TISHing around ... with DiDiodato/Faiers

 

Post a Comment On: Word-Dreamer: poetics

For Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona - Conrad DiDiodato

Saturday, January 28, 2012

For Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona

   Multiculturalism here means          
              that
                if
              I stood
               rapt
           by an eye
                or
           flaming kameez
                 or
              smile
                 or
           raven hair-

                 and
           if in growing love
              I dared
                  kiss
           an umber neck
                   or
                smooth
           a downy arm
                   or
               give her
                  her
                  first
                  rose-

                    it
                 means
                   she'd
                     be
             ceremoniously
                   dead
                     at
                   dawn

Friday, January 27, 2012

Dinner with an Old Comrade & a Murder Victim Ghost

at the Hanoi 3 Seasons restaurant:

Last Thursday evening an old Canadian Liberation Movement (CLM) comrade and I enjoyed dinner at the Hanoi 3 Seasons Restaurant in Toronto's east end. Our 37 year rendezvous was within a block of one of our old CLM storefronts at 1107 Queen Street East.


Judy has been busily reconnecting with former comrades. I've remained distant and cautious friends with a handful, but she's been dutifully making the rounds, gathering news, updates and anecdotes: Nancy died recently from an illness, Jim B. is in an institution -  a sad punchline, as those of us who knew him had always intuited something was askew, and active membership on the 'fringe' left could easily act in negative ways on anyone's mental health and stability.

Judy was as ebullient and enthusiastic and politikally committed as she had been 37 years ago. We had barely sat down when she barraged me with questions: 'What did we do wrong with CLM? Could we have done better/differently?'

I replied with the stock answers, which I believe are also the most accurate and truthful, 'We became increasingly sectarian and social fascist. We became adventurist and the Canadian public just wasn't ready or interested in our Maoist/Stalinist agenda. Finally we even managed to isolate ourselves and our key cause for Canadian independence from the Amerikan empire.'

Judy's rapid fire conversation turned to comrade Jon Penner. Apparently my poem (at the end of this reminiscence) on Jon's mysterious death in police custody had inspired Judy to research his death in the mid 1980s, about a decade after it had occurred.

Back then, coroner's juries were required for suspect deaths occurring in police custody. Judy had even managed to track down the jury foreman, an engineer who lived in Bancroft, Ontario. The foreman had told Judy their jury's inquest had been "inconclusive" - no decision had clearly been reached on whether Jon Penner had been murdered by the rural police of the Ottawa Valley, or if he had committed suicide by hanging himself in a jail cell.

Jon Penner's ghost hovered still, watching us enjoy chopstick after chopstick of delicious Vietnamese delicacies.  A progressive Canadian martyr, his murder/death still a mystery, unresolved, almost four decades later.

Judy and I hugged, said goodbyes, then ventured into the January cold of Queen Street East.

 

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

IN MEMORY OF JON PENNER Strange death even the half-tamed winds off Lake Ontario moan through Toronto ... Leaves in High Park are telling stories how trapped hours in your rusting car the police took you to jail instead of hospital. They say you hanged yourself in the night! You who were a semi-pro fighter not fighting for glory but for the peace of a needle in your arm. This fighter hanged himself? Cat burglar who clung to life on frozen sills! You defeated the needle and forsook the city's catspaw money to live miles down a deserted road - alone - in a house so haunted the moon glowed through cracks at midday. Strange they feared your politics of democracy while you lived alone writing novels and making magic with your silver chloride half-tones. T he wind which you now haunt tells strong tales ... the leaves are redder this fall. Your murderers twist and turn and don't know why the full moon on the Ottawa Valley glows brighter than the sun. - Chris Faiers  (circa 1981)

Larwill-Faiers email rambles: Thaddeus A. Brown/ZenRiver haibun/beavers/ etc.

Hey Chris,

Good to hear from you.... maybe I shouldn't have solved my Raven's Nest
beaver problem by releasing them at Zen River last year??? 

The pic for the message was sent as an attachment so I think you would
have to cut and paste the message and pic seperatly into the blog....
but I leave that up to you.

