Here Birds Sing

Prose and Poetry

2011-01-05T20:57:00.004-05:00

Every now and then I return to thinking about how an artist uses language, especially those who write fiction and those who write poetry. Because I am so involved in poetry myself I want to express my bias right here. But that doesn't mean that I won't express admiration for a creator of fine fiction. Those who toil at the crafts that involve language will always find a special place in my awareness – poets, novelists, short fiction writers, newspaper columnists, lexicographers, editors, speech writers, story tellers, preachers, and the list goes on.

But as I said, poetry is my drug of choice. I'm hooked and I can't quit. Sometimes I envy those writers who establish a reputation as a poet and then switch (with seeming ease) to novels that gather critical and popular acclaim. Sometimes I wonder if Atwood and Ondaatje were ever as dependent on the poetry drug as I seem to be.

But back to me. Sometimes when the blood and spirit aren't being as churned by the forces of poetry as I would like, I have to turn to other disciplines to satisfy my cravings. I have been known to write reviews. This blog is also part of that. My reading becomes heavier – novels and poetry in foreign languages, for instance; history; biography; philosophy. However, usually I turn to writing fiction, short fiction to be precise.

I like short fiction. I tried constructing stories when I was beginning as a writer. In later life, during a period void of poetic inspiration, I began to write a novel, about fifty thousand words about a young person coming of age. I lost it and didn't try very hard to find or rewrite it; I recognized it was nothing special, an exercise to keep my creative side occupied. I did continue to write short fiction whenever I felt the need.

Some years ago a local publication accepted some of my short stories for publication. I had the chance to publish a few more at online sites. So when Arts Hamilton last year called for entries in their “Creative Keyboards” contest, I sent in two without great expectations. I had done the same before for other contests.

Imagine my surprise when one of my tales made the short list of the top ten of all the entries received!

Imagine my surprise when I was invited to read that story as one of the top three! (No, there is no more surprise. It placed third.) I was honoured.

Because I am a poet first, I took some time and mental space to look at the stories that placed higher than mine. The main difference I could see had nothing to do with theme, etc., but with language and how it is used, a difference in style.

My prose style seems to be very similar to the way I write my poems. That thought had never crossed my mind before; writing prose was a different craft, only using the same materials. I came to see how my writing differed from the others. My plot, my story line, is developed through characters' words and deeds. There isn't much introspection, no detailed descriptions, no psychological motivation explored, no sensitivities. You know my characters by what they are and what they do, not by what they think or feel.

And that is also the way I have learned to develop my poetry. Clearly show what is and a way to see it; let the reader/listener develop his own emotional response. That way the poem, my ideas, my creation, can become a part of him. No force, and moreover, no subtle trickery. Simplicity and honesty. It all goes back to the “show, don't tell” principle.

It works for fiction, for prose, as well as for poetry. Hemingway knew that.

Poetry, Lyrics, and Sondheim

2011-01-01T17:41:00.008-05:00

Not long ago I was listening to an interview with Stephen Sondheim, the composer of the music and lyrics for so many great American musicals. Not having a great interest in musical theatre, I was only listening peripherally, with half an ear so to speak. Toward the end of the interview, the questioner praised him effusively for “the poetry in your lyrics. How words and the way you use them become much more meaningful.”

Sondheim claimed that the ambiguity inherent in his lyrics were not a deliberate poetic device but a means of expression demanded by the music and story or “book.” He explained that the “clowns” in his song “Send in the Clowns” from his musical A Little Night Music did not, as is commonly misperceived, refer to circus clowns or acrobats. It was especially written for the character who sings it in the musical, a woman who is an actress. He reminded the listeners that with Shakespeare as well as others, when the plot became too complicated or emotionally oppressive, the drama was lightened by the use of comic relief through a “fool” or clown, a buffoon or common character. He stated simply that “send in the fool” did not sound or feel the same; therefore he used the synonym. The actress' use of the term, with her intense feelings of anger and regret, would at once imply that theatrical reference. Those nuances are lost when the song is performed in a concert setting by singers such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Collins or recorded apart from the soundtrack.

He ended the discussion with a statement whose truth I immediately recognized. Just because the lyrics of a song feel like or seem to be poetic doesn't make them poetry. A song lyric is written for and with music. Its impact only holds true when the two are together. He pointed out that for something like the song from Oklahoma the words “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day” are nothing, are quite banal, until you connect them with the music they are associated with. That holds not only for musical theatre but for most pop music.

On the other hand, he pointed out, the words that make up a poem, that drive it with its own special power, are not dependent on music; instead they have an inherent sense of music within the poems' composition. A poem feels complete without ever having been dressed in melody but in a song words and music must be melded together.

I understood and was instantly enlightened. And although most songwriters understand that they are not poets, I do wish more poets were aware of those internal musical qualities that should be part of every poem, that make the poem so much more than an arrangement of words.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

2010-12-31T17:59:00.001-05:00

Wishing all of you health, happiness, and peace of mind in the coming year. Be kind, be joyful.

A Momentous Loss: Kerry Schooley and I

2010-12-31T12:28:00.005-05:00

In 2010 we lost a mainstay in Hamilton's literary world. Kerry Schooley will be sorely missed.

By the mid-nineties when I met him, I had spent a decade and a half in the local literary scene. At a time when not much of a literary nature was happening in the city, Kerry started a new literary reading series featuring local and visiting writers at a venue in Hess Village. At its beginning it was called “First Friday” after the day of the month it was held, but soon moved to Sunday and became LitLive, the prestigious reading series that continues to be a Hamilton hallmark. I was one of the guests in that first season.

Over the years our paths crossed in many ways, basically because our ideas on writing, and especially poetry, was complimentary. As members of the Tower Poetry Society, both of us in our way tried to get the group to open up and take poetry out of enclosed spaces by taking it on the road to other towns and venues. Kerry was instrumental in developing the Tower Poetry website while I became its editor-in-chief.

He coordinated Dundas Cactus Festival's Prickly Poetry contest; I was always a semi-finalist but never won the main prize.

We shared other projects. I founded a poetry performance group called Radish; Kerry was a member of it. Kerry ran “Street,” a project for the International Village BIA featuring poetry displayed in storefront windows; I was asked to help him collect and chose the works to be used.
We both loved to perform our poetry, whether alone or with jazz accompaniment. He instituted several music groups just to enhance his performance on the stage.

Even our choice in prose were complimentary. Much time was spent discussing and evaluating noir fiction, Kerry's favorite, and in which genre he wrote two novels, numerous short stories, and edited several anthologies.

I entered several short stories in Arts Hamilton's “Creative Keyboards” competition earlier this year. One of them won third prize. Kerry Schooley was the final judge. (There is a movement to name the prize for this competition after him.)

His enthusiasm, his power, and his imagination may be missed by many, but he will not be forgotten.

Oscar Wilde - Salome

2010-12-28T20:51:00.004-05:00

I've fallen behind in saying the things I want to say in this space. Part of the reason for my procrastination has been the production of my own collection of poetry, a small volume with a “cat” theme. I'll get to that later, but there are some things I want to mention before I forget them.

Back in November I went to see a presentation loosely based on Oscar Wilde's one act play Salome at the Pearl Company. It was subtitled a “Physical Theatre” adaptation and revolved around the interpretive dance numbers by Sergiy Shvydkyy, dancer and choreographer from the Ukraine. I personally found the production interesting but confusing and lacking.

The characters were caged in separate corners and performed almost no action; all the movement focused on Shvydkyy, the dancer. Any intercourse between Herod, Herodias, Salome and Jokanaan took place from separate corners of their world. They never seemed to interact, only provide a prelude to the next dance. With Wilde, one expects flowing and masterful language; what there was of it here was lost. When a character needed to proclaim, which seemed to be much of the time, he (or she) came across with what sounded like conversation. Conversation (as from one character to another) became lost in the shuffle. As well as the language, Wilde's moon imagery seemed so diluted as to be almost imperceptible. And for me, Wilde's language and imagery were the attraction. Dance as communication is not something I feel strongly about.

That's two strikes against it. What carried it through was the innovative approach. I do need to applaud that, and wish the producers and the Pearl Company well.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

2010-12-28T15:25:00.005-05:00

I've always wondered about that Christmas song, the what and the why of the true love's gifts. This season I found an interpretation that suits it and makes perfect sense if you see it in the context of the persecution of Catholics in seventeenth century England. Memorizing the doctrines as a song was a perfect way of not needing incriminating religious materials.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
On the 1st day of Christmas my true love gave to me...A Partridge in a Pear Tree

The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, whose birthday we celebrate on December 25, the first day of Christmas. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge that feigns injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, recalling the expression of Christ's sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered you under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but you would not have it so . . . ." (Luke 13:34)

On the 2nd day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Two Turtle Doves

The Old and New Testaments, which together bear witness to God's self-revelation in history and the creation of a people to tell the Story of God to the world.

On the 3rd day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Three French Hens

The Three Theological Virtues: 1) Faith, 2) Hope, and 3) Love (1 Corinthians 13:13)

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Four Calling Birds

The Four Gospels: 1) Matthew, 2) Mark, 3) Luke, and 4) John, which proclaim the Good News of God's reconciliation of the world to Himself in Jesus Christ.

On the 5th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Five Gold Rings

The first Five Books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch: 1) Genesis, 2) Exodus, 3) Leviticus, 4) Numbers, and 5) Deuteronomy, which gives the history of humanity's sinful failure and God's response of grace in the creation of a people to be a light to the world.

On the 6th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Six Geese A-laying

The six days of creation that confesses God as Creator and Sustainer of the world (Genesis 1).

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Seven Swans A-swimming

The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: 1) prophecy, 2) ministry, 3) teaching, 4) exhortation, 5) giving, 6) leading, and 7) compassion (Romans 12:6-8; cf. 1 Corinthians 12:8-11)

On the 8th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Eight Maids A-milking

The eight Beatitudes: 1) Blessed are the poor in spirit, 2) those who mourn, 3) the meek, 4) those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 5) the merciful, 6) the pure in heart, 7) the peacemakers, 8) those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. (Matthew 5:3-10)

On the 9th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Nine Ladies Dancing

The nine Fruit of the Holy Spirit: 1) love, 2) joy, 3) peace, 4) patience, 5) kindness,6) generosity, 7) faithfulness, 8) gentleness, and 9) self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

On the 10th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Ten Lords A-leaping

The ten commandments: 1) You shall have no other gods before me; 2) Do not make an idol; 3) Do not take God's name in vain; 4) Remember the Sabbath Day; 5) Honor your father and mother; 6) Do not murder; 7) Do not commit adultery; 8) Do not steal; 9) Do not bear false witness; 10) Do not covet. (Exodus 20:1-17)

On the 11th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Eleven Pipers Piping

The eleven Faithful Apostles: 1) Simon Peter, 2) Andrew, 3) James, 4) John, 5) Philip, 6) Bartholomew, 7) Matthew, 8) Thomas, 9) James bar Alphaeus, 10) Simon the Zealot, 11) Judas bar James. (Luke 6:14-16). The list does not include the twelfth disciple, Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus to the religious leaders and the Romans.

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...Twelve Drummers Drumming

The twelve points of doctrine in the Apostles' Creed: 1) I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. 2) I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. 3) He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. 4) He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell [the grave]. 5) On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 6) He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 7) I believe in the Holy Spirit, 8) the holy catholic Church, 9) the communion of saints, 10) the forgiveness of sins, 11) the resurrection of the body, 12) and life everlasting.

It's very reminiscent of another aide-memoire, the song/recitation (rewritten in 1948 by T. Texas Tyler and probably best remembered as performed in the late fifties by Wink Martindale) "Deck of Cards," about a soldier caught playing cards in church.

Haiku: a Review

2010-12-03T17:26:00.005-05:00

It's time in this blog, to revisit my views and understanding of haiku.

Back among the first entries, I took exception to what a fellow poet called haiku. At a reading in the autumn of 2008, Brian Bartlett presented poems he referred to as haiku; personally I could not connect and stated that for me these were not “haiku” and gave my reasons. Recently Brian discussed his haiku on his facebook page and I made some response. The exchange led me to review, to revisit my understanding of haiku.

And that's always a good thing. Blindly holding onto your views simply because they are the ones you've always held stunts facets of your personal development. You are not asked to change your beliefs; it is suggested that you examine them in newer light, under other circumstances, or bringing other knowledge into the equation. Granted, this sounds like a philosophical discussion reminiscent of Socrates and his pronunciation on the “unexamined life.” But it works, even in poetry.

So what did I gain from a review? Quite a bit, even though my basic thinking on haiku hasn't changed.

Brian hinted that for him haiku became an exercise in form and language, especially that five - seven - five “syllable” count nonsense. And here we agree. That form so dear to English-speaking teachers and dilettantes neither translates properly from the Japanese script nor does it suit the spirit of English-language haiku. Both Brian and I take exception, but in different ways. I reject the syllables, using the careful selection of words and their multiple connotations to carry the purpose of the poem. Brian, on the other hand, takes the form as such, changing it, worrying it, playing with it but always keeping that form in mind. He turns it, in a way, into a game.

And games have their purpose. Even some of the earlier Japanese masters used the form to make fun, to play word games, to entertain. And much as I prefer to see haiku as an expression of spirituality, as continuing realizations on the way to final enlightenment, I accept that one way toward enlightenment is laughter, through fun and games as well as word play.

So I have been pointed to a vision of haiku different from mine but no less valid. In the same way, somebody referring to the Christian Bible as “great literature” does not take anything away from the faith of believers.

I have learned a little more tolerance. I have learned not to take myself all too seriously. I have experienced a small “enlightenment,” my own little satori.

Anthologies and Collections

2010-11-09T20:26:00.004-05:00

Several weeks ago I was honoured to take part in the launch of two anthologies of poetry. With the decrease of small literary magazines, such one-time projects have become more and more important in placing the work of younger and less established poets before the public; they are no longer, as they once were, simply selections of poems that would point a reader to other work by the collected authors.

Most of today's anthologies are collections of new work. New poetry by established authors usually appears in the established and recognized literary journals; more innovative material and "no name" writers can usually only attain publication on electronic websites or in inexpensive paper 'zines. A collection, whether soft cover or in hard and perfect-bound form, therefore carries a certain amount of prestige.

In Canada the shift from one to the other, that is the move from sampled verse from established authors to showcased work from those writers who were up and coming, is best seen in the Storm Warning anthologies that Al Purdy produced for McClelland and Stewart in the 1970s. Their popularity proved to young poets that collections of their work could be as widely disseminated as those usually carried in bookstores and used in classrooms.

That development continued in two directions. Often a writers or poets, connected through membership in a group or organization or having something else in common such as living in a specific area, would produce a collection, themed or not, to showcase their own work. That way, the friends and acquaintances of each would be exposed to the work of a greater number. The other way was to devise a specific theme and invite poets to submit work that seemed to fit the theme.
My participation that weekend was in anthologies with both those characteristics. One was a celebration of twenty-five years of publication of The Saving Banister by the Niagara chapter of the Canadian Authors Association. Established to feature through a contest the best of Niagara regional poets each year, it has now been opened up province wide. The silver anniversary edition was doubled through the inclusion of work from former winners and judges, and included a new poem of mine. The main theme of the annual has not changed.

