  Quickly our tent became a family, and I met a blonde girl who hitched into Piltdown with me to buy food for our tribe.  That night about ten of us dropped acid together while we sat huddled in blankets before the stage.

Arthur Brown was the first performer, and he tried to bum people out.  He sang about how the Aquarian dream was a fake, and that we should all examine our consciences.  We countered his rock star negativity by staying in our group, and whenever one of us looked a little uncomfortable, the rest of us would put our arms over them and tell them they were in a big egg and about to be reborn.

The positive group dynamics soon had us all on great acid trips, and we felt free to wander as a group.  We danced and listened to the music under the stars with hundreds of other stoned worshippers, and all was at peace.  Someone had gotten hold of a jug of scrumpy, a strong local cider, and that also helped ease any acid paranoias.

Later in the evening, one of us had to take a dump, and so the whole gang of us dutifully trooped over to the open air latrines, and all of us sat in a long row on the poles and had a good shit or pee, men and women, young and old.  It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life, all of us sitting there in the open air under the stars, making the natural and rude noises we all must make every day of our lives without any embarrassment.  Some of us got the giggles from the acid, and the relaxing sound of laughter mixed well with the rock music and the sounds of nature.

We all stumbled into the wigwam and fell asleep in each others' arms.  I slept with the blonde girl, but we wanted to remain celibate to keep the spiritual atmosphere.  In the middle of the night there was a commotion outside, and when we went to investigate, we noticed a giant shining star.  On acid it hung in the sky like a space ship  -  it was the morning star, and we all stood in awe for several minutes.

After a week of wandering in the fields, listening to music around campfires and eating with our fingers, we were incredibly dirty.  I decided to walk the mile to a little pond where there were thirty or forty skinnydippers splashing around.  I slipped off my dirty bellbottoms, and swam around in naked bliss, the water cool under the high afternoon sun.

Late the next morning a hippie gave me a hit of acid, and then suggested we walk across the fields to Glastonbury Tor.  It was a long hike, and after the usual hour the acid started coming on.  It wasn't enough to overwhelm us, though.  After several miles we came to a country road with a pub, and we stood and watched the swaying patterns the wind was making by sweeping through the ivy on the walls:

Wind    through ivy mat       pub walls

Finally we reached the Tor, and began the slow hike up.  After twenty minutes we completed the steep climb, and there below us was laid out the Somerset countryside.  Try as I might, I couldn't make out the mythical zodiac patterns, but the old chapel on the top of the Tor had a very magical aura about it, and the view itself was enough to make any other kind of magic irrelevant.

The festival had lasted over a week.  It was much written about in the British musical and countercultural press, and I believe that the festival is still being held annually, almost twenty years after our inaugural event with the great pyramid.


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


Ed Baker has left a new comment on your post "Glastonbury Fayre 1971 - When I was a naked, tripp...":

those WERE the daze.... eh ?
and the festival... there in England...
did you know, that England is the northern-most
point of land that is above water of what was Atlantis ?
(see Donnelly)
so... this kind of celebration/festival is fitting.
a fun read. cheers, Ed

Posted by Ed Baker to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 9 June 2015 at 13:25

                                      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On Jun 9, 2015, at 4:39 PM, Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca> wrote:

thanks, Ed  ;  )
It was kinda sad finding the article in The Guardian about the current state of the Glastonbury Festivals - it's VERY commercial now - believe it's the largest muzak fest in the English speaking world. But ... once upon a time ... at the northernmost edge of Atlantis, 7,000 stoned hippies celebrated the Summer Solstice the way we used to millennia ago!!!

                                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On 2015-06-10, at 12:04 AM, Dr. John wrote:

Great memoir, Sensei. You vividly recreated the early 70s for those who, ahem, don't clearly remember them. And yes dammit, there WAS a pyramid. I thought for sure you had conjured that up in a flight of poetic fancy. But no, the latter day Druids built it, and come they did.

                                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Conrad DiDiodato has left a new comment on your post "Glastonbury Fayre 1971 - When I was a naked, tripp...":
This is the best protest song ever by 10 Years After
Your haibun kinda reminded me of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg6xaFZStEI&index=80&list=PLsOVMhzv5cZOHXfdvqWYN3A0sZMCvWf3Y

Posted by Conrad DiDiodato to Riffs &amp; Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 11 June 2015 at 04:59

WINDOW FISHING: The night we caught Beatlemania

Hi Tai, John B. & all the other contributors to WINDOW FISHING  : )
 
What a gorgeous book! I opened the package under the full moon by the Crowe River less than an hour ago. I started thumbing thru, & LOVE ME DO popped into my head. It's still there, altho a crazy juke box of other Beatles' songs keeps chorusing as well.