Actually when you sent me that fairy tale draft (great stuff) it made me
think of a piece of mine (no not a dwarf poem but similar) and I might
send it in a separate email.  It may seem a little politically incorrect
(surprise surprise coming from me) but it has been published in Solstice
and it does in my opinion have a healing and positive message... as one
hopes with seasonal humour that tries to shed a different light.

Not much snow here and a easy winter so far.  I continue to work on my
poetry walk... which is turning into a meditative nature lambent
(spelling on purpose); the poems not being even important at this point
(some hanging and molding) for the path is the poem I have come to learn.

Maybe you and Morley should come for a visit when things are quiet. I
have extra rooms and beer is sold at the corner stores in Quebec.

Livesay might be a good choice for PF because I would like to know more
about her work.   B "B"issett might be a good choice because he is still
alive.  Acorn always good and if that shakes down I could also present a
paper, I have an old essay I could drag out and rework.  Still I will
mention Thaddeus A Browne because my  People's Poetry tradition in
Canada in English goes back 200 years and while our traditions may be
well hidden by the imperial streams and then those who swim in them
looking for "our" influences, we may well have been the tail that wagged
the English and American dogs, for example I believe Thaddeus A Browne's
long poem "The White Plague" (1909) may have influenced T.S. Elliot's
"The Waste Land."  Yet the internet is an interesting development
because even the works of Thaddeus A Browne are available to be read
world wide.  (One of my many ideas for a project is to record Larwillian
readings of Browne's work "Tom Longboat's Victory"  is the victory of
People's Poetry....

"It takes a man to run behind, perhaps 'midst
     scoffs and jeer,
And see the other fellow get the handclaps and
     the cheers;
To hold his head and keep his heart, that
     triumph in the end,
May vindicate his judgement and save his trust-
     ing friend.

..... and yes given the time Browne was writing in he may have had his
contradictions (its not like Acorn didn't) still the reason he is in the
past is because he was way ahead of his times even if it is easy today
to dismiss him for also being of his times with some less progressive
aspects compared to over 100 years latter.

well it is getting cold and I need to go collect twigs in the woods so I
will not break into a long rant....

Good to hear all the news from down Zen River way....

keep up all that you do old comrade

RK/jim


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



From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
Date: Thursday, December 22, 2011 12:16 pm
                                                      

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the Solstice greetings - Chase & I went to ZRG yesterday
& lit a bonfire in the drizzle to celebrate the returning of the
light.
Out with the old ... I burned a pile of beaver-chomped apple
branches, as well as a lot of juniper - billows of smoke & apple
scent amid the damp.

hey, that's almost a haiku ...

Solstice drizzle
billows of juniper smoke
spread apple scent


I tried to post your greetings & pics of the Raven's Nest, but
still not quite tech literate enuff. May try again later after
coffee & Chase's afternoon hike. We've been doing lots of long
hikes, trying to get back into winter shape after too much beer
drinking during last summer's long drought. Success not guaranteed  : )
Chris/cricket

PurdyFest: 'vacation time for poets' (reason no grants)/Larwill-Faiers emails

Vacations for poets is how Toronto poet Anna Yin accurately and concisely summarizes our annual PurdyFest gatherings. Thank you, Anna, for simplifying something which from time to time can be seen as confusing by some.

The following email string between Ottawa-area poet and core PurdyFester Jim Larwill and myself goes into more historical background on why we don't get involved with grants or funding of any kind.

By the way, Jim's emails contain some great anecdotes about the night Milton Acorn received the GG for poetry, and he mentions other People's poets, such as Jane Jordan and Jim Brown.

There are also rambles and reflections by both of us on Canadian People's poetry, thoughts on our common bond as comrades in the long-ago Canadian Liberation Movement, and on our respective rurual retreats, the Raven's Nest and ZenRiver Gardens.

- Chris



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

Date: Friday, January 13, 2012 6:01 pm

Hey again,


Sure feel free to pass on our emails or post as you see fit... there
maybe some typos and spelling mistakes as usual in my rambles but.. use
what you can as you can.

Great poem by Morley by the way.