The second anthology is a very different project. Unlike the one mentioned above, it is a one-time occurrence. The visual artist and poet Frances Ward collected a number of her images of cracked asphalt and invited poets to submit poems about streets/roads/ driving, then selected a number to accompany her art. The result was Road Work Ahead, a coffee table sized anthology and a beautiful publication. I was honoured to have one of my poems included.

So both anthologies were produced for a purpose and not simply as a showcase for the contributors' work. Anthologies or collections such as these, that aspire to be something special, hold the promise of the future of limited press publication.

Whooping Poetry

2010-10-27T09:05:00.006-04:00

Recently there has been some intense discussion in certain circles about the increase in Black American churches of “whooping,” the vocal technique whereby a preacher urges for an emotional response to his sermon, and its value not only as a part of communal worship but also as a means to deliver the message. Those of a rational mind-set prefer their sermon to be delivered as lecture, reasoned point by point to a determined conclusion. Others see bringing and receiving the message as involving more than the mind, and that whatever will emphasize it is valid even if not necessary.

Whooping, as practiced by black preachers, is a rhetorical device. Most agree it should not be used to present the substance of the sermon, the message. However, some of those who practice it refer to it as the “gravy;” after delivering the meat-and-potatoes you pour on the extra, the joyful element. Others see it as a method of emphasizing, impressing in the spirit what has been given to the mind and thereby involving the whole person – often with physical responses, whether by voice or body or both.

Now what has this to do with poetry? Let me explain. I believe that poetry is as much a vocal art as singing. Before general literacy, well into the twentieth century, people experienced poetry as spoken language. I see the book, the page, as a storage and retrieval system. Even when I read silently to myself, I want to fear the words sing in my own voice. And, when poetry is publicly presented on a stage, any technique of drama or rhetoric that enhances the poem is important.

On more than one occasion my delivery, my method of presentation, has been compared to that of a preacher. And that's not a bad thing. In poetry I want to involve much more than reason. I want to invoke an emotional response, even a spiritual one if you will. The greater the audience involvement is, the more the poem is poetry.

I admire the cadence structures used by black preachers to enhance their sermons. I may take a look at my own delivery of certain poems to see if such a (deliberate) stucture can work for them.

Another Grammar Rant

2010-10-16T17:48:00.004-04:00

Sometimes small things irritate me.

Right now, I have just finished reading a very good short story. It held my interest in the plot and characters and their development but ... Several times the writer used the verb 'to lay' when he should have used 'to lie.' No great matter, you might say, people make mistakes. True enough, but this was the same mistake over again. Several times.

I admit to my own faults and quirks, but I usually catch them when I reread a raw manuscript. Before publication, an editor or proof reader should catch them. Or are line editors and proof readers extinct, wiped out by Spellcheck and the like?

The difference (with exceptions, of course. After all, this is the English language.) is that 'lay' is a transitive verb, 'lie' is intransitive. In other words, 'lay' means something is being done to something else. Action. 'Lie' refers to a passive state of being. No action. The only thing they have in common is that the simple past tense of 'lie' is 'lay' which is the present tense of the verb 'to lay.' In a small example: "I lay the book down. (Action, now.) It lay on the floor before I found it. (No action, and in the near past.)

Somewhere in my first few years of dealing with our language, I realized the difference; I've never, even in conversation to my knowledge, interchanged these verbs. In conversation the misuse doesn't seem as glaring, probably because there is greater context. But printed on the page, or on a website? Very annoying.

I tell you no lie.

Changing Times, Changing Language

2010-10-08T23:22:00.006-04:00

One of the things that struck me last month at the Labour Day parade was how the language and terminology of work and the workers has been changing. When, as a young working man, I began to involve myself in the labour movement all the words and slogans pertaining to rights and benefits that had been most identifiably the basis of the movement since the beginning of the industrial age were still current and still had the same meanings.
But now. Imagine a workers' celebration without talk of 'us' against 'them,' nothing about 'the bosses,' no reference to striking for increased wages, better conditions, shorter hours, increased benefits. The only recognizable sloganeering is about pension rights, not so much demanding the workers' rights to a pension but crying out against the international conglomerates' ability to erode pension benefits almost at will. That's not imagination, that was the reality. Joe Hill should be raging in his grave.
But when our concept of work changes, as it does more and more, so must the language change. When work was considered as physical labour, the time spent doing so was important to a person's physical well-being. Now such activity is becoming less and less a part of our culture.
A person who spends an inordinate amount of time at his job is no longer considered a 'slave' but more likely a 'workaholic,' one who chooses to spend more time at work for whatever reason. Bosses and employers have become faceless entities without any presence against which to direct protests. And so the workers' language must change.
The real force for change and workers' protection must necessarily be one of revolution. The problem seems to be that the work force has been fragmented. There are no longer thousands of people working together in one place who can unite into a single entity. A lot of the work done for a large corporation is handled by a few persons operating machinery or computers; much of it is outsourced to small businesses or individuals under contract. The old terminology no longer applies.
A revolution that cannot gather together like-minded people in one place needs to be fuelled by language. The possibility of pamphleteering still exists but a far greater force would seem to be the newer electronic media. It has already started with petitions using e-mail and/or facebook. The continuing growth will see new terms and language.
An example of the changes in the labour movement is happening locally. The Workers' Art and Heritage Center is sponsering a project looking for new labour songs for the new labour reality. Tonight during the monthly Art Crawl (an open house of a number of art galleries in one district) one of its proponents was seen going up and down the street pulling a cart – emblematic of the old concept of work – but singing a song dealing with the more recent concept of labour.
A post-industrial society needs to express itself using not only the age-old concept of work songs but also the post industrial media.
And an information language for this information, post-industrial world.

Mime, a Foundation of Language

2010-09-22T10:03:00.004-04:00

I was listening to a linguist/anthropologist on a radio program expound on his theory that even before we humans assigned meaning to sounds and groups or sequences of sounds we were communicating by what we today consider mime. He was so animated as he spoke; I could imagine the gestures and facial expressions he must have been using to emphasize his points. Not only, he claimed (as a result of long and careful research), did we communicate with each other that way but also with different species!

And I think of how a lab environment must have been set up. First people would have been put in close proximity and told they could only communicate without using language. Of course it will work; ask any immigrant placed among people whose language is totally foreign to them. You make yourself understood by gestures. It's no great leap to conceive that such must have been the case when there was no recognizable language at all. We still use mime and mime type movements to emphasize what we say. That's known as body language.

Body language is also a large component of how we communicate with other species. Anyone who trains dogs, etc. will tell you that motion is as important as tone of voice and more so than specific words. We have been communicating with other species as long as we've been around; there is nothing new here.

Let me tell you, too, about poetry and mime, about poetry and motion. In the earliest times descriptions of activities and events must have depended on the poet/storyteller miming those acts. The great epic poems needed action to impress and deliver their meaning. The bard did not simply sit by the fire or at the table and speak; he got on his feet, proclaimed, gestured and mimed. When he spoke of the hero, he would strut, stick out his chest, raise that powerful arm. When he spoke of the defeated enemy he would make himself look weak, beaten, and slink
about.

It all holds true today. The better speaker is the one who engages you with gesture and motions as well as sound. The poet who will be heard and admired more is one who does not simply read or say his words. He must get up on his feet, raise his body and his voice to proclaim.

The language of the voice, words and sounds so intricately woven, enhanced and emphasized by mime, the language of the body.

On The Street

2010-09-16T09:54:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I discover little things or happenings that please me deeply. One such happened at the most recent Art Crawl here in the city, that evening when all the galleries and related businesses on James Street North open wide and party. The street fills with people, in clusters and individuals, moving from one to another to sample the art and other attractions in the area. Some galleries provide incidental music or other performance. You can find buskers on the sidewalks: musicians, dancers, and more.

Often you'll find a display of books in front of a shop. There may also be a used book dealer displaying his wares. But this most recent Art Crawl offered something dear to my heart; a young lady had positioned herself in front of a gallery and was offering poetry for sale! She was sitting on a blanket on the sidewalk, copies of her first (self-) publication spread out on display. Without even reading one poem, I bought a copy. (She said I was the first person to purchase her work; I feel proud of that!) It didn't matter if the poetry was good or bad, what mattered was that the young lady was putting her words and her craft where it belongs - out on the street with all the other arts.

It reminded me of myself, hawking copies of my own poems in Yorkville in '67-'68. (Gestetner, remember those?) And a plan that never came to fruition, of chalking poems on the sidewalks of Barton Street a number of years ago. Then there was the International Village's initiative that displayed poems monthly in storefront windows. There is the current project of Simon Frank incorporating a poem in the sidewalks of Locke Street as public art, rather than the usual mural or sculpture.

Poetry on the street. Poetry in the markets. Poetry for people where the people are.

(By the way, that book "Poetry's Dead - on Love, Despair, Hobo-ism and produce" was worth the price. Nyki Hamilton, I'd love to be in touch with you!)

Words and Music for Peace

2010-09-06T08:55:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, the Sunday of the Labour Day holiday weekend, I took part in an exquisite experience, artists expressing their art for a cause. The cause: building a community of peace; the event: Michael Pickett's third annual "Concert for Peace" at his home in Crystal Beach, Ontario.

There was no fervent preaching, no raising money for a cause. The music Michael and friends provided and the often expressed reason for all of us being there rang out the message loud and clear: if there is ever to be world peace, it must start with the individual and grow among friends. Here we grew from music fans to friends to a community, a group who hold something in common.

Five musicians/bands performed in diverse styles, from gentle and introspective to powerful and driving. All left their marks on the common consciousness and with those marks the awareness of the need for peace within and without.

At one stage in the planning there had been some consideration that Poets for Peace might also take part in the performance, a group of which I am also a part. That idea could not be developed but that didn't matter. Sometimes poets become preachers for a cause, and that wasn't needed. The music and the communion of friends were more than enough.

I want to thank Michael and Louise Pickett, all the musicians who performed, and all the friends there, old and new. Together we were what we could not be independently.

Peace. May it live and grow through us.

Expanding Experience

2010-08-25T07:41:00.006-04:00

One of the things I do when I write a poem is to take a small image, something that impresses, that catches my attention with the emotional response it calls forth, and expand on it. Not always. Often the image that touches my perception can stand on its own and becomes a haiku. If it elicits one specific response, it will often become a tanka. But for a more expansive poem, the initial experience becomes the beginning of something else, something greater. Building a poem becomes an act reminiscent of constructing a cairn.

It’s not that the first impression has little or no intrinsic value. What happens is that I make connections to other events and emotions, and feel the need to bring them together. Often the first attempts will sound and feel over-sentimental, like a juvenile diary entry. Like building a cairn, shaping a poem takes time and effort.

Let me illustrate with an example – no, not the finished poem itself, but the layer-by-layer construction of it.
Sometime ago I was driving through wooded farmland on one of the four-lane divided highways toward sundown when I spotted some deer drinking from a creek several hundred meters away. Several factors impressed that sight in my mind: the evening light, the distance, the contrast of the natural (creek, deer, woods) and the constructed (highway, automobile, rushing humans), as well as my inability to stop and become a small part of that scene even though I wanted to do so.

Over the next few days that image would not leave me. It became connected to several other things. I was reminded of the creek on the farm where I grew up. I remembered also seeing and tracking deer in that area when I was young. The flowing water reminded me of a young lady I knew who loved to walk beside flowing water and stop to sit with her feet in the flowing water as a way to relax.

All these items came together in one unit, like different shaped stones in a cairn. Had the young lady, while sitting with feet in the running water of a creek, ever been surprised by deer coming to drink? She would be careful not to disturb them. Would she envy their freedom? I remembered that she now lived in a small city, married to a long-distance trucker. I wondered at the emotion she would feel, left alone so long so often. Would she go looking for flowing water to soothe her spirit? Would she remember the deer (the ones only my imagination provided)? Would she wonder if the deer remembered her?

So you see how the glimpse of deer drinking at sundown becomes a totally different thing, with the initial image remaining as a corner stone for the whole construct. My own emotional reactions, even my rational reaction, play only a secondary role to the imagined emotions of a young lady who is not part of the original.

And all that, as poetry, is as valid and real as deer beside a creek beside a highway.

Language Irritation

2010-08-17T09:55:00.003-04:00

I just want to complain about a strange construction I have been finding in works published in the English language. For a long time I have heard it in the spoken language but have not, until recently, discovered it in a newspaper as well as a novel from a very respected publisher. Here it is:

One of the functions of the infinitive mood of a verb is as a noun. The infinitive is expressed with the preposition "to," as in "to find," "to make," "to have." Why, when an infinitive is a noun serving as object to a verb, should it be changed to a correlating verb connected by the coordinating conjunction "and"? Do you understand? Allow me to try to explain.

That construction is correct, but so many will say "try and explain." Even tense doesn't matter. Instead of saying " She came to see me yesterday" the tenseless infinitive takes on the relative preterite as "She came and saw me yesterday."

The examples could go on and on. The recent construction probably grew out of speakers' laziness; it is so much easier to say "and" instead of "to" especially when it can be slurred to " 'n' ."

So. Should we live with it or try and do something about it?

Celebrating with the Word

2010-08-14T10:13:00.002-04:00

Usually in present North American culture, we celebrate events and times by music and motion — song and dance. A wedding celebration naturally culminates in a dance; funerals and memorial services move from song to hymn. It was different then, and quite uplifting, to attend a literary event of celebration. Last night, as part of commemorating 175 years of existence in Hamilton, Stewart Memorial Church began their homecoming weekend with a gala of presentations of a literary nature.

The church was founded as part of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and remains a predominantly Black congregation. Perhaps because of the ties to African slaves as well as more recent Caribbean migrations, this celebration by word was offered to the congregation and the public. Whatever the reasoning behind it, the concept worked.

It worked for several reasons. The writing presented was a mixture of both substance and style. There were presentations, authors reading excerpts from their books, that were historical and accurately researched; there were poets spinning words and images only grounded in experience; there were storytellers who took the factual to build stories that tugged at the spiritual and emotional parts of us. But the most notable aspect of the church’s literary evening of celebration was that it did not focus on the church, its history, its well-known members past and present. Instead it presented the culture of all the peoples it encompasses.

Nor did the words of celebration only recall the past. The past was dealt with in story and history; too, there were poems and stories of the present. From the poetry especially, joy and hope for the imagination. Commemoration of yesterday, the solidarity of today, the brightness of tomorrow: all were interwoven into the celebration. And rightly so.

Today the celebration continues, this time with music and song. Tomorrow a more solemn service with a guest preacher.

And it began with the words. Sound familiar? “In the beginning was the Word … ” (John 1:1)

Attitude Poetry

2010-08-10T19:37:00.016-04:00

There’s a fellow poet with whom I was discussing the basics of poetry not long ago; on some things we agree but on others we don’t. That, I suppose, is to be expected.

We both agree that language is basic but each has a different emphasis on the way it should be used. I prefer to keep my words and expressions working the way they usually do. Nouns name things, verbs are action; adjectives describe nouns, adverbs explain action. They fit together in phrases and clauses. My friend will often turn a noun into a movement or a verb into a thing. That’s not new; we “squirrel” things away; a wave is an action or a thing. He just likes to do the same with words we don’t think of using in such a way.

He claims it helps establish “attitude.” Attitude, he says, is the second most important principle of poetry. Here we disagree. Rather than something as tenuous as attitude, I prefer to emphasize the tools used to make poetry —similes, metaphors, images, sound, rhythm, and shape — something he puts much lower on the list. So I began to consider attitude as an integral part of poetry.