The life I've lived wouldn't have been the same, not half as full, without the Beatles. One of the first postings I did on my blog was about George Harrison. For over a decade George, & his mentor, A. C. Bhaktivedanta, have been my personal spirit guides. Yeah, crazy shite! The Beatles sang us out of the doom and gloom of the 1950s & early 60s to give us a glimpse of what human beings could make of life on planet earth. Bodhisattvas all  (yeah, yeah, yeah)!

peace & poetry power!
Chris




Window Fishing: the night we caught Beatlemania (2nd edition), edited by John B. Lee, Hidden Brook Press, 193 pages, 2014. $19.95

my contribution:

Chapter 3 - The Day We  (Sort Of)  Met George Harrison

It was late summer.  A bunch of L'Auberge regulars decided to take a Sunday trek to see George Harrison, who was rumoured to be living in a little village named Esher.  We hopped on the double-decker bus in Richmond, and after an hour or so of riding we arrived in Esher.  The ten of us were a scraggly lot, all would-be hippies trying to grow our hair long, the girls dressed in shawls and long skirts and granny boots.

Our goals were the standard ones in 1969 - California Jon, Canadian Peter and a couple of other guitarists had made a tape, and wanted Harrison's opinion of it.  I had a copy of my just printed haiku chapbook, Cricket Formations, and I hoped to get up enough nerve to present my poems to my idol.  And of course we all wanted to meet a real live Beatle!

Harrison was my favourite Beatle, largely because he was the one closest to me in physical appearance, with his craggy face and dark hair.  I had modelled my haircut and clothes on Harrison for some time.  I also thought he was the most interesting Beatle because of his enthusiasm for Eastern mysticism.

Someone had gotten good directions, for we actually found Harrison's house without a lot of trouble.  Located in a very staid, upper-middle-class suburban neighbourhood, the house stood out like a psychedelic advertisement.  A high fence bordered the large lot, and the house was painted a myriad of colours, like something out of the movie Yellow Submarine.  We were all entranced to be setting foot in a sacred preserve of Beatledom, and after knocking on the door and receiving no answer, we boldly began surveying the premises.

"MICK & MARIANNE WUZ HERE!" was spray painted on the front wall, and this further consecrated the property.  Our rock heroes actually lived here, visited with each other, slept together, and had probably done these wild paintings on acid trips like our own.  We were all strengthened in our faith as true believers in hippiedom.

Some of the group camped by the front door, and the guitar payers started scratching on their ubiquitous instruments.  I wandered around, and found a pair of George's jeans hanging on a clothesline.  For a fleeting moment I was tempted to steal them, to see if my hero's jeans would fit.

                          Manicured lawn
                          would-be hippies wait
                          for a Beatle
 

A touch of the Beatles' famous ironic humour was present in a large wooden cross leaning against the back fence.  I even had the nerve to peek in the draped windows.  On the window ledge of one room was a collection of seashells.  Miracle of miracles - there was even an apple tree - how appropriate for the founders of Apple records.  If there was a heaven on earth, this was it for Beatle fans.

                        Seashell    lined window
                        apples rotting in the yard
                        suburban fences
 

I rejoined the group on the front lawn, and soon a mini-car came scooting up the drive, quickly followed by a luxury sedan.  The driver of the mini got out, and a not-very-pleased looking George Martin confronted us.  He wanted to know what we were doing, and while we all sat there stunned, George and Patti Harrison disembarked from the sedan.  George wasn't really very prepossesing at all, but Patti was a vision of beauty, a psychedelic queen who smiled on us and calmed down the two very aggravated Georges.  She knew that we were harmless fans come to honour Beatledom, and while she smiled her guileless smile, we felt like we were in the presence of a divine goddess from another reality.  Canadian Peter recovered first, and awkwardly handed George Harrison the tape, mumbling something.  I followed suit, even more awkwardly giving George my thin booklet, and saying I hoped he would enjoy it.

An invitation inside was not forthcoming, although I believe Patti wanted to ask us all in.  We were all so enthralled at meeting George and Patti, awkward as all involved had been, that we decamped and blissfully headed back in the dusk for the bus to Richmond.

Several weeks later, a few members of the entourage went back to pick up the tape.  Apparently a record contract wasn't immediately offered, but Canadian Peter did have some good news for me. " George Harrison told me to tell you that he really liked your poetry."  I was thrilled, even though I now realised that Harrison was a mere, awkward mortal, and I was no longer in his thrall.  As a postscript, I note that George Harrison's first solo album, All Things Must Pass, had the lyrics printed on the sleeve like poems. I like to fantasize that maybe my booklet had some subtle influence, but that's wild hope and speculation ...


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Oct. 14/14:

Dear Tai:  I can't thank you enough for the wonderful words.  I will treasure this message.
Hopefully I can recreate the reading this Thursday when John B. and Bunny and I will be part of Cafe Cuba's "John Lennon in Havana" at Ellington's.
Appreciatively
Honey

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From: writers@hiddenbrookpress.com
To: zenriver@sympatico.ca; Subject: RE: Love Me Do!: congrats to all on Beatles tribute WINDOW FISHING (2nd ed.)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 22:55:28 -0400

thanks chris for your words about Window Fishing – The night we caught Beatlemania – 2nd edition

john B. lee did a great job as editor of this book. we will keep you posted on future readings for the book. along with other fabulous pieces, give special attention to Honey Novick’s piece. it is one of my personal favorites. she did a great reading of it at the Stellar Lit Fest in the summer

all the best

tai

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