Kent, Mac, Ronan and Carmyn say hi to Chase... a full cabin here
tonight... and watching Snow White for the second night in a row....


jim (Larwill)

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

From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
Date: January 13, 2012 6:01:37 PM EST


Hi Jim,
Much interesting reflection here - Milt, CLM, PurdyFests, even bellyrubs  :  )

I'd like to send our emails to Terry Barker, & maybe even post them online on my blog - game?! - at age 63 I'm starting to not give much of a flying fuck about stuff - I'd rather speak in my own voice than have someone else 'speak'/interpret/misinterpret what I've done with my life - & what my visions, poetic, politikal & neo-Buddhist,  are.

Spellbinding & evocative reminiscences of Milt, when he got the GG, Jane Jordan, you, Ottawa poetry scene etc. etc.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - group bellyrubs - the feature of PF #6 - hhhuuuuhhhhuuuuuuhhhhhhuuuuuuhhhuuuhhhuuuu (think ZZ Top!) - Chase approves - she was def. a she (no dude looks like a lady in the doggy world)

granddad's gotta go nap,
peace & poetry power!
C&C ... sleepy wfffffffffffffffff ...

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

On 2012-01-13, at 1:59 AM, Jim Larwill wrote:

Yo Chris,

Thanks for your reflections.

As always.

I liked the idea of Chase sucking up to everyone for a belly rub as an
integral part of PFesting.  And thanks for the stroking of my ego.
Always appreciated.  Maybe the stroking of my belly could also become an
important part of PFesting? Why should Chase get all the affection? Well
there was one PF year... well many many different memories... and as I
typed that it continues to strike me now that PFest already has a history.

It also strikes me the two stray dogs for shamanic companions on yr
Callahan's Rapids walk with Chase might be embodiments of Terry and I.
Strays of some-kind; each: eh?

Cycles turn on rims of past to present to farthest past again.  "Peoples
Poetry" maybe now a moving away from, in the same way it was once a
moving towards.

Yes  'Uncles & Aunties'.... I know there are lost Uncles out there
forgotten, I wonder how many lost Aunties?  I certainly would like to
learn more about Dorothy...  and actually Jane Jordan comes to minds as
a lost Auntie, not only lost because an Auntie, but also because she was
from Ottawa; a central figure in "Folk and Poetry" from L'Hibou days.
(First time I heard Milt read was at L'Hibou and Ian Tambline was the
fuzzed faced opening act. The young unknown Tambline was fawning in awe
of the Canadian poetry legend Acorn.  If I remember correctly Milt was
sort of awkward and dismissive with Ian, Acorn displaying that typical
tension between his shy unobtrusive and utter bombast.)  The night Milt
received the GG I remember being in the back of a cab with Milt, Jane
Jordan, and Jim Brown. It is a bit vague in the memory.  Distinct memory
of Jim B trying to convince Jane to give way to abandon and "explore"
her connection with Milt farther.

and...

Milt's comment at the gala after getting the GG...

"Stick to your guns.  You'll live or die by them."

Later at Robin and Ester Mathews's house he said, when he said this at
the GG, all the Quebecois in the room stood up because they thought he
said "Get your guns."

So maybe it is my Quebecois roots?  And People's Poetry is a Canadian
Poetry trend in English.