Several instances that seemed important crossed my mind.

One occurred when someone read one of my poems before a group; he read it as words on the page, without the expression I would have given the delivery, without my “attitude,” if I could consider it like that. The second, strangely enough, was Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali with his ‘poems’ not only predicting the outcome of his fights but also the descriptive “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” phrasings that were new to the prizefighting game. Ali had attitude, physical and verbal. His words, his poetry, caught the ear and demanded attention.

I’m quite sure that this was what my friend meant by claiming poetry must have attitude. If a poem doesn’t grab and shake its hearers, it might pass away as if it had never been. And in a way this is also a valid point, this emphasis on attitude.

Jamaican-born Dub poetry grew out of this sensibility. Dub doesn’t live by the written word; its vitality lies in its performance. I grant that the tools of poetic language (rhyme, rhythm, etc.) are a vital part, but its attitude is most recognizable. Similarly today’s slam poetry with its aggressive and competitive aspects depends on attitude more than on well-formulated thought progression.

The question of attitude remains for me a matter of balance. Certainly a poem needs something special to make it stand apart from the common flow of words in our lives. However this expressiveness, this attitude, can become a cover hiding flaws, a thick coat of paint over the incipient rot in the wood.

After consideration this emphasis on “attitude” my friend espoused has moved up somewhat in my view of poetry and poetics. But care must be taken. It is too easy to push too hard, to blow too loud, and defeat the whole purpose of the attitude.

Poet-Songwriter

2010-08-05T23:11:00.009-04:00

Recently an acquaintance of mine published a collection of poetry. Now that’s not noteworthy; I know many writers, and usually somebody is bringing out a book. This person I know mainly as a musician who plays several instruments. I also understand that he was the main songwriter for a folk group some years ago. So we have a reputable musician and songwriter turning his talents to poetry.

Although there are great differences between writing songs and writing a poem, (I know, I’ve tried writing songs. I’ve even attended several workshops by excellent singer/songwriters) it’s not a great leap. Scotland’s Robbie Burns wrote lyric/poems. Some of the old folk ballads are wonderful poems apart from the tunes. So I had some expectations.

Granted, I did not expect a modern Burns. I did not look for comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, or so many others. But I was certainly looking forward to see what this musician could do with words. And I’m sorry to say all my expectations went for naught. The “poems” in his book were … well I can’t really sum them up in a word or two although “drivel” comes close.

From a musician, I expect music. Since as a songwriter he must be aware of fitting words to rhythms, I looked for sustained rhythms and the use of sound because these are also basic components of poetry. Even the ancient Greeks saw music and poetry as a complimentary pair, as sister Muses.

I was sad to discover his poems do not sing. There is no hint of music, either obvious or latent. When I heard him read some to an audience it sounded like prose, and I thought I was missing something, something obscured by his delivery perhaps. When I examined his book in private, I found that was all there was: prosodic language masquerading (and not very well) as poetry. No marvelous use of language; none of the devices that make a poem the special thing it is. Lacking in imagery, lacking in descriptive phrasing, lacking the rhyme and assonance that connect poetry to music.

The poems about places read even less exciting than a travelogue. The poems about emotions read like a teenager’s diary. Most of the language didn’t rise above a hastily scribbled letter home.

And this is a singer, a songwriter, a musician. And now an artless arranger of meaningless prose. Words without music.

Who dare call it poetry?

Poetry and Multiculturalism

2010-07-28T09:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I learned about an interesting poetry related event happening in Bologna, Italy earlier this month. Let me explain the event as I understand it, with cycling and recitation becoming a traveling presentation of poetry to the unwary as part of a multicultural festival. This is known as the “poeciclettata,” or “poetandem” as the English language media expresses it.

A number of poets are recruited to recite from memory a poem in a language foreign to Italy, not the poet, a language native to a segment of the population of the region. These dozen or so gather in a suburban square and recite their poems at different locations in the square to passersby and anyone who cares to gather. Poets are usually accompanied by hand drummers (acting first as a call to attention and then as a background rhythm.) After the performances are done, the poets and drummers (in tandem?) take off on their bicycles for the next stop, ready to invade another public square and repeat their performances. It takes place in late afternoon and early evening, ending with a public party after the final performance.

I love the idea! I can see it now: the drumming gathers a few people, the poet begins to recite. The words mean nothing to some or most of the audience, but one or two are excited – hey, that’s my native language! Maybe they pull out a cell phone, spread the news. Others recognize their own language from other poets who are performing nearby. The poets repeat at intervals; it’s not a personal reading. After a set time all of them, poets, drummers, and possibly some of the audience, take off for the next public space to repeat. As they move on, the cyclist audience travels with them and the whole thing just grows!

Bringing poetry back to the people, not just to native speakers but to migrants who have settled or are passing through. In a way it’s like Canada’s “Random Acts of Poetry” but with an ecology minded emphasis (bicycles) and a lot of street theatre thrown in.

And then I imagine it happening here. Poetry for the people entering or leaving the mall. In Korean, Urdu, Arabic, Spanish. Moving on by bicycle to the bus station, the train station. Stopping by the city’s ethnic neighborhoods. Ending with music and food in a downtown park.

Yes! Poetry as an expression of culture. Poetry as fun and pleasure. Poetry as a reason to party. Bring it on!

Multidiscipline Improvisation

2010-07-26T09:55:00.004-04:00

It was not just another Saturday night at the ArtwordArtbar. This Saturday night was special. No musical act had been lined up and since the venue is inclined toward all the arts (and with the availability of some of the guests at this time) the proprietors decided to hold a multidiscipline improvisation evening.

They had done something of the sort before: dance, some music, video projection on a screen behind the dancer. This session was intended to be expanded. An artist who created and layered sound and music on his laptop computer was available and eager. A new projection program needed to be tried in a more public situation. Several dancers and various musicians were ready to take part. And to this mix I suggested myself.

What I wanted to do was something I had tried before, a good number of years before. I wanted to place some of my poetry before an audience ― with enhancements not of my own making. Back in the eighties I had come together with a saxophonist and a male dancer; we had begun work on a suite combining words – music – movement to explore a primitive understanding of the world. Although the concept was never fully fleshed out for anything like public presentation, the urge to see my work interpreted by other artists has always remained in the back of my mind. Here, I believed, was the chance to do something similar. I would speak my words. My voice would stand alone without my usual stage presence and physical movement. Instead the flow of words would be interpreted instantly and without prior consultation by a dancer or dancers there on the stage.

My idea was welcomed. I would present two poems, one in each set, and then be obligated to take part in a free, unstructured performance of all the artists involved.

I decided that the first poem would be just myself and the dancers, three ladies. I wanted to recite from off stage but they preferred me onstage as they moved around me. I compromised, sitting on the front of the stage with my words and microphone, presenting the poem as they moved and controlled the open space before me while the projectionist worked her magic on the screen behind us. At the break between sets we discussed the presentation. My difficulty had been that I was not able to see their movement and use that to vary the pacing and tone; one of the dancers expressed a slight frustration that sometimes my presentation didn’t match what she expected from the words. All valid and useful comments.

My second presentation was not as concrete in imagery, leaving it more open to interpretation. I also asked the musicians ― bass, percussion, violin, and the aforementioned computer keyboardist ― to come in wherever they felt they could. This time, I stayed off-stage and was able to watch the dancers, vary the pace and intonation; the musicians were doing the same. This ensemble seemed to work together well, not flawlessly but to the satisfaction of the whole group.

Then, to end the evening after another break for refreshing mind and body, the improvisational “free-for-all.” The focus of this extensive … I suppose you could call it a “jam” … was the dancers on stage: as individuals, in twos, as a trio. To their actions each of the other artist/participants added their own layer, using their own medium. As a poet, I am not able to compose and speak out on the spot but I did not withdraw from the fusion. I used the opportunity to add voiced sounds ― sometimes words, phrases, short sentences, but more often hums or unstructured voice. I would take a clear vowel and slowly run it through different shapes of the mouth or flit it back and forth. Throw in a few do-wop phrasings (often at greatly reduced rhythms) and I knew I was contributing to the whole, even wordlessly.

Ah, the magic! Layers of creative expression, unrehearsed and spontaneous.
I look forward to the next time I can be part of such an experience.

The Artist's Awareness

2010-07-21T16:26:00.006-04:00

I met with an acquaintance who writes poetry a week or so ago. When we were closer and he was just beginning to write, I encouraged him and helped him, in some small ways, to improve. After he moved away I continued to follow his work in various publications. Then it stopped, and I had no idea if he had quit writing poetry or taken up something else (for he was also interested in film and music.)

When I met him recently I was going to ask until I realized immediately that he was not the same man. Oh, he talked about writing poetry and a possible poetry/music/film project. He also let me know about a number of health issues. Throughout our conversation I could sense that the creative urge was still there but greatly subordinate to his mental and physical state. He seemed to me incapable of focusing on anything outside himself, as if he no longer had any interest in the world around him if it did not directly involve his well-being.

At first I was going to chastise him for abandoning his writing but I’m glad I did not. I have come to realize how much awareness must be a basic part of the creative process. I don’t mean a ‘hyper’ awareness, some sense more developed in artists than in others. I’m referring to the primitive consciousness that keeps the senses operating and the mind processing the information the senses receive. The sudden notice of a smell and all the associations it may bring; an awareness of how colours and shapes flow together; the way one thought leads to something other under certain circumstances; all these are part of how we interact with our surroundings and how we understand it.

That’s what poets work from, an awareness and understanding of the world around them. That’s what any artist has. It doesn’t matter if such awareness is called “the Muse” or insight or vision. It is nothing more than any person has. The artist, however, has come to use that awareness in creative ways to enhance what he needs to show, to say.

It’s very much like a muscle the artist or writer exercises almost unconsciously, one that more ordinary people tend to ignore and sometimes even actively suppress.

That calls to mind one beautiful morning not long ago. In the early morning quiet I had paused to sit in the nearby park, simply to think, perhaps make some plans, get away from any pressure in the house. Before the day’s impending heat could overtake the morning I enjoyed the play of sunlight and breezes in the trees and on my skin. I felt aware of my surroundings and even as one with the environment. And then a young lady came by, running along the paved track that circles the park.

You’ve seen them, the early morning joggers. This one was no different: proper footwear, light snug clothing, sweatband at the forehead. I’ll swear there would be a bottle of some special drink waiting where she had stashed it (probably in her car.) The dark glasses to protect the eyes. The ear buds leading up from the I-pod.

And it struck me; she had gone to a lot of trouble to negate all the things I was enjoying – the sunshine, the slight breeze, the movement of leaves on the trees, the singing and chirping of birds, the scurry of a squirrel, the splash of colour in a nearby flowerbed, the scent of a juniper bush. All these external stimuli and all the pleasure they give she was denying herself because she wanted to focus inward. Her feelings concentrated on perspiration and muscle fatigue; all she heard was whatever mechanically reproduced sounds she allowed herself to hear and perhaps the pulse of her own blood; all she saw was just enough to keep her on the chosen path. She certainly did not seem to notice me. In no way was she open to any outside stimulus.

That’s just a case of normal awareness being suppressed, for whatever reason. And what if such awareness is impaired, perhaps even lost altogether? What if I, as a poet, suddenly could no longer see the brilliance of colour, could no longer hear the small sounds around me? If I was unable to enjoy all the small miracles that make my life worth living, could I still write poetry?

I shudder to think of myself so wrapped up in myself that nothing else matters. To what sort of animal is the poet reduced when he has lost his Muse, his awareness of the intricate world outside himself?

Paths of Poetry

2010-07-16T09:08:00.005-04:00

Recently I was speaking to an acquaintance about some of the fundamentals of poetry, especially if the making and dissemination of poetry had any use in today’s society. Several aspects we agreed on: the value of poetry as cultural and personal expression, and poetry as a philosophic and moral record of time past. Where we disagreed most fundamentally was in the proper function of poetry.

He argued that it was the purpose of the poet especially, as a custodian of language and broker of its many functions, to explore all the possibilities of language, to stretch what and how ideas can be expressed in the forms (or lack of forms), shapes, and other attributes of poetry. Quite vigorously he claimed that, since no one else was pushing the boundaries, the poet must.

In a way I agree with him. I can understand the urge of a poet to experiment with the sounds and colours of language, to find new ways of expressing the old. “To boldly go where no (poet) has gone before.” Certainly the poet should be free to find new ways through the jungle that is language and usage. But.

It is this “but” that I raised that he seemed to disparage; he seemed so wrapped up in his own argument that he could see no other truth. (And truth wears as many faces as there are ways of looking at it.) I offered the argument that the poet also, and perhaps more importantly, has an obligation to preserve the past and to work with it, to expand what has come before prior to rushing into uncharted spaces.
I offered him two analogies, two metaphors if you will. I asked him to consider orchestral music, saying that there were experimental composers doing fine work that finds an audience but that the most popular and still quite valid works were those of years gone by, and those written today in the styles of those times. When he looked confused, I offered him a simpler one. It’s all very well, I told him, to go exploring, to hack new paths through the undergrowth of jungle or forest. Those who feel the need to do so should. But. And here is that “but” again.

Using the land is more than making one’s way through or around obstacles, more than making paths and drawing maps of them. In the age-old tradition of cultivation we plant what we know we can harvest, what we can use. We shape the landscape to our need, whether that need is utilitarian or simply for appreciation of beauty. A garden is a garden, whether laid out in row upon row of vegetables or plot and cluster of flowers and ornamental vegetation. And the path between their beds are as valid as a trail though the densest part of the forest.

I think he finally got what I was trying to say. He became calmer and changed the subject. I certainly hope that he doesn’t think that I believe his efforts to be worthless, I only hope that he can see the importance of tradition and its relationship to what he wants to do. Such are the functions of poetry: different directions, equally valid.

Changing language, I think, has little to do with poetry as such; poetry probably only reflects change. The changes happen in the street, in everyday usage and media adaptations. I will leave him to hack his way through the jungle of undergrowth as he finds it. I will tend my more formal garden, adding a little bit of colour in one place, a different shape in another. And each one of us walks his own path.

Word as Sound

2010-07-10T08:56:00.007-04:00

A couple of evenings ago I walked into the Artword Artbar late because I wanted to take a quick listen to a group I had heard making some intriguing music the weekend before. The Blues Explosion (Sarah Good et al.) had finished one set; in the interval a group calling themselves slowly, slowly were performing. I thought they sounded interesting enough to wait through until the last set. It turned out that they were the ones who impressed me.

The five person collective performed on a number of various instruments, interspersed by vocal phrasings rather than typically structured “songs.” With the interplay between voice and instrumentation and the minimal of layering over and against each other, it made for a presentation quite intriguing to the ear.

Most interesting to me as a poet and spoken word aficionado was one piece when the group read text as part of the presentation. The music faded out (it did not stop abruptly) and the focus became the speaking voice, first by a few and then involving the whole collective. As this continued it felt to me that the content, the subject matter, the meaning, were not as important as the voices as they wove together. It felt like overhearing conversation at a party but standing away from direct involvement with it.

Later I wondered if this had any relationship to what sound poets do. They take words and parts of words, combinations of sounds that usually have specific meanings, and turn them into a pattern that may not have been there before. These musicians took ordinary words and sentences and did not change anything except the presentation as music, placed them in a different context and asked you to hear them in an unusual way.

It’s one thing to read aloud a newspaper article and, through emphasis, inflection and intonation, make it sound like poetry. (I have heard/seen that done.) It’s another to take the banality of the human voice in conversation and make it music. But then there’s the creative spirit that joins the poet and musician. There is not and should not be a wall between artistic disciplines, no cubbyholes to hold and contain.

Just as a postscript, when Sarah Good returned to the stage (alone this time) and began a series of electronic sound manipulations I slipped away. It seemed almost common compared to what I had experienced.

A Naughty Little Difference

2010-07-07T09:24:00.009-04:00

For something different and lighthearted, I want to present you with a few limericks. You should know that the limerick has a definite form - rhyme and rhythm - and is seldom serious; the rhyme and rhythm doesn't really allow it. It is meant for enjoyment, often working on word play and very often with an off-colour reference. So, be warned, if the illustrations haven't already drawn you in!

Melissa was crowned the most pretty
And ambitious young maid in our city
But she left us no trace
Of her figure and face
But a grin and a perfect left titty

If ever you walk down our street
A saucy young miss you might meet
With a wink of her eye
She makes truck drivers shy
And teenage boys kneel at her feet

A cowgirl roared out of the West
At putting down men she was best
Some she would beat on
And some she would cheat on
And cut off the balls of the rest

An Indian gent named Challussee

Has found that some girls may be fussy

For he has learned that

When she says "pet my cat"

She may not mean "fondle my pussy"

Place tongue firmly in cheek; if you feel the need to chuckle, do so!

Pleasure Through Difficulty

2010-07-05T22:38:00.006-04:00

I read somewhere a few months ago an interview with Alberto Manguel, the Canadian writer, editor and anthologist, and marked down a phrase that resonated with me. I may not have it word for word, but he expressed something along the line that “reading is pleasure through difficulty.” What lay behind this thought, if I remember correctly, was the argument that the pleasure we derive from reading comes from a willed and directed action.

Let’s look a little closer at this argument. Much of what brings us pleasure comes from a passive attitude: hearing music in whatever form, viewing painting and sculpture or any of the plastic arts. Theatre and movies are a combination of these two; all we have to do is to put ourselves in their vicinity. The enjoyment of nature, the pleasure of the outdoors, the experience of a different place, the company of family and friends, all fall within these parameters. To enjoy the written word, however, is something completely different.

Reading for pleasure a very deliberate action. It has to be separated from other reading activities such as to gain information, to find explanations or directions, and all the other uses we find to communicate by the written word. To become “literate,” to gain the ability to read and write, takes a lot of work long before any true “pleasure” can come from it. A person who cannot read or write well finds no pleasure in such activity.
Once you have attained a level of skill, you can begin to read material that may have no application to your daily life. Reading for pleasure takes the imagination and applies it to words and concepts, the stories of places and people, or emotional and rational suggestions that move our spirit in a way that makes us feel good about ourselves and our world, that gives us pleasure.

Choice and effort, we see, are the twin foundations of enjoyment through reading. So how does a poet make these choices easier for his intended audience/readership? Remember, unless it is forced upon the reader he will have no reason whatsoever in these times to approach poetry for fun. The poet must make it pleasurable. Any concept hidden in language not familiar to his audience is soon forgotten except for by a few critics and cognoscenti. This seems to point to two things. A poet should make his words and ideas accessible to as many as possible and he should do his best to present them in a memorable way. There are poets I read whose words ring though the depths of me but who bore me when they read for an audience. There are also poets whose poems leave me cold until I can hear their voice echoing inside my mind. And occasionally a miracle happens – the poet who sounds great on the stage and still sings from the page.

Those are the ones I go back to, again and again. They make me feel the pleasure of reading and make me glad I am literate.

And the difficulty of reading is worth all the effort.

Listening

2010-07-01T11:00:00.004-04:00

Recently I heard a poet friend of mine remark in a conversation that listening was a language skill, perhaps the first. I had no chance to ask him to expand on that, but it remained in my own mind as I kept examining and pondering his statement. With the modern time’s emphasis on various communication skills, why are we concerned mostly with expression?

Our first contact with language is as a receiver. Long before we are able to express ourselves in words, we learn to differentiate and categorize the sounds we hear, to recognize what emotion is conveyed by what tone and timbre of a voice. The first understanding of sound groups as words comes long before we imitate and try to make our own. Our own development of language depends on what we hear: the language spoken, the sounds that are part of our environment. (An urban child will have a different understanding of the world than a rural child.) Vocabulary and grammar depend on what we hear more than on what we are taught. Every young child wants to hear stories, to learn about the world in structured sound.

Listening, the other half of a conversation as well as the most important response to a lecture or speech, and its associated activity contemplation have become lost art forms. We pride ourselves on how well we express ourselves. This is especially true of poets. We seldom worry about how and what the audience hear; we worry more about their understanding of the sounds we make, the marks we leave on paper.

I have a habit in conversation of listening to what is said. When I am asked a question, or if a remark requiring a response is directed to me, I don’t answer immediately. I take what I have heard, examine it with some care, and formulate a proper response. This may take from ten seconds to more than a minute; in the mind of the speaker I have ignored it and the conversations flow on without my input. It makes for difficult social chitchat. In a telephone conversation it may become almost paranoiac: “Are you still there? Hello! Hello!”

It seems that the only people we expect to listen are professionals, the therapists and others who get paid to carry out such roles. It seems unnatural that we leave half our language skills, the listening and interpreting, to others.

Perhaps poets can be the spearhead of a movement to reclaim the neglected part of language skills. I don’t mean that they should transcribe what they hear; we have technologies that can do that. But the combination of listening and interpreting, isn’t that what poetry is all about? Shouldn’t we spend more time listening so that our interpretation of the world is more meaningful? I would imagine our poetry would be stronger for it and the world a better place because of it.

Memory and Poetry

2010-06-27T22:46:00.005-04:00

I know someone who writes a lot of poetry using his memory of what the circumstances of his life were when he was young. I suppose such writings have their place but the more I consider it, the less I believe that poetry should be a historical record. Lets leave writings like that to the historians, the biographers, the writers of memoirs. Poetry should deal with the imagination, and sometimes when you try to get the right facts and the right feelings you sacrifice any imagination and in that way leave confusion.

I admit that this is a large step away from what I think is the root of all poetry – the transmission of valuable information from one generation to the next, the education of those not directly involved in events, as well as communal entertainment. The poet carried in his words and songs and recitations the stories, the joys and the trials of the people. The important thing to remember is that he used images, that is, imagination to carry these rather than verifiable facts.

That doesn’t mean facts don’t make poetry; rather it goes to show that good poetry makes facts. I could cite several examples of imagination in poetry creating an existence so real it becomes real. Let me take you to my own work, a chapbook titled Bailey’s Mill. The little book consists of thirteen pieces of different types of poetry but they are all part of one story, the tale of a man, Elias Bailey who came here fleeing the American Revolution to begin a new life. He built a mill to service the local farm settlement; this attracted other enterprises, became the basis for a village. He controlled the village until it was divided by a wet/dry question. When fire destroyed his mill he blamed his opponents without proof and the bitterness destroyed the whole community. It can be seen as a classic tale of the overreacher, one man who took on more than he was able to handle.

The wonderful thing about the sequence is that it is not “real.” Certainly, it was researched. Bits and pieces from different sources were used to stitch together a believable story. But there was simply no Bailey’s Mill except in my imagination. Facts and images together made for a poetry that was real, so real I still get asked where someone could find this town, where it used to be.

So a number of facts are the foundation. The poetry lies in the use of imagination to tie them together. The truth brought forth is the emotion that seem to resonate from the fictional Bailey through the writing of a poet to the feelings of the listener/reader.

More than just memory. More than a flight of imagination. Always asking for a subtle response. And that is how good poetry should work.

Poetry and Motion

2010-06-22T15:50:00.006-04:00

We’re well into the tournament for the World Cup of association football, also known as soccer. The beautiful game. It moves me more than enough to meditate on it, to contemplate what makes it beautiful.

What really intrigues me is that you can see play developing in motion. Hockey has a similar basic flow but because the surface is so much smaller and the speed of its motion is so much faster, it becomes much more difficult for the untrained eye and mind to register all the nuances. One of the drawbacks, perhaps the only one, in televised soccer games is that you are unable to see the whole field and are bound to the view the camera offers; so much that becomes important is developing on the field but off-camera so to speak.

The beauty of shifting patterns is for me the main factor in enjoying the game. It doesn’t matter who wins or loses, but how the game is played … since I’m not personally involved in any way. Shifting patterns in attack; shifting patterns in defense; the several developments possible from a set play; the interaction is usually more important than the actions seen separately.

I’ve seen teams work a beautiful offence, controlling the ball and play with short runs and accurate passes, passing to connect with the next foot rather than passing it into an area and expecting someone to be there. I’ve seen teams work a beautiful defense, putting one or two defenders on the incoming play while other defenders formed a field toward the goal to prevent easy forward penetration.

But enough of what is basically admiration of the game. What is it that makes me think of poetry? How is a well-played soccer game like a poem? A number of years ago I wrote a poem on the beauty of moving and controlling the ball, direction and misdirection, the sudden challenge of facing a goal and its keeper. I submitted it to a place asking for poems about sports and never heard about the poem again except second hand. An acquaintance who had also submitted said an anthology had been published. I don’t know if my poem was included. What’s more, I have lost the poem: no hard copy (this was before I made electronic copies), not even hand written notes. Ah, well. So it goes.

Let me explain to you how a play develops. The goal keeper (after an attempt by the opposing team) puts the ball into play: not with a long punt up field, for in the air the ball is in no one’s control. He feeds it to a defensive player. This one and his immediate team mates in the area close to the goal have the responsibility of moving the ball out to center field and beyond without losing control or possession to an opponent. It then becomes the responsibility of those teammates in the middle of the field to take over and find a way to bring the ball into a position close enough to the opponents’ goal. The midfielder must work to give the striker, the scoring specialist, a good chance to score while maintaining position so the play remains in that end. Should the ball pop out, he must be ready to feed it back in or take a shot at the goal himself. Such is but one of the basic sequences.

Take a good look at the foregoing example. It’s not hard to see the structure of a poem reflected in the structure of the play or vice versa. Look at it as a sonnet. First the octet: one quatrain moves it away from the goal; the second quatrain carries it into opposing territory. Then the sestet: the first tercet moves the play into the opponents’ goal area; the second tercet feeds the striker or player with the best chance to score.

So the poetry lies not in the motion of the individual but lies in the cohesiveness of the whole, the team. Individual motion only enhances, the way a well-placed image enhances a poem.

When I watch soccer, whoever wins or loses is to me usually secondary. Always my first interest is in the flow, the motion, the poetry of the game.

Honorifics

2010-06-20T23:12:00.004-04:00

Indulge me for a few moments; I need to get something off my chest, as they say.

An acquaintance of mine recently completed the work and was awarded a Ph D in some field of science. I congratulated him, wished him all the best. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I suggested that all we unschooled peons would now be obligated to address him as “Doctor B-----.” To my surprise he agreed, quite adamantly in fact. At first I could not believe he was serious.

He worked very hard to attain this goal, he argued. Just like a doctor in a medical field, he should be given the respect due to him, just as it says on the diploma he will hang on his office wall. He gained a level in education, he said, but also standing in the community.

I was puzzled. I told him I could see that sort of respectful salutation from fellow scientists, etc., but certainly not from store clerks, plumbers, auto mechanics and the like. Certainly he wouldn’t ask it of friends in the pub, the guys he plays squash with? Any one who is aware of my degree, he proclaimed, to whom I was introduced as one holding such a degree, has an obligation to honor me, to show respect.

Shaking my head I slipped away, wondering how long this would last and glad he wasn’t a close friend.

However, that reminded me that I don’t like honorifics; not so much that they nauseate me but I have a strong aversion to them. Let professors be “Professors” in class or on University business; to me he is Sam from down the street. In conversation you may refer to a surgeon as “Dr. W----,” but I’ll tell you that I know Maria W----. In the office, with a professional relationship established, she is “Dr. W----.”

What’s more, it goes against my grain to use the everyday honorifics we use as courtesy. They are not inherently polite, but reflect a hierarchical social structure I would rather not propagate. Women were right when they no longer wished to be addressed as either Mistress or Miss depending on their marital status, because such status was irrelevant. They didn’t go far enough. They should have eradicated all such “honorable” forms of address rather than reduce it to a noise that is part hum, part buzz, and completely silly. Ms. “Mmmmzzzzz.”

The trouble with mister/master/mistress is that it is based in and continues to remind me of master-servant or even owner-slave relationships. I don’t recognize such and refuse to consider anyone my “master” or to be anyone’s “master.” On the other hand, I also dislike being addressed as “sir.” It too has that air of social distinction, of setting the speaker in a lower rank than the one addressed, obsequiously bending the knee and begging for a gift from a noble hand.

Most courteous honorifics are dishonorable. Even “comrade” as a form of address, as expounded by communist regimes in the past century, does not sit well in my mouth.

We had it as nearly right as we could get it at one time, I believe. In the late sixties, early seventies we addressed each other as “man.” A simple appellation and not necessarily sexist for a woman told me she considered it to be “apostrophe-man,” a contraction of “human.”

And let me tell you ‘man, it gets no better than that.

Women Poets

2010-06-14T23:15:00.004-04:00

I love browsing around in second hand bookstores; I usually find something that catches my fancy. I even snuffle through the well-used and abused sections of second hand department stores, Salvation Army shops, Goodwill, Value Village and the rest.

Not long ago I came home with a volume titled 20th CENTURY WOMEN”S POETRY, edited by Fleur Adcock and published by Faber. What caught my attention was the blurb on the back claiming, “This anthology of women’s poetry is destined to establish a canon by which other, more partial anthologies will eventually be judged.” Inside I found a good representation of British, American, some Canadian, and a few other English language woman poets. After perusing through the contents, some familiar and some not, I carefully read Adcock’s introduction to discover the thought process behind the collection.

Adcock admits there is no special tradition in women’s poetry, nothing that should make it be seen as something different or separate. The fact remains that for many years men, men who didn’t take women seriously, dominated publishing. The feminine suffix added to poet, producing “poetess,” almost becomes a diminutive; no wonder women poets have dropped its usage.

Women were writing. Some lived in social isolation; some flourished in the limelight of a man; others gained attention by being outrageous, even scandalous. This does not take away from the power of the poetry. There is an excellent mix here of well known poets and those not well known. Some have been almost forgotten. Some seem somewhat dated. All have a quality that still appeals at the turn of another century.

Today women poets are being published without preference or reference to sex. Female poets are being read and taught. They seem to have reached a real equality in the literary world that they never had before.

Still, I believe there is some cause for concern, a trend we should watch with care. The work of women poets, of women writers, may get shunted into the lit section of “women’s bookshops.” In larger stores they may be relegated to the “women’s” section rather than with all poetry. And there is the dismaying trend in universities to make female poets part of “women’s studies,” and thereby creating an unwanted ghetto.

Men and women are one in their humanity, one in their dreams and perceptions, one in their use of language. A poem in itself has no gender. If it does it is as a result of the reader, not the writer. When the waters of two streams come together to form a creek, how can you separate them again? Women have moved from poetesses to poets. There can be no greater injustice than to marginalize them again.

Focus Point

2010-06-09T12:46:00.004-04:00

I’ve been thinking about haiku the past couple of days and how this form and related forms can carry so much meaning. Two or three lines, a few words, a clear and untrammeled image, simply speak out. Speak out about a time of year or a time of life, the simplicity of the natural world and the complexity of the human heart, the interconnections that make the all one.