(I also remember sitting in the Crest Grill on Spadina with Milt after I
came to TO to find out what the hell was going on with the CLM around
the time of the purge-to-end-all-purges of Perly.  As Ottawa Club
Chairman I didn't know what the hell was going on with central office,
New Canada Press  The Canadian Worker's Union, the Toronto CLM clubs,
let alone the so called hard-line Marxist Caucus which never even had
the guts to try and recruit me even though I was openly calling myself a
Stalinist; and while at the time I thought Milt was a total lunatic, I
did know that he would give me the straight goods, so I looked him up at
the Waverley. "The Doctor is In" they told me at the desk so I dragged
Acorn out of his ashtray of a room down to the greasy-spoon around the
corner from the CLM office and Milt's doss house near Spadina and Queen.
Milt talked about sectarianism being rampant in the movement.  And
more.  Of course. Zulus.  "In the Jungle the Lion Sleeps Tonight" being
dead British Soldiers. Korea's first in the world iron clad ships.  And
some how he got me talking about my multilayer and checked origins.
"Jim" he said with dull assonance when he first opened the door of his
hotel room. And 'Jim' he said again at the Crest Grill across the
mottled booth table after I spoke of my intermingled family history.
'Jim.'  'Jim.'  'Jim.'  He laughed with timber and seemed to drift off
to another place and time.  'Jim.'  He disappeared into his thoughts.
'Jim."  It became an echo.  The interview seemed over and like a
ground-hog Milt's psychic had scurried down a hole with a scrap of some
kind. Now I would recognize it as a writers with a bone needing to be
gnawed on.  A few months later at the purge of Gary Perly, Milt and I
were the two last members of the CLM to oppose the purging of Perly.
Milt gave way when it was relieved Perly "had stolen from widows and
orphans."  As a Stalinist I hung hard arguing to the very end Perly
should be removed from his position as Chairman, but rehabilitated
within the movement.  I felt the movement was more important than
revenge. And Stalinist's like the concept of rehabilitation. However: a
new a better world was coming to free the previously mislead from the
tyranny of the past and I was a silenced lone voice. Free of the
movement Perly went on to quickly become a millionaire.  The CLM within
months of optimistic new democracy fell apart.  Milton that year wrote
the poem "Jim.")

.....hmmm a ramble that seemed to arrive... anyway


If you ever come to visit the Raven's Nest I am sure you will
immediately feel the energy difference between it and Zen River.
Hmmm... maybe something to ask Simon?  Energies connected but different.

Certainly for Milt and Purdy poetry was rooted in the landscape.  Ted
too in most ways even if an Urban landscape.

more on another day...

Hey Chase... that big shepherd might not have been a she.... deal with
it....

rk

jim


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


From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 4:40 pm
Subject: red herring of People's poetry descriptor/listening to wild voices

Hi Jim,
Good to hear from you. I wasn't pissed off or anything by your
strong response - it was a gut honest response (something too many
poets are afraid to make!), & I was glad to get it.

The opportunity to feature bill bissett - or more accurately, to
pay bill to attend - is the closest I've come to paying a poet.
Nothing overly principled in my wishes to not pay PF poets - it's
honestly as much laziness on my part, perhaps almost as much as
just not wanting to play the
'establishment'/capitalist/hierarchical/academic/etc. etc. ........
literary games again - altho I did eventually manage to pay ALL the
poets I featured at the Main Street Library gig 3 decades ago -
can't remember how many CC grants I could give in a year, & Toronto
Public Library paid everyone else we featured - think it was $25 -
not that bad for the early 80s).

Yeah, the whole 'People's poet' thing. Who is, who isn't, who may
be, who gives a shite???

The whole thing is really a red herring (wow, bad pun) as it was
the poets (like Atwood, Purdy, etc.) who gave the title & medal to
Milt at Grossman's Pub so many decades ago. They did it primarily
to honour Milt & to make up for the GG he was robbed of, but also
with a lot of tongues firmly in cheeks (I believe).

I def. see PFests as something of a new paradigm & direction for
Canadian poetry. More egalitarian, participatory, non-capitalist -
even kinda 'hippie & New Age' - (groans from a few peeple on those
descriptors possibly). Also shamanic, magickal and 'earth-oriented'
- e.g. all the campers at ZenRiver.

You are a key part of PFesting - every year you sooprise all of us
with some new twist - Wilbur wandering out of the sumacs - crazed &
lyrical shaman chants last summer - & of course we always depend on
you to be the ultra-stern kamp kommandant at ZRG  :  )

So whether you consider yourself a People's Poet - is kinda
irrelevant really (to others - me anyway) because it's what we're
creating for CanPo - a whole new way for presenting & LIVING CanPo
for the week+ of PurdyFests. Of course there are still remaining
major elements of the trad poetry scene - the Symps are pretty
trad. academic, but we need this, just as we need the round robin
readings on the dam, & Morley playing his guitar, the cooperative
campfire dinners at ZRG, and you surprising us every year with some
new facet of poetic inspiration. Hey, even Chase sucking up to
everyone for a belly rub is part of PFesting.