To focus the broad lens of attention on the small, and often seeming trivial, bits and parts of life as we live it and not as we imagine or contemplate it, is for me the most important purpose of poetry. Oh yes, I acknowledge the importance of the narrative, the telling and preserving of personal and communal experience where the meaning is obvious. I admire the lyrical poetry that uses the beauty of language to enhance and sing a common experience and thereby intensify the joy of living – the odes, the sonnets, and numerous forms named and unnamed.

But for me it will always be the small poems that remain the most powerful: not only the Japanese forms but also all those that present one image uncluttered and wielding a quiet strength. The best of English language imagist poetry carry as much emotion and strength as the finest work of the haiku masters.

For me, poetry can be the way I focus the light of daily living on small things, a light that should be a way to explore their meaning and their special inherent beauty.

Beautiful Ugly

2010-06-06T20:46:00.005-04:00

We all have our individual concepts of ugliness. Usually it is something that is not pleasing to the senses, that causes an immediate reaction against it. We know a stink when we smell it, a cacophony when we hear it. We turn away from that which does not please the eye and spit out what offends the palate.

But in everything we consider ugly or distasteful there can be found touches of beauty if we make the effort to seek them out. Even the most visually unpleasant will have some combination of lines or colors, some underlying balance that can be pleasing if we ignore the rest. If we can follow the pattern of a single sound through masses of discord we may find a kernel of music.

The same goes for writing, for poetry. Poetry is by definition aesthetically pleasing; I can’t imagine anyone setting out deliberately to write an ugly poem. Even though it should be done, I don’t know many beautiful poems about ugly things or subjects. Even so, such materials should be subjects for good poetry.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. So perhaps some poet should stop to envision the beauty in the unattractive.

Where are the poems about scrap metal in a junkyard? Who will wax lyrical about the sights of decomposing garbage? Is there an ode or a sonnet to the nature and beauty of a manure pile?

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, Keats proclaimed. Poetry makes beautiful that which is distorted, wrote Shelley. I’m asking for some appreciation of ugliness, the truths of the unpleasant.

Passing It On

2010-05-30T13:40:00.004-04:00

The other evening a friend and I were having a discussion about the artist in the community, not the worth and purpose of the artists so much as how they fit into everyday life. He’s a musician and said that the most satisfaction he gets out of public performance is not based in praise or applause but the sense that some of the audience had been “touched.” He explained that it was an awareness of sorts that what he had been doing had let someone reach into himself to find a creative spark; it need not necessarily apply to music but any way of creating something other. The artist’s role in the community, he suggested, was to pass on the knowledge that all have a talent and should display it to the best of our ability. It doesn’t matter what, just that each one create.

I told him I could understand that about musicians and their instruments in a public performance, even actors although they hid their real selves behind a character. A visual artist is exposed through the works hanging in public galleries, film makers etc. in theatres. But how do you make that work with writing, with the literary arts? “You perform words in public,” he replied. “You do readings not to simply advertise yourself and your work, however valid that purpose may be. You have to show that creating is worthwhile, that it is delighting and satisfying.”

I remember once talking of poetry to a small group of eight to ten year old children. I was explaining rhyme and the ways different words can sound not the same but alike. I would give a simple word like “cat” and ask several of the youngsters, one by one, to give me a word that sounds like it, that rhymes with it. They grasped the concept easily enough and I was ready to go on to rhyming phrases and lines when one girl’s face lit up. Unasked she began to speak out many rhymes for different words, with an ecstatic look on her face as if she had discovered something magical. Deep within her the repetition of sounds had lit a spark of joyful creativity. I don’t know if she ever went on to write or use language in other ways. I felt like a master who had just gained an apprentice. The essence of the poet had been passed on.

And then at PoeMagic, his reading/performance series, Klyde Broox touched on the same thing. Talking about the reasoning behind PoeMagic, Klyde spoke of developing a community, a gathering in time and space where poets and spoken word artists could be together and share their creativity, where the more mature artists could fan that spark in those beginning to find a voice. Schools for artist, writing courses, and such only teach basics and methods. Creativity itself can not be taught. It must be developed and the best way to ensure such development in the younger writers is to provide chances for their works to be heard and seen. So it was his intention to form such a venue where all levels of writers of any creed, colour, social status, or whatever may seem to divide us were free to grab the spark and fire up their creativity.

And I agree. Poetry readings should not be simple showcases for one person’s work but reach to build awareness, an awareness that poets can be serious and fun, even seriously funny. I don’t remember ever setting up a reading series just for development of an artistic community but the concept is intriguing. I may be a little too old to take up such a task myself, but I will support to the fullest anyone who can and will.

So if you are just beginning to write, even if not seriously, don’t judge yourself by what publication credits you may achieve. Find a writer or group you admire and write toward their approval. Most are happy to pass on their outlooks and enthusiasm.

Language in the Future

2010-05-25T08:35:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I become very aggravated by some of the ways that people are using language today. It seems the atmosphere is full of acronyms and short cuts that take away from the beauty and meaning of full round sounds.

I suppose it is part of the normal development of speech and communication. We’ve come a long way from inflected grunts. As the human race developed, the needs and ways of communicating evolved too. Vocabulary increased, often borrowing from other languages. Meanings of words and phrases changed as need directed. Sounds could be recorded, first in the symbols of runes and alphabets, more recently as sounds themselves.

An alphabet seemed the perfect way to preserve language except for a few flaws in the system. Not every community agreed to what sound was portrayed by what character, nor on how the sounds/letters should fit together to carry a meaning all knew instantly. In the flush of the printed word attempts were made in several languages to standardize words and their usage. Language, however, will not be contained by regulations.

Change is still happening, partly through the development of new technologies for disseminating and storing language and partly through the laziness of many of us who use them. Acronyms have become so common that they have become a means of identifying things unrelated to the word the acronym spells. Text messaging and electronic “chat” demands getting the most with the least and produces short cuts in the language that sound fine but look ugly.

So what? you may ask. But the beauty of language is one of the greatest achievements of humanity. To destroy that beauty, even to neglect it just for expediency, would seem to me to be a decline back towards barbarism. Without the fullness and diversity of all the sounds we have available language becomes stunted, withers.

Change, as we all know, cannot be stopped. But at the same time what we have built needs to be preserved. Poets in a society have the responsibility to ensure the continuation of the beauty. They are the ones who work with its intricacies and possibilities in ways no other can.

So one of the first concerns of the poet is the beauty of language, of proclaiming and propagating it. It disturbs me to find poets putting forth prosaic language just because it might appeal to more people. Poems should sing as well as communicate.

Just because so many people are doing it is no reason for a poet to dilute the power of the spoken or written word.

So wht r u w8tng 4?

The Poor Man's Riches

2010-05-22T10:38:00.007-04:00

Some time ago I was listening to a BBC interview with the Australian poet Les Murray about the compilation of a distinctly Australian dictionary, the Macquarie Dictionary. One of his casual remarks, one of several I would have liked to hear him expound, was that “words are the poor man’s riches.” That left it up to me to think it out for myself.

I considered where new words come from. A number come from writers for ad firms or politicians, those using language to sell goods, services, actions, or personalities to people not as linguistically nimble. (Cf. the Afghanistan war: the precision of technological weaponry vs. the dreaded roadside IED, the Improvised Explosive Devise or as the military don’t want to put it, “home-made bomb.”) But many more begin among those who are not a part of the mainstream of business, culture, government, or other such matters. A richness of words has always come from the poor.

The language is infiltrated, and usually enriched, by the acceptance of slang. I can remember when it was not proper to refer to children as young goats; now even the most refined parents will praise their “kids.” When I was young I used to laugh and sing: I was gay. I still laugh and sing but I am no longer “gay”; the primary meaning of the word has been changed. As an activist in the 1960s I found the most powerful word referring to authorities was the little word “pig.” However, it has now lost much of that ability to aggravate and irritate because it became common if not quite acceptable.

Words continue to take root among our common “word-hoard,” our treasury of language. They come from the usage of criminals and other marginalized people, or from groups who have developed a need for a common terminology that then spreads into common usage (e.g. words from the surfer and hippie subcultures, “Valley-speak,” hip-hop terminology.) Words from banking and business do occur but have far less chance of becoming part of our daily speech unless propagated through extensive media usage.

When words are the only resource you have you learn to use them with discrimination. You become aware of their strengths, what they can do for you and to you. It is only a small step from realizing the power of words to seeing their value. If money is power, then the power of words is riches. Who knows this and uses it carefully will never be poor.

Blessed are the rich in language for they are the rich in spirit.

Diminutives in Language

2010-05-21T07:43:00.006-04:00

I just want to take a moment here to expound on one of my few bugaboos of the English language, a fact I have learned to tolerate but not to like. I think the language would be more fully rounded, in a sense more musical, more pleasing to the ear, if it had a predominant and consistent suffix to express both comparative smallness in size and familiarity or endearment. Other languages do, and I admire the way it works for them.

Let’s take a look at two different languages. Spanish, as an example of the Romance languages, employs a few diminutive forms quite readily, e. g. “–ito (m), -ita (f)” and “–illo (m), -illa (f).” Dutch, like English a Germanic language, uses “-je” (often with a preceding consonant) to designate small size or familiarity; the diminutive is used with nouns, names, adjectives and other word forms.

It’s not that English doesn’t have diminutives, it’s just that nearly all of them are borrowed from other languages: -ette (et) from the French creating words like parkette and caplet. From Old Norse comes “-ing” in duckling and darling (familiar for “dear”). The “-y” or “-ie” comes from the Scottish (who themselves use an adjective “wee” rather than a suffix.) The Germanic “-kin, -ken” is very infrequent.

The problem is that none of the suffix constructions are productive, that is, used in common word formation in daily speech. And that, in my opinion, is one of the greater flaws of the English language.

Older Poets

2010-05-18T07:28:00.006-04:00

Last week I attended a gathering of older poets. My mind has some difficulty in referring to them. When I think “old poets” all those from Chaucer through the Victorians come to mind; when I refer myself to “senior poets” I envision those from my lifetime who have been a source of guidance and inspiration for my own poetry. How, my enquiring mind asks, do I refer to men and women who wrote little while they were heavily involved in living but now, with retirement from their usual activities, find time and ambition and ability to write?

And again, what about those poets who have been writing steadily for many years but never slowed or lost any edge of their creativity? It used to be thought that artistic productivity was the realm of the young, that it began to decline at mid-life. That theory has certainly been overturned.

This gathering was a chance to meet and share for a variety of poets whose work was included in Celebrating Poets Over 70, a new anthology produced by the McMaster Centre for Gerontological Studies (and Tower Poetry Society) in their Writing Down Our Years Series, collections of work by older adults. Some of those present had been writing and publishing poetry for many years; some had only recently begun to express themselves creatively in poetry. But they seemed to fit together; they connected not so much through their poetry as through their common life experience and worldview.

The life in the room reflected the life to be found in the book: serious and light, filled with hope as well as memories, with a calm knowledge of the basis of existence. These men and women accepted themselves and each other for their creativity. Anything else at that time was secondary. The passion, the flaming ebullience of the young may have been tamped but it was still alive and well among the old. The body might display its weaknesses but the mind and spirit exuded strength.

Over seventy. It occurs to me that I will soon achieve that plateau. If these poets are any example, there is no excuse for me to rest on my achievements. As long as ability and need is there, I can and will continue. I want to be an old poet, a senior poet, to be an elder full of “late life creativity.”

Like them, I want to be the laughter of a spring brook in the soft coming of a winter.

Poetry In Public

2010-05-10T13:08:00.007-04:00

What is it in modern Western society that has created such a public aversion to poetry? Poetry should not be hidden, much less tucked away in some secret spot to be enjoyed only by those few who know it. Poetry has a proper place in our community, right there with music and dance. So, why can’t we find it there?

Granted that the industrial/material nature of development created great changes in all the arts: how they were perceived, delivered, appreciated. But music is an ever-popular endeavor, and dancing is still a communal activity. Literature, the novel and short story collections, is available everywhere. What about poetry?

Poetry has lost much of its populist and popular appeal. Ask a butcher, a roofer, a long distance trucker about poetry and few will light up, glad you asked. There is no sense of what they can identify as poetry in their lives except perhaps the rhymes found in greeting cards. And these, too, are being replaced by jokes and other forms of word play.

Only a minimal effort has been made to counter this. Without patrons willing to support an art so invisible as poetry, it has been left to government to represent the society’s support. So poets decide what funding crumbs go to poets. A poet laureate institutes programs for poets. The whole structure of being a poet continues to feed upon itself.

What can be done? Take poetry back to the streets, to everyday living where it belongs. For those who want to discontinue public prayers to open a meeting, replace it with a poem. Radio and television presenters, when faced with a minute or so to fill, could read a poem rather than subject us to inane and purposeless conversation. Poets could join other buskers and read random poems on street corners for tips. The list of possibilities is endlessLet’s have a poetry contest for policemen on the theme of uniforms. Urge all grocers to write imaginatively about fresh vegetables. Ask cabbies to wax poetic about the foibles of human nature. We need real people to write and dispense poetry. Poets talking to poets about poetry and letting others listen in if they want to make the effort isn’t working.

There is a program known as “Random Acts of Poetry” that is a start for what I advocate, but rather than confine it to one week in October this kind of activity should be going on all the time. Let poets bring the beauty of language to the streets and workplaces, to meeting halls and supermarkets. A poem can contain so much joy and experience. It needs to be shared.

Linked Art

2010-05-07T09:30:00.006-04:00

Personally I’m not one for “writing exercises,” those little ideas that are supposed to enhance style or make creative juices flow. However, recently a fellow writer approached me and asked me to set him a task; he was bored and wanted to write. He just had no idea what to write about or how to start.

I had recently come into possession of a small book authored by two poets. Rather than separate sections or groupings, each poem was written in response to one of the other’s existing poems. That way, if each had sent the other ten poems the book would end up with forty, twenty originals and twenty responses. There was no specified manner to respond; it could be to the subject, to an image, an emotional or rational response, no restriction.
I have always liked the concept of linking things, works of art especially, together to form something separate and perhaps greater. For a number of years now I have taken part in a local art celebration where poets are asked to respond to a piece of visual art in poetry. The poem and the art it responds to are then displayed together in storefront windows for a week.

I have written in response to paintings, drawings, and such but also to pieces of sculpture. Some of the most challenging work was in response to crafts: glass boxes, a jar, pieces of jewelry, fabric. I find the visceral response to such things more perplexing to explain even in non-poetic concepts. The intriguing thing here is to be able to establish a link, sometimes obvious, sometimes a little obscureThe Japanese have a tradition of renga, linked verse. Over the centuries the format (subject of certain verses, segmentation of the whole, and other “rules”) became strictly observed. I understand that the modern practice, in the last half-century or so, has moved away from that meticulousness and is more open and flowing without losing spirit and purpose. It reminds me of a piece of linked or collaborative art I was involved with in the late 1970s that was called “Peace Renga.” Writers, musicians, and other artists were invited to submit work on the theme of world peace. Many, if not all, were linked together and performed several times in different venues – music was played, prose and poetry read, paintings and photographs projected on a screen for a very moving presentation. I was proud to provide a small part of the whole, to be part of a community declaration in art.