I honestly believe we are currently the primary creators of a new
CanPo trad., one which the 'Uncles' & 'Aunties' (Milt, Al, Dorothy,
Ted, Ray Souster, likely even Maggie A, & bill, etc etc.) would
approve of.      

Yeah, would that more Canpoets take meditative walks in the bush &
listen to the 'voices' (man, I heard some pretty scary wolf ones
yesterday - got a little too remote on our hike). There are very
powerful 'old' truisms 'blowin' in the wind' as Bobby D. once sang,
but how many of us are out there, literally in the wilderness,
listening to the messages & then bringing the news back to the
tribe? Then the PFest tribe passes on the collective word/vision to
the larger Canlit community, & then these truths pass into the
Kanadan zeitgeist.

hey, I'm not even hi ... just inspired after today's walk at
Callahan's Rapids with Chase (& 2 beaut. stray dogs for shamanic
companions)
gotta make dinner, drink some red

peace & poetry power!
Chris & Chase ... wroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof!
(that big shepherd was gorgeous, but wish she'd stopped trying to
hump me!)

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

On 2012-01-11, at 3:35 PM, Jim Larwill wrote:


Hey Chris,

I am in town so this will be short.  (Staying with gran kids.)

Sorry if I came across as a very strong NO.  Ultimately it is
your show
and your choice, but well... you know my opinion based on
numerous arts
organizations I've been in and the whole grant thing.  And as a
Stalinist my feeling on payment is none at all, or if funds are
available all should come to me and me alone.

And if as you have said your life experience has always led to
X...  at
this point why do you think it might in the end lead to Y????

Anyway it got me thinking  "What is People's Poetry?"

Funny the morning before your email I on my meditative walk
around the
Raven's Nest a .. not vision... not voice...  a knowing? came to
me that
I wasn't a People's Poet.

Various things I am in the process of pondering.

For you Chris...

Purdyfest is your show.

Stay true to YOUR core.

don't worry... what will be will be...

jim

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



From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:33 pm
Subject: /PF funding for bill bissett looks easy &
straightforward - NOT!

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your input. That's a very strong NO you're voicing -
prob the deciding voice. You've got major cred with 5 years of
support of PurdyFests for you to expect the fest to stick to our
mandate (vague or New Age or shamanistic or nontraditional as
that
may be to many).

As I said in one of the first emails re funding bill, to do so
'might be a dangerous exception' - the beginning of a slippery
slope to grantsmanship & the old-fashioned way of playing the
CanLit game.

I tried to call you over my brunch coffee to discuss this with
you,
then realized I don't have a phone number for you ...

So we can feature bill bissett at the Symposium, but without
bill
there, or do Livesay - the new Acorn book's publication date is
still uncertain, so the consensus so far is to feature Milt next
summer (2013 - if the planet is still here). Or we could do a
feature this summer on a topic, rather than a poet - like we did
at
the inaugural Fest - the Symposium on People's Poetry and
spirituality. I'm thinking of the shamanistic trad. you & I &
others are working with & developing.

anyway, we'll come up with something ...

peace & poetry power!
Chris ...  and Chase ...
wroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof! (how
about
dog/wolp poetry?)


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


On 2012-01-10, at 1:12 AM, Jim Larwill wrote:


"so how to choose who gets the
funding? Everyone or  no one?"

I have given 5 years of support to a PF free of funding and have
promoted it as gathering free of grants.

easy & straightforward

Jim

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Faiers <zenriver@sympatico.ca>
Date: Monday, January 9, 2012 3:53 pm
Subject: Re: getting together later this month/PF funding for bill
bissett looks easy & straightforward

Hi Allan,
Thanks for all the helpful info ... it looks very easy to get
bill
funding for PurdyFest thru the League's tours - $250 + mileage
-
and he can either stay at the classy Marmora Inn B&B or billet
with
Virginia and Jim Christy.