I find that most of my writing is in response to something external rather than having something burning inside demanding expression. My response is a way to better understand, to make sense of the world around me to myself and share that understanding and viewpoint with others. In this way responding to another’s response creates for me a deeper level of seeing, of knowing.But back to my friend with the demand for a writing exercise. I sent him two lines of poetry with no hint as to title or subject matter. I asked him to respond with the same, no more than three lines if he must, linking it to my original as he saw fit with no explanation needed. That was a couple of days ago; he hasn’t replied yet. If it doesn’t get him in a writing mood, at least it has served as subject for my little meditation.

Rewriting: Self-Editing

2010-04-29T10:43:00.003-04:00

One of the most valuable lessons I learned early in my writing career was that of setting myself apart from my work and seeing it as someone else might. Perhaps it is strange for a poet to say that an author of fiction talking about his own process first explained this to me. The concepts he expounded rang true, so true that I took the ideas to an older poet who I admired as a mentor. He acknowledged that the poet, perhaps even more so than any other writer, had to edit his work relentlessly and carefully. A poem should be concise and precise, a polished jewel. (At the time he was writing and publishing a lot of haiku, and had the explanations and examples from his own work at hand.)

Certainly, this included mundane things like spelling, punctuation, tense, and all the small irritants that could lower the quality of one’s work. But even more important than this was the use of words, of language.

He taught me many things. He taught me to plan a poem, to start with a definite idea of what I wanted to say and how to say it whether directly or through metaphor or simile. Cut all the words and phrases you don’t need, he would instruct. You don’t have to describe an orange as round. There are no square ones. Don’t get sidetracked by another idea that influences or modifies your original. If necessary, turn that into its own poem. Be aware of the influence of even the smallest word: ‘the’ apple refers to one specific apple; ‘an’ apple refers to any apple the reader may envision. Apple without any article suggests the essence of being apple-like and somewhat unreal.

Poems often try to convey ethereal, unsubstantial matters using concrete and physical images. Remember that it is easier and perhaps more effective to describe a boundary as a wall rather than a force field although it is probably neither. Use words that describe common, everyday experiences (and delete one of those words; ‘common’ and ‘everyday’ are almost identical) to hold the readers/listeners attention so that they too will reach your conclusion with you. Whatever you do, don’t pad your work – be it poem, story, article, resume – because it will ring untrue to a careful reader.

Spelling and grammar speak for themselves. If you don’t spell correctly, the words may not mean what you think; if you have no idea of the order and relationship among words, you can’t control what they do or say. It’s as simple as that.

Always edit; if necessary, rewrite. Very few poems, if any, leap perfect to the page from an imperfect mind.

Poetry Is Dangerous

2010-04-20T18:05:00.003-04:00

Since April 21 is Al Purdy Day, I think it appropriate to consider this phrase I heard from Al back in the eighties when he did a reading in Hamilton. I don’t remember the ins and outs of the discussion that led to this remark but it did stick with me, and to such an extent that I had it engraved into a bracelet.

So, poetry is dangerous? Aside from possibly irritating someone bigger and stronger, how can there be anything “dangerous” about playing around with words? Al gives a tongue in cheek glimpse of the dangers in his poem “At the Quinte Hotel” but it can run deeper than a bar brawl.

There is, of course, the physical: when some macho man takes delight in manhandling the wimp poet. That is the least of a poet’s worries. It is the ambiguous influences of poetry on a life that are more dangerous and perhaps not as easily recognized.

Poetry, the making and writing, the publishing and performing – “chasing the Muse” – can become as consuming as an addiction. When all of the poet’s time revolves around poetry, the “normal” aspects of life suffer. Poets may isolate themselves from their family and loved ones. Their circle of friends becomes a collection of only those who deal with poetry. You seldom find a fervent poet who writes “on the side” no matter how good or dedicated they are. And how much good is a life spent scrambling from grant to award and all the stops between?

We poets cannot live by words and poems only. We need to live, to dig our fingers into the soil and cup water in our hands even if metaphorically. To exist otherwise is dangerous. Dangerous to ourselves and how others perceive us but also dangerous for our work, for our mission. If we isolate ourselves from living as others live, how can we experience that life, explain its joys and sorrows, explore its meanings. Isn’t that why we are poets?

So keep a wary eye out for what poetry may be doing to you. We know it’s not easy; when it begins to seem so remember, the muse is cunning and powerful. Or as Al Purdy warned me, “Poetry is dangerous.”

The Fire, The Fire!

2010-04-19T09:16:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I picked up second hand an anthology of contemporary African-American poetry published toward the end of the twentieth century titled Catch the Fire!!! It’s interesting and important because it identifies current rap and hip-hop artists as part of the stream of black writers/poets/artists of the U. S.

The book is divided into six segments; each is introduced by a black cultural figure of importance with reflections and encouragements. The overriding theme of the book urges the young poets to be positive and passionate, to catch and spread the fire actively. The editor and many of the younger poets included are wordsmiths, presenters of ideas in the language of their culture and the immediacy of post literary media – black street talk with rap beats, to be performed as spoken word and disseminated as recordings.

The work in this volume lives up to that challenge. It burns with passion. There are poems from some of the well-known and established poets and writers: Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Quincy Troupe, and Sonia Sanchez. These establish the immediacy and the tradition. But much of the collection consists of work by younger poets, often rap and slam artists, who try to burn the fire of their performance onto the black and white of the page.

It all shows that there is a tradition of black poetry - revolutionary perhaps, passionate certainly – that flows through American letters. Much of it is, as mentioned before, available only through performances or recordings. And this is where the more established poets come in with advice and direction. They urge the young to write and then look at their work, not simply to consider performance but the writing as literature. To not only listen to their contemporaries but also to read them, study them, find what works and what doesn’t. To delve into the craft of poetry beyond rhyme and rhythm and into simile and metaphor. To read and use everything you can until you’ve worked out something you feel comfortable with, a voice, and a positive attitude you can share. Use poetry to reach outside yourself so it can become part of everyone else.

And with such advice it is easy to see how rap and hip-hop, filtered though the experience of black people’s existence, is real poetry. It may not have the ancient, European forms and cadences but the power and confidence cannot be denied. The fire that exists on the stage is being transferred to the page. And the page will be all the better for it, will not be consumed.

Morning Light

2010-04-15T15:25:00.006-04:00

They’re here again, those mornings with soft light breaking at dawn, hanging on for endless moments before burning its way into the day. I have always loved to sit out and watch the sun rise, more so than to watch it set. When I lived as a night owl I would stay up to watch a sunrise before going to bed; when I worked shifts I missed being available for either the rising or the setting sun. Such magic must be observed. There are enough days in a life without it.
The light available before sunrise seems to grow as if it were alive. Not only does it expand to fill space, it often seems to diffuse and enter into all the solid matter and for a short time gives the material world a spiritual essence. This is what makes the music of classical Indian music, especially the ragas written for this time of day, so moving for me. I have gotten into the habit of spending the time between the first coffee and a solid breakfast in meditation and contemplation. Once I used to do so with music playing, ragas or streams of Celtic instrumentations. Nowadays, unless a great number of irritations are present, I prefer the silence and the natural rhythms of birds and winds, and even the hum of traffic may blend in.

And then there’s the poetry. Since medieval times songs and words have been written for and about this time of day. Even in today’s English verse a lyrical poem about dawn, whether in praise or about love, with joy or pain or contemplation, is known as an aubade (from the French and Provençal). At times I write a poem directly influenced by one specific sunrise, but recently I was nosing around some of my earlier work, both published and unpublished, and marveled at how often the sunrise in one way or another influenced my poetry. Even without specific mention of the time of day, I could feel the serene effect through the images used. I had been writing aubades even before I understood what they were.

I continue to write poems under the influence of the rising sun. Sometimes they remain compact as haiku or tanka. Sometimes the imagery becomes incorporated in something other. And sometimes it becomes a complete lyrical expression of praise and contentment in and of itself.

As a poet and as a human being, I remain entranced by the rising sun. No wonder world religions use the symbol with great power.

Hiking Over Trails of Poetry

2010-04-12T16:22:00.007-04:00

I belong to a group that does a fair amount of hiking together. The hikes are usually scouted beforehand and rated as to the degree of difficulty involved. We don’t include (in that rating) areas with paved surfaces often specifically designated for walking, roller blading, or cycling. Such are simply walks or strolls. Hikes take place on natural surfaces.
Now there are a number of different terrains and types of trails that we encounter and rate. There is the well-traveled route, often a rail trail or other such path with more or less easy access and level progress, the kind comfortable enough to take a child in a wagon or stroller with little effort. Much of the journey can be covered walking abreast with a companion. Any trail consisting of mainly such is considered “easy.”

A “moderate” hike usually takes place in places where there are hills and/or ravines involved. Progress is often single file, the surface can be uneven and wind though trees and around rock; care must be taken with footing in places. It is excellent exercise and soothes the mind.

A “difficult” hike is one in which steep climbs or scrambles are likely to be encountered. Many of the local ones involve creek beds and deep ravines. There’s a saying that for one of these hikes you need all four limbs to get around. They can provide an exhilarating challenge, a change from the usual.

Then, of course, there are extreme hikes that require special knowledge, skills, and equipment. Activities such as climbing frozen waterfalls or traversing rock faces are not ones we would consider.

So what has all this to do with poetry? While hiking images suggesting poems will often come to me; again while working on a poem a sudden memory of something observed or experienced during a hike may lend to a poem’s clarity. And stepping aside, observing people’s involvement with poetry is much like identifying the levels of a hike.

The stroll or walk on prepared surfaces can be seen as the everyday experience of poetry, the stuff we encounter in greeting cards and such. Nice, but no challenge whatsoever.

The “easy” hike is one for which you prepare, leave your daily comings and goings. It is much like picking up a volume of poetry where you know what to expect but reading that is not part of your daily life. It can be a gentle, controlled excursion through a landscape not quite familiar but not threatening.

We can then compare the “moderate” hike to exploring poems or poetry that presents a challenge to us in its use of language, of form or lack thereof, of not immediately evident meaning. This type of poetry involves the mind as hiking terrain would the body.

The “difficult” poetry hike would be through material you might not consider poems. Even many readers and lovers of poetry have difficulty accepting such presentations as prose poetry, dub or spoken word. They seem to follow a different set of rules that seem to disconnect them for what we might consider the “norm” and thus engage all our attention and effort to make our way through. And here too, the journey can be one of discovery and exhilaration.

Even in poetry the “extreme” can be present, poetry that uses foreign or classical languages, that refers to obscure events or mythologies to make its way to meanings that still never seem clear.

And always it’s good to remember: one person’s easy is another person’s moderate. Difficulty in poetry as in hiking is subjective. What I suggest is that everyone should challenge themselves, in hiking and in reading poetry.

Crocuses

2010-04-10T19:52:00.005-04:00

Early this spring, when we went through an unnatural warm spell, I stopped and talked to a neighbour who was clearing her yard of winter's debris. We talked about the weather's effect on tender spring plants and how an expected long frost and snowstorm could damage the crocuses already in bloom and the lilies-of-the-valley sprouting in her back yard. We agreed that such changes could also affect human behavior. She then confided that she was worried about her thirteen year old daughter. The young lady claimed to be very much in love with a young man and the mother felt she was too immature to feel so deeply, that she would be emotionally hurt. I had no advice to offer but I did write a tanka about the crocuses a few days later.

After some thought and careful consideration, the tanka turned out like this:

so early this spring
crocuses struggle
to bloom
how can I warn you
of impending frost?

Then I realised that this was not only a poem about a natural phenomenon, a thoughtful observation and its emotional impact, but also a metaphor for the situation the neighbour lady and I had talked about.

Her daughter, like a crocus, was doing her best to bloom as she was meant to; her mother thought the time was not 'ripe,' that it was too soon. She could see the possible difficulties, the hard frost looming in the near future, and felt inadequate to give her a warning she would heed.

Life and poetry, young girls and crocuses: oh, how they mingle!

Causes and Poets

2010-04-03T10:43:00.004-04:00

Not long ago I became involved in a discussion of language as used (and misused) in support of a cause. It began with the ‘truths’ that political parties and such would use to enhance their image, how they would use words and phrases commonly understood as admirable to distract attention from some things or ideas that were not as acceptable to many people. From there it evolved into the language of war and conflict with terms such as “ friendly fire” and “collateral damage.” In this context propaganda was also discussed, using language to portray as good something that might seem unpalatable.

From there the conversation flowed into a discussion of advertising and how, because of the money and resources available to that industry, the language it uses to sell dominates all our media. Often terms and slogans invented or manipulated by advertisers become a part of our language. Many of these are memorable because of their inherent poetry, whether simile or image or simply a new use of terminology. I mentioned how I had published a poem many years ago which described a deep and sensual relationship using words and phrases from an advertisement for a brand of liquor, a “found” poem so to speak.

The whole discussion left me with a disquieting feeling somewhere between my throat and my ears. I asked myself if this is the function of poetry, of a poetic exploration of language. We are so far from the marks set by such as Chaucer, Milton, Spencer and Shakespeare.

I truly believe that today’s poetry needs to become more separate from the personal and emotional expression. One way is through the use of concrete images to carry such emotion in new ways. Another, and one that hasn’t justly been explored to my knowledge, is by writing excellent poetry about causes, about necessary social changes. Where is the poet of the recycling movement, the compost pile? Where is she who would explore the plight of whales and dolphins in terms that involve the heart and the mind?

When the chance arises, I will attempt to write for a cause. I have long been a member of Poets for Peace. It’s not a great step from my usual themes of love and respect for land and life to protesting destruction by means of arms or machinery; I have done both, physically and poetically. Recently I participated in a relief for Haiti poetry project undertaken by a New York poet. (Make a donation to a charity involved in the relief effort and one of your poems gets published on the web site.) Such involvement is only the beginning.

Poets need to speak out, to speak up for the needed changes in society to improve our environment and ourselves. We, the ones who should be the masters of language, cannot abdicate our social responsibilities and leave the beauty of words and phrases in the hands of sellers of beer and deodorants. We should not leave it to political speechwriters to tell us how to interpret the world.

The causes exist. Struggles have been engaged. Poets are needed to speak and support or the world may be changed by glib phrasings from those looking only for a good way to make a buck.

Worker Poet

2010-03-26T16:28:00.002-04:00

The Hamilton Poetry Centre hosted a reading by Tom Wayman. I admire his work, and since I had not heard him read in more than twenty years, I excused myself from my usual Thursday evening activity to attend. He always had the reputation of being the workers’ poet both because of his own poems and several anthologies he compiled on that theme.

He still has that reputation for that was the way he was introduced to the audience. He himself spent some time explaining the reasoning behind some of his concentration on work related poetry. Others would focus on love and death, but he found that few poets wrote about their daily work experiences. What could be more natural, he said, since we spend a third of our day at work and much more thinking and talking about work. Many people are defined, either by themselves or by others, through their work. People who can write about what they do, either blue collar jobs or professional, and then in poetry have my admiration and respect. I have tried to write “work” poems and never succeeded to my own satisfaction. I find it easier to write about others at their work.

I admired Wayman’s earlier work and have been intrigued with its development. The focus is no longer on the physical aspects of labour; years of teaching have helped morph the same sensibility into poetry about the classroom, about his relationship to the drudgeries as well as the stimulations of teaching. He can deal precisely with the relationships of students and teacher or that of each to the material. All the while he retains his sense of humour and his common manner of expression. In his poetry he speaks as one person to another without thought of educational level, experience, or any other fact that might set people apart.