As you point out, focusing PurdyFest on a living & active
People's
poet is far different from featuring long gone poets like Al
and
Ted (and eventually Milt & Livesay). Guess it's not much of an
"honour" to be asked to appear, & then not be $ compensated ...

A concern from the start with PurdyFests was that many/most of
the
poets involved are CC eligible, so how to choose who gets the
funding? Everyone or  no one? Combined with the feeling on my
part
that I've substantially 'paid my dues' by organizing a CC/TPL
funded series for 6 1/2 years 3 decades ago (Main Street
Library
Poetry Series), & personal burn-out with bureaucracies after
my
vicious firing by the Stirling library - this has been the
basis
for reluctance to fund poets at PurdyFests. But in bill's
case,
I'm
most willing to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
bureaucracies once again ...  :  )

Maybe the next step is for me to phone bill & chat & explain
what
PurdyFests are - and bill, in his creative & outrageous way -
can
perhaps better envision his role(s) at PurdyFest than we can!

I'm sure Terry will be OK with this. He's fascinated with bill
&
his impressive CanLit legacy, but doesn't seem to know much
about
him, so here's our collective chance to learn bill's history
from
him, enjoy a presentation by bill, while promoting bill &
simultaneously celebrating Canadian People's Poetry in our
unique
format and setting with PurdyFest (#6!).

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

Canada's Genocide Trophy - Morley Ellis

Canada's Genocide Trophy

A lock of hair and his hanging mask on a wall
upstairs in Casa Loma's museum
of The Queen's Own rifles:
the end of suppressed visionary Louis Riel

Who with pride tried so hard
to give his people a rightful place in Canada:
the Metis: part French, part Native Canadian
who only wanted to own farm land -
contribute to our new society

Riel went so far as to represent his people
in Parliament - stating their case
but They would have no part of it

The Crown decided to get rid of Riel
at all cost - military force!
for Metis were not worthy of even
a Native reserve

A century later in Belleville
Native children tell of teachers
spitting on them
by those deemed fit by the Crown
to teach RACISM and BIGOTRY

So raise a glass to our beloved great victories,
Canada
and lead on, great lawyers of Parliament:
a toast to the Genocide Trophy!


Morley Ellis
Marmora, Ontario
Jan. 13, 2012


bio note:
Morley is a popular singer/guitarist who has performed all over the Quinte area. He is also the resident musician for annual Purdy Country Literary Festivals held around his village of Marmora, Ontario. 

As a young man Morley served with The Queen's Own Rifles, and one summer he worked as a guard at Casa Loma, dressed in a period drill uniform. The horrific image of Louis Riel's death mask, and the racism with which it stigmatized a Canadian patriot,  haunted Morley for over 30 years. He wrote this powerful poem to exorcise his painful personal memories and our own Canadian legacy of bigotry.



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

email responses to poem:

thanks, Gail
I knew Morley was onto something crucial - he's been talking about the Louis Riel death mask since I met him 22 years ago. Morley was a young guard at Casa Loma many decades ago - & even then the nasty 'trophy' didn't sit right with him, even in those youthful & naive days.

No, I don't have a personal Facebook account, altho I believe there is one in my name online (vaguely remember giving permission to the head of the Can. Poetry Association to do this, for some forgotten reason, several years ago).

Blogging is great. As Morley observed after I posted his new poem, 'Your blog is like an online magazine.' Exactly ... blogging gives each of us the opportunity to share worldwide ... my blog has many daily hits all over the planet - including the former USSR, China, India - many places where freedom of speech is just a dream - but the internet & our blogs let us interact - worldwide - what an incredible concept - good old Canuck Marshall McLuhan predicted the Global Village about 50 years ago, & now we're living in it ...

It took about 15 minutes for me to set up my blog late last Feb. - & I'm not much of a techy, to say the least  :  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris & Chase ... wrrrrroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooof!