No matter what suit he wears or where he walks he is still a poet of and for the people.

Music or Words, the Presentation

2010-03-20T14:07:00.007-04:00

I recently attended a concert of Indian music performed by the local sitar master, Neeraj Prem. I have enjoyed such music for a long time, since I first heard Ravi Shankar’s work on the sound track of Pather Panchali and purchased a recording of his performance in the mid 1960s. The depth of the emotional experience this music evokes continued to amaze me.

Ravi Shankar was the main exponent of bringing the classical music of Northern India to the Western world. His understanding and ability to explain won a following of Western musicians as diverse as Yehudi Menuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, John Coltrane, and George Harrison. But something Prem said about the music echoed what I had learned from Shankar. Western music is written down and precise, almost mathematical in harmony and counterpoint. It is based on scores to be followed. The ragas for sitar are based in mood, colour, and emotion as expressed by a basic pattern from which the musician works. A form that approaches this is the jazz soloist improvising over and around the basic chart of his piece of music.

So often in these entries I find myself talking of music. What has this one to do with poetry?

Well, late that evening as I was lying in bed preparing for sleep it suddenly struck me that the way to appreciate the different musical performances was much the same as the way to appreciate different presentations of poetry. For poetry on the page, in a book, you need an analytical mind to see the relationships between phrases and images. The layout, line breaks, stanzas, all help to guide the mind into processing the words. But spoken word material, though coming from similar fundamentals, depends on the ear alone to register. The mind cannot take time to analyze, but must therefore react viscerally and emotionally.

This also may be a partial explanation why I have an unusual reaction when I hear someone else read my poems. Rather than the sender, I become the receiver but with a much different perspective than any one else. In a way I become both ends of a conversation.

The poem on the stage is not the poem on the page. Not even combining an audio-visual presentation would work; the visuals would overwhelm the audio. It always does.

Words and Music, Certainly

2010-03-17T23:52:00.006-04:00

I have come to understand that the music that moves me is usually associated with language. That is to say, a composition consisting of musical notes and depending on that alone does not touch me as deeply as a well-phrased song. I am trying to understand why.

This meditation comes out of a concert I attended recently, and the comparison I make with different concerts I remember. I can listen to classical compositions and enjoy the sound patterns, perhaps even feel a vague emotional response to it. I can follow the intricacies of a jazz number and be astounded by the separate reality it may portray to the contemplating mind. But it is songs that I remember most vividly. Not necessarily the poetry of the song although that seems to be a strong component. It is the combination of words and music that touches me deepest

The concert by Big Rude Jake about ten days ago is a good illustration. I had seen him fronting a neo-swing type band about eight or so years ago but heard that he had refined his sound to more of a singer-songwriter style presentation. I enjoyed it even though I approached it somewhat skeptically. I tried to analyze what it was about his concert that impressed me and came up with these facets: he had the poetic sensibility of a Tom Waits, the musical ambiance of a Leon Redbone, and the ‘fun’ jazz styling of Big Rude Jake. I was moved and impressed.

But several days later I came across a phrase that, although here it was in a totally different context, reminded me of a song that had moved me to tears many years ago. I pawed through my extensive record collection and found the original recording. When I played it again for myself, the tears flowed again. And again, every time I played it or sang it to myself. This is one of a small number of songs that affect me that way. With each one, I can remember where I first heard it, with whom, under what circumstances. I cannot say the same about any other piece of music that has no vocal component.

So it seems my true appreciation of music depends on language. I don’t know if this is unusual, whether it is a part of my being a poet, a wordwright or something like that. The realization that such is my nature does help me understand myself.

It helps explain my affinity to old blues, story songs, and music surrounding literate imagery.

The Sound of Emptiness Revisited

2010-03-17T15:17:00.004-04:00

Back in June of ’09 I remarked on poetry that seemed to be all flash and no substance. I want to revisit the concept because a book-length manuscript came across my desk that embodied it. Out of the sixty or more poems only two or three moved me. Those seemed to build their images around a recognizable theme; the others seemed extremely unconnected.

In fact they reminded me of the “Where’s Waldo” puzzles, you know the themed scenes populated by a multitude of human figures. The trick is to find which one has all the recognizable tributes of the “Waldo” character. Imagine how frustrating play would be if there was no Waldo included! That’s how I felt about those poems. The fact that they were devoid of any customary rhythm or rhyme scheme only emphasized their meaninglessness.

There’s nothing wrong with setting down words or sounds without a precise, discernable meaning. “Sound” poets do it all the time. But they will admit that it works better on stage than on the page. The flow of words/sounds creates a mood enhanced and emphasized by poetic devices: rhyme (both end and internal), other repetition, defined even if changing rhythms. The fundamentals that please the ear and mind.

It reminded me of a poem I wrote some years back; it was never published and was never meant to be. It’s a piece I liked to perform live on stage because the way the sounds driven by rhythm and repetitions connected with the audience. If it established a sentiment, a mood, all to the good; if it didn’t it was still a sequence of pleasing sounds. I’ll publish it here so you can see what I mean.

5ntwenty

when craven vultures songbirds be
new babes laugh hanging in each tree
through ruby filtered light you see
one trail is free

radiance crowns the powdered rack
fishermen mourn their linen sack
and oil now burns the broken back
the clabbered hack

promises mend a shirt of snow
and buttered railways slide below
the trees fall off the wheels to know
these weights won’t go

all frozen lobsters on a kite
sing for a nose to free the night
we vanquish chip-shops in delight
and leave to write

so shine the copper lilies round
run with the growling shaded hound
the magic ice flows underground
while we resound

The poem as it exists has no obvious meaning. Its “poetry” hangs on the well defined frame of rhythm and rhyme scheme. For me the joy was in the movement of the mouth, the embouchure, as vowel slipped toward vowel and consonant shaped to the next consonant.

If that joy is not there, what are we left with? Ink spots on a page? Or from the stage a cacophony?

I have written other poems that had no obvious meaning but because the way images interacted, complimented each other, and were held by a common structure, they carried a discernable meaning that could be touched. Several of these have been published and well received.

So, does meaning have to be obvious? No. But a way must be shown that can lead to a satisfactory conclusion by the reader/listener. Otherwise you are pumping darkness into a place where there is no light.

The High and the Low

2010-03-08T22:40:00.005-05:00

I went for a winter hike with some friends in an area known as the Niagara Glen. It’s a broad but rugged place in the Niagara gorge, a place of tumbled rocks strewn from an ancient tributary. Like so many others, I’d traveled along the edge of the gorge and never imagined that a completely other world existed there. Not that it’s unknown; people explore there, fish there, play there. It’s just that looking down from the top you focus on the river below and forget the space between. So often someone in our party would exclaim, “I never knew this was here!”

The terrain is rugged but not inhospitable. Its great attraction is in its difference: it is neither the roar and swirl of the powerful river nor the civilized parks and roads above the rim. In its way, it reminded me of poetry and what poetry should be.

I will grant that sometimes poetry will look down from the refined rim of the abyss and try to explain what lies below. Or again, poetry may be part of the raging variability of the river where it grabs the banks. But who but a poet can show and explain the one to the other, can explore the complexity that lies between and still joins them.

In the human condition it is the artist, the poet who must clamber between the highs and the lows, to seek the realities that are ecstasy and profundity. To that end nothing can be more symbolic, more metaphoric than a winter hike in the gorge of the Niagara River on a clear winter afternoon.

Poets and Legislators

2010-03-07T20:59:00.007-05:00

Over dinner this evening, some friends and I were discussing politics: international, national, provincial, local – at every level. Somehow I must have been more eloquent or persuasive than usual. I was challenged, “If you’ve got so many brilliant ideas, why don’t you run for office and do something with them?” And then followed the reference that made me stop to think a little deeper than usual. “After all, didn’t some English poet say you guys are the unacknowledged legislators of the world?”

Oh yes. Shelley’s remark at the end of his ‘A Defence of Poetry’ taken out of context again, and misrepresented. How could anyone take that term seriously? Poets don’t make rules; they’re more likely to break rules.

Even when poets had standing with the chiefs of a tribe or head of a community, they acted as advisers, never as lawgivers. Even today, with the new trend to ‘poets laureate’ any advice they are asked to give has nothing to do with the formulation of laws, only with what may make politicians look good to their constituents. The stuff of poetry, the words and ideas, are only fans and feathers misdirecting attention from the naked dance of money. For most of the time.

That’s the reason I always give, and have for a long time. What I really mean is that I can’t see my words and ideas attracting enough financial support to gain office. And furthermore, words and ideas mean nothing against cash and reputation. Personally, I can neither sell my visions nor prostitute myself.

That doesn’t mean that poets are useless. Poets are idealists, dreamers, seers. More than any others they can imagine what can and should be. The problem, as always, is to persuade the knowledgeable legislators to seek their advice and try to make it reality.

FUCK, the Word

2010-03-05T16:16:00.006-05:00

This simple little word has such an unsavoury reputation. For many centuries it has been considered unspeakable, even filthy and wicked. This reputation, however, is changing. It drips from the mindless lips of old men and bubbles from the mouths of infants. As far back as 1972 the Oxford Dictionary decided to include it, only noting that it was considered "vulgar."

What brought on this meditation on the word was not the "fuck you" scream of a preschooler, nor the "fucking awesome!" exclamations of jubilant adults watching the Winter Olympics. I can understand its use in times of stress and emotion, when vocabulary is not the easiest thing to access. But when a poet, a person who should be familiar with words and language, the so-called tools of their trade, calmly describes someone they don't like as a "fucking dog," something is wrong. Certainly the term expresses clearly the high level of contempt implied but the true descriptive powers of language have been completely circumscribed. And such activity should concern anyone working with words.

Fuck is such a beautiful and useful little word. It was probably used in the earliest times of the English language with the simple meaning "to breed, to fornicate." All Germanic languages have a cognate from a common root; most have not been as unfortunate in their treatment.

Two things took away the ease and familiar usage of the term. First was the heavy influx of French and Latin through the Norman conquest so that their terminology took precedence. Second, and related, was the feudal system of land ownership and power, setting administration apart from the common people. After all, "vulgar" does mean "of the common people."

So the word languished outside of the vocabulary of all those who mattered until recently. In the twentieth century, public personalities, be they revolutionaries or simply social agitators, began to slip the word into their speech and writing. But not just as a little verb. They found it so versatile that it could be used as any part of speech.

It is a verb, both transitive and intransitive, i. e. you can simply "fuck" or you can "fuck someone/something". It can be used as a noun, as "a fuck" or "a fucker." It can be used as an adjective, "the fucking car." It will serve as an adverb, "so fucking good." It becomes an interjection, "Oh, fuck!" And the use most distasteful to me, as an intensifier, "he's so fucking smart ..."

I know the language continues to change and that there are no rules that can be enforced. I am not against vulgarities: I claim to be vulgar, one of the common people. All I ask is that we don't forget the other words in the language just because this one is so versatile.

No, no! "May a swarm of honey bees build their hive in your rectum!"

That's what language is for.

Caribbean English

2010-02-27T21:04:00.006-05:00

Just a last reflection specific to Black History month. The Artword Artbar brought Rhoma Spencer back after her successful appearance last December. This time, rather than a musician, she brought Blakka Ellis, a well-respected Jamaican stand up comic. The whole evening, then, was dedicated to language – especially the language of the Caribbean.

Among all her other accomplishments – actor, director, producer, etc. – she is an excellent storyteller. Now based in Toronto, the anecdotes she shapes and delivers have much of the ambiance of her native Trinidad. I expected a little more patois but I think she read her audience and only used phrasings that could be comprehended in context. The evening’s consistent theme was one of comparison/contrast between the Caribbean and Canadian cultures. All of the stories seemed to be still in development; there was no repeat of her previous performance.

Rhoma, of course, had thrilled me when she appeared here last fall. The other part of the program was introduced as Blakka Ellis, a comedian from Jamaica. His part of the show dovetailed nicely with Rhoma’s presentation: the same exploration of cultural differences and often similar stories, with his aimed slightly different, to elicit the laughter. (In fact Rhoma apologized for presenting material so similar; they hadn’t discussed material beforehand.) Blakka’s language too, dipped occasionally into patois but not enough to lose his audience. His comedy had the same laid-back character as Rhoma’s stories rather than the more frantic, hard edged stuff we are used to in North America.

It was not until after the show when I was speaking with the man that I discovered that he was much more than a comic. He had performed as a musician, but also had some reputation as a poet. Part of his reason for moving here from Jamaica, he said, was that he felt he was being pigeonholed as a comic and wasn’t offered the chances to broaden himself.

So, even though the audience was diminished by reason of a snowstorm outside and the Olympics on TV inside, I had a rewarding evening among the lilt and rhythms of Caribbean English.

Communication

2010-02-25T18:07:00.006-05:00

I went to an opening at an art gallery recently. I didn’t stay long. The series of paintings on display were not to my liking – abstract expressionist, I think you might call them. On a background of very dark colors, the artist had tossed, splashed, squirted, squiggled or otherwise applied lines and blots of paint. And none of those bits in very appealing colors or in recognizable shapes.

I understand that so-called abstract expressionists want you to observe the results of their action; and because those results are so abstract, so lacking in meaning in themselves, the viewer has to supply his own meaning without assistance from the artist. Imagine holding a conversation with yourself without being aware of what you’re saying or what you might reply. No wonder the paintings remind me of Rorschach inkblots, except that no one calls them art.

What then is art if it doesn’t communicate? I believe art is a shared experience, one that affects both the artist and his audience. (I almost said the maker and the consumer!) If the link doesn’t exist, is it art? Paint on a canvas, matter in a space, words on a page.

Words on a page. I love what James Joyce did with words in Finnegan’s Wake. That doesn’t make it a novel. I’m intrigued by what Christian Bök did with Eunoia. But that doesn’t make it poetry for me.

For me poetry is communication, a sharing of experience and vision. And if doing that, for that purpose, doesn’t make me an artist …

In Performance

2010-02-21T15:28:00.005-05:00

I went out the other evening to a concert, just to treat myself to something different for my birthday. There was a duo, the Undesirables, who performed mainly narrative songs. (Imagine a novel turned into song, or was that a song based on the novel?) They were enjoyable enough but were only the intro for the main attraction of the evening, C. R. Avery accompanied by the Legal Tender String Quartet. I had never heard of either act but went because the promo mentioned Tom Waits with both of them. C.R. Avery was a truly joyful birthday surprise!

Now those who have nuzzled through this site before know how I love performance art in all its forms – music, theatre, storytelling, and especially poetry. Let me tell you, Avery was a combination of the best of them all. I will try to describe his performance, but my words may be inadequate.

First of all, he is a poet, and has won the Great Canadian Poetry Face-off. He works in the poetic tradition, with rhythm, rhyme, imagery and various devices. He’s also one-third of T. O. F. U., the Tons Of Fun University group out of Vancouver that recently gave us Shane Koyczan, the poet who performed at the Winter Olympics’ opening ceremonies. He brings a beat/hip-hop sensibility to his presentation, both physically and aurally. And then the music.

Aside from the vocals and beat-box scratching and rhythm sounds with his voice, he played marvelous blues harmonica, using each to compliment the others. He was accompanied by a man who played a fine guitar with his hands and rhythm instruments with his feet. His sound was filled out by the Legal Tender String Quartet, a classically trained foursome of cello, viola, and two violins.