    
On 2012-01-14, at 6:44 PM, Gail wrote:

Hi Chris,
It is awesome!  You were right; I love it.
Do you have a Facebook account?  I have been putting my I am sorry on Facebook, but I feel like there should be a better way...for all of us to get our message out.  Should I do a blog?
Gail

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

Thank you so much Chris!     There is some hope that all over the world and even in Conservative Canada,
we are recognizing blatant unfairness and discrimination.     Maybe it is a frail but beautiful start to a better way.
Katherine.

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

Happy Birthday, Raymond Souster! - Joe Fiorito, Toronto Star

Fiorito: Happy birthday, Raymond Souster

Published 14 minutes ago

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By Joe Fiorito City Columnist

The poet had a cold, wasn’t well, couldn’t come; and so it was that Raymond Souster did not attend a tribute in his honour at the Runnymede Public Library.

A tribute to Raymond Souster?
The League of Canadian Poets, which Souster helped to found, has announced an annual prize in his name, to honour the best book of poetry by a League member.
The prize is apt and overdue.

But Souster is not just a champion of the league; he is also this city’s life-long laureate and the reason why so many people, including those who don’t read poetry, smile if you mention these words:
“Ten Elephants On Yonge St.”
Souster will be 90 years old on Sunday. He continues to write short, sharp poems; a lesson in this for all of us, and for some of us.

Greg Gatenby — you remember him from Harbourfront, and the International Festival of Authors — smiled somewhat wryly when the poet’s absence was announced. “A cold? That’s what he says. He’s very shy.”

Gatenby should know. He organized the last tribute in Souster’s honour, in 1998. Ray didn’t attend that one, either.

Donna Dunlop, Souster’s friend, editor and right-hand woman, produced a modest letter of regret from the poet, who asked that two of his poems be read.

One of these was, naturally enough, written to celebrate the appearance of the Runnymede Public Library on the Canadian $1 stamp many years ago. The second poem was a blistering anti-war poem, written in 1966 and still topical today.

If the lack of a guest of honour caused the packed house to groan in disappointment, it did not dampen the enthusiasm of those who came to pay homage.

John Robert Colombo spoke wittily and fondly of Souster’s work as an organizer of poetry readings. “He knew every poet worth reading in Japan, Canada, the U.S. and Britain.”

Terry Barker and Anna Yin mounted a kind of poetical, two-handed power-point about Ray, and we watched an NFB animated film of Souster’s poem, “Death By Streetcar.” Oh, children, gone are the days, not when we get run over by streetcars, but when films are made of the resulting poems.

Gatenby offered a charming story: “Ray held a reading for Alden Nowlan at the Isaacs Gallery.” You may know that Nowlan, a poet almost as shy as Souster, is also in the Canadian poetic pantheon.
“The reading was late. Nowlan hadn’t shown up. Ray told people to go home. A voice from the back of the room said, ‘I’m Alden Nowlan.’”

Then, echoing Colombo, Gatenby added this: “Ray ran that reading series for five years. The readers he brought in: Margaret Avison, Phyllis Gottlieb, Jacques Godbout . . . Robert Creeley, Charles Olsen, Frank O’Hara.”

We have nothing like it today.

Hugh Cook, who wrote a dissertation on Souster’s work said, “He wanted to make contact with his readers.” On the page, readers, on the page.

Kent Bowman told the assembled that he’d brought a card for everyone to sign, and everyone did.
Mick Burrs — I know him from the Prairies — read a couple of Souster poems. Norma West Linder was right to compare the poet Souster to the painter Colville.

And then James Deahl said this of Ray: “He teaches you how to live: honest, faithful, hardworking, dedicated, truthful, courageous; I wish I were half the man he is.”

Some 700 poets, members of the League, will be eligible for the $1,000 prize, which was established by an anonymous donation.

The best part of the evening?
Souster’s books were on sale; he asked that the money raised — more than $300 — be given to the Daily Bread Food Bank.

Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca
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FROM TEN ELEPHANTS ON YONGE STREET


“The Fire In The Tenement”

After the fire in the tenement,
besides the four closets of garbage,
six dozen wine bottles, eighteen gas cookers, seven wood-burning stoves,
three charred bodies found in a room,
which made it a little embarrassing
because not even the landlady
could remember their names.