And now the problem lies in how to describe it. Let’s drop some performing beat (preferably Ginsberg) in a pot with early Bob Dylan imagery from his talking blues numbers. Add some Springsteen/ Mellencamp and a heap of Bukowski. Leave room for a lot of Patti Smith and enough Tom Waits to color the mixture. Don’t forget to season with Little Walter’s harp. And press it all through the best of hip-hop.

Damn. That still doesn’t do justice. That’s a poor approximation of what I experienced.

Excuse me, I’ve got to put his CD in the player. Why don’t you try it for yourself.

Orchards, Poems, and Metaphor

2010-02-12T18:16:00.008-05:00

While on a hike not long ago, I walked by an orchard; you know, fruit trees standing in rows. It is winter. They had been pruned and just stood there in the drab dead grass, no snow to give them some semblance of promise. Almost like old soldiers on a parade ground they stood, the same size, the same shape, all neat and waiting.

It made me think of apple orchards I have experienced, especially those when I was younger and just learning about the world. Made me think, too, about poems for some reason.

When I was a schoolboy, my friends and I would often make a little extra spending money in the early fall hiring out as apple pickers on weekends. There were two orchards in the area near us which were commercial enterprises. We loved the work: all the trees were the same size and nearly the same shape; the fruit was easy to pick from the ladders. Even if we were sent to pick the windfalls off the ground, the grass beneath the trees was kept short and we didn’t have to search. I remembered this and thought about the poems we studied at school, all the words in rows of the same length and the lines neatly arranged in stanzas like those orchards.

But then there was the collection of fruit trees at home. I suppose it could be classified as an orchard; the trees were placed in a couple of rows. The trees, however, were different sizes and shapes, different ages. They didn’t even produce the same kind of apple, and one was a cherry tree. In the spaces between the rows grew potatoes and vegetables. The gaps in between the trees were filled with berry canes and bushes, or open space. Thinking back on this orchard, I began to compare it with more modern poems: still in lines, but open and the spaces filled with other bits and pieces that still seem part of the poem. The variations make it more interesting but the lack of strict regimentation makes it seem wild. You have to get to know the space and the plants to find the essence of orchard, whereas the neatly arranged rows automatically say orchard.

Both produce fruit for human consumption. Both are arranged and cared for. The difference lies in manner, how the purpose is presented. That’s all up to the gardener.

The next time you come across what looks to you as a jumble of words and broken phrases, take a careful look. It might be an orchard.

A Man of Words

2010-02-08T16:16:00.005-05:00

When is a poet more than a poet? When he's Mutabaruka.

This past Sunday, for the beginning of Black History Month, the Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association brought the renowned master of dub from Jamaica to Hamilton for a celebratory performance. I can't speak for the other people there, but he certainly exceeded my expectations.

The legendary poet delivered the poems as expected, in the manner expected: unaccompanied lines of rhyme over a perceptible reggae rhythm. Poems dealing with the socio-political and -economic subjects dub is known for. Poems of anger and rebellion, of struggle for freedom and dignity. But with Mutabaruka, much happened between and around the poems.

There was, of course, his Rasta persona - with colorful robes and bare feet and tucked-away dreadlocks. But he is a man of words, of language, and the way he used language was riveting. Between poems, no, more like literate segues into and out of the poems, came stories that made you laugh. And just when you thought the man had transformed into a stand-up comedian, he would shift into an oratorical mode, making you realize the story was not a joke just for laughs. Whether he delivered the words in lightly accented English or spoke in the heaviest patois, the stories, the exhortations, the poems, all flowed together in one seamless weave.

And the audience, black or white or in between, loved it and expressed themselves with vocal response and applause. It was only fitting that Mutabaruka was the final item on the program. After him, we had little mind or breath left to appreciate anyone or anything else.

The man is so much more than a poet. He has a wonderful touch as a storyteller, drawing his audience in with his expression. And the voice? I could hear the old time preachers and politicians ringing out.

The whole experience? Mesmerizing. I'm still astonished and a little envious. If only I could deliver my words with half that power and conviction . . .

Rhythm and Rhyme: an Example

2010-02-04T10:13:00.006-05:00

Every now and then I hammer away at the importance of rhythm and rhyme to poetry, the cadence and tone of language put to a special use. Although I don't usually post poetry, and almost never a new poem, I want to share this recent one (the last revision, an hour or so ago, escaped accompanied by a satisfied sigh) because of its use of these fundamentals. It's not a great poem, but it works for me as a poem and a prayer.

PRAYER FOR DIZZY

May in your new existence every whisper
that touches you be filled with a soft light
that carries in the rhythm of soothing murmur
the promises and mysteries of night.

May grass grow ever taller than your shoulder
and fall away from your approaching face
as you explore the clean expanse of meadow
and know that you belong in that new place.

May life again turn in familiar cycles
unfettered by the linear chains of days:
action and rest, hunger and satisfaction,
while all the words you hear are words of praise.

May simple dreams become their own fulfillment.
Rest on those cushions where St. Francis sat.
And when you sing out in the heavenly chorus,
let every angel know that you are cat.

Basic iambic pentameter. The alternating lines of each stanza (2 and 4) rhyme; the other lines end in feminine rhythm with an extra unstressed syllable. And those are the obvious devices; you can find more if you try.

The poem is not only a fitting memorial, it helps me deal with the loss.

Gender, No Sex

2010-02-03T09:39:00.009-05:00

Rather than offering a broad scope of philosophy or literature, this time I want to get down to a small but personal irritant in the English language. In its development English has overcome most of the strictures of gender and number of nouns and pronouns in the language. The most glaring anomaly is the third person singular when gender is not neuter but unknown. Even the present tense verb form changes for the third person singular.

We say that I, you (both singular and plural), and they make but he, she, or it makes. The question raises its head when we refer to a person but not his (or her) sex. See how awkward this gets?

When I was learning the English language (for it's not my mother tongue) I was blithely taught that the masculine "he (or him, his)" when used in this way presumed the inclusion of the feminine "she (or her, hers)." And that explanation of inclusiveness satisfied me for a long time. But a decade or two later the feminist social movement raised a fuss about such language, not only about the third person singular but also about non-gender specific nouns automatically being assigned the masculine singular pronoun. First they did away with suffix identifiers such as -ess, etc. There are no more actresses; they are all actors. Even God in her wisdom will take on the feminine form.

Sometimes it becomes silly and goes overboard, e. g. the use of the term "herstory" when the original "his" doesn't have any connection with gender. Or when a "manhole" becomes a "personhole." You may notice that this is never applied to already derogatory terms; you won't find anyone referred to as a "womaniac" or "personiac" no matter what the sex of the individual.

But back to the gender of person. What do you say when you don't know the gender of the person referred to? "Whatever the doctor tells you, do what he/she says." To go back to the time I was taught English, we were also told that the pronoun form "they, them, theirs" is plural and not to be used for the singular. Then the teachers threw in exceptions: you may use it in the case of singular collective nouns such as "the crowd raise their voices" or "my family always take their vacation." (Note that the verb form also becomes plural.)

I read in a neat little book that the third person plural had been used to fill this gap for a long time, by such people as Shakespeare, the authors of the King James Bible, Jane Austen and others until the latter part of the nineteenth century when there was a concerted effort to regulate the language, an effort that led to the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition and other awkwardnesses. But English with its very adaptable nature will not be regulated.

Therefore, I will end a sentence with a preposition if I need to. I intend to use "they" for the third person singular pronoun if gender is unspecified. But I'll listen to any person who thinks they can find a better way.
Sometimes you can teach this old dog a new trick.

Religion and Poetry

2010-01-31T21:13:00.005-05:00

I purchased a copy of Margaret Avison's Listening, the collection of her poems that she had almost finished when she died, and which was published posthumously. I have been aware of and admired her work from the beginning when she kindly consented to be included with a bunch of no-name poets in a small anthology of modern Canadian Christian poetry put together by Harry Houtman for Wedge that also included my work.

I admire how her faith shows through her work. It doesn't matter if she deals with spiritual matters openly or in a roundabout way, the strength of her convictions always shines through, even when wrapped in symbolic language. She is never sentimental nor dogmatic yet you are always aware of the spiritual values upon which she bases her life. She wrote as she lived, as a servant of God among her fellows.

Certain happenings, small and large, that have recently touched my life have made me stop and think about what I am and why I am. These are not easy questions to answer, and the answer seems to keep changing. No, not in basic ways but in small peripheral perceptions.

I consider myself a poet. That's how I express myself. But it is also the way I can share the image of God, to share our common divinity with my fellow man, express my reason for being why I am. Through a holy gift holiness may be shared.

But the gift also depends on the giver. My poetry, I feel, keeps developing and I will not let it become stagnant and trivial. Sometimes I fear my faith and my love for this Creation does not shine as strongly as it could. In times like that I turn not to Scripture or to dogma but to the writings of people like Avison.

That's when I have to reflect on my place in this creation. How I have to express the creative spirit that flows through me. How, with strength but not with force, I too can be a symbol in and to the world.

Books and Stuff

2010-01-27T20:59:00.007-05:00

If this blog is about poetry and "related musings" we'll have to mark this entry as dealing with the tools of making poetry. If language is the software books are the hardware, especially books that help to make sense of language. Reference books. Dictionaries. Grammars. Thesauri. Even encyclopedias.

One of the reasons for this is because I picked up for my perusal and amusement three little books, part of the New Webster's Library of Practical Information, which consisted of five volumes of hard cover pocket sized volumes. I have three, in excellent condition. A joy to hold and peruse. They look good; they feel good; they carry good information. What more can you ask of a reference book?

The other reason is because Steve Jobs and Apple announced today the introduction of the iPad, another application that could interfere with good reading and writing I suppose. Some sort of hybrid of the iPhone and a laptop computer. Supposedly, because of special applications available to it, a step up from the bulky electronic readers already on the market. And it comes with its own content supplied. So, imagine your daily paper delivered as a PFD and subscribed to like iTunes. I see it and shudder.

People in the streets are dying. Drivers and pedestrians (and I wouldn't put it past cyclists) are going about with their eyes and ears electronically engaged, no longer free to function as they were meant to - to assess and appreciate the environment around them.

Soon it will be the flip side of conservationism: how many people die to save one tree?

(Sorry, this has become a rant. I love books; they are part of what I understand myself to be. Electronic devices are toys.)

Gadgets will find their places; they always have and they still do.

I don't have to like that truth.

A Source of Inspiration

2010-01-26T20:23:00.008-05:00

Some of the light has gone from my life. A source of inspiration, direct or indirect, for my poetry has been extinguished. For his own well-being and my responsibility for it, my cat Dizzy was helped to his final sleep.

So. An old man commiserates about his pet cat. Maudlin, you say? Perhaps so. But this cat among the many I have known was special, special to me and my poetry. Here I want to talk about him not as a cat, but as poetic inspiration.

Those who know me and my work know that one of the themes running through my poetry is the interconnectedness between the human and the natural. Often I will use animals and their behaviors to reflect that of people. Don't take me wrong, it's not anthropomorphic; they just become symbolic of human strengths and weaknesses.

Many of the animals I use are those I observe. The animals I know best become the most important to my poetry. Dizzy was one, perhaps the most important one. He was part of the mindset behind "Premises for a New Animal Husbandry" that won the GRAIN prize for prose poem in 1995. ("Cats are not animals.") He was the subject of my poem "Sandburg's Fog" which won several prizes. ("My black cat has oversized feet.") He inspired several more directly.

And now he's gone. Can I say I am partially blinded? So much of my view of life was based on seeing it from outside my self, and Dizzy was much of this "outside" space. I intend to get another cat. The house is too empty; there is no one to talk to, to curse at in foreign languages. No one but myself to hear my poems spoken. I need another non-critical and honest companion like Diz.

Another cat will probably not be like Dizzy; I can't expect that. All I can hope is that I can again establish a bond that is favorable to what I write.

We write what we know and love.

Foundations of Poetry

2010-01-21T23:51:00.006-05:00

Free verse and its variations have been around long enough that every person believes he (or she) can write poetry, granting that some may be better than others. With this comes the idea that any poem written in form and meter is old fashioned and out of date. Not so. I always stress that you can not write “free verse” until you understand what verse has been freed from, and that to be good poetry it needs to retain its roots, its foundation.

Part of that foundation is rhythm. All of our speech consists of syllables that are either stressed or unstressed; it is by arranging them in a pattern pleasing to the ear that we begin to create poetry. This is the basis of the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, rhythmic but without rhyme. The measure of this rhythm is expressed as feet. There are a limited number of such feet; a poet would be well served to acquaint himself with them.

To build such pleasing patterns is the craft of poetry, the work that comes after the inspiration. Words and phrases that seemed so natural but will not fit into a pattern, a rhythm, need to be replaced by something that doesn’t completely alter the proposed meaning. English is a language rich in such words.

And free verse? Free verse is not constrained by such tradition, is it? Here comes the distinction between prose and poetry. Prose, whether in a novel or the daily newspaper, has never had to follow such patterns. Verse, whether free or formal, must or it may lapse into prose. The least measured of free verse must have a cadence that the ear recognizes as pleasurable even if the mind does not.

Then what about the claims of rhyme? Modern poetry, especially free verse, doesn’t rhyme so why should a poet concern himself with such an outdated concept?

True, rhyme at the endings of lines is not as prevalent or obvious as it was when it was used as an aid to memorizing poems. Most of us no longer memorize but read poems stored on the page. However, rhyme and all its many fascinating variations are such an integral part of poetry that it can not be denied its place.

We spoke of rhythm, of the patterns that make up a good poem. One of the most important ways to emphasize the recurrent patterns of sound has always been through repetition. When the repeated sound or combination of sounds came at the end of a measured line of poetry, we had “end rhyme.”

But to emphasize the pattern the poet can also repeat the sounds in other, related ways that are equally pleasing. Internal rhyme is like end rhyme but doesn’t occur at the ends of lines. The repetition of consonants at the beginning, the end, or even in the middle of words can give a sense of that pleasure the ear is listening for, the repetition of vowels more so. All these and many more go to enhance that basic pattern.

It is my belief that the poet who completely ignores the basics of poetry that have always worked is doomed to lapse into writing that no ear will recognize as poetry. Rhythm and rhyme is to poetry what time and tone are to music, what heart beat and breathing are to the body: essential.

A mastery of these fundamentals can lead you onto many new roads in language and poetry.

A Poem Should . . .

2010-01-16T18:06:00.007-05:00

A few days ago I was reading through an anthology, one of those where somebody has put together a number of poems (this time it was one hundred) without any theme or other formal structure. It could have been titled "my favourite poems of all time" but wasn't. Most of the poems were from England and North America (including Canada) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Nothing wrong with that, only it did seem a needless waste of energy and resources. But even in all its glorious blandness, it made me stop and ask myself, "What is it about a poem that would make me take such notice of it that I would go back to it time and time again?" Some time spent ruminating and reading, checking my personal "favourites," led to the conclusions I'm setting down here.

Without analyzing the poems into destruction, I discovered some common threads, characteristics of poems that made them appealing to me. I found I could distill them down to three concepts.

One, the poem must transmit or transfer an emotion. If a poem deals with feelings I have never felt or don't find important, it doesn't touch me, doesn't work for me. This doesn't make it a bad poem; it's just something I don't go back to. Take for instance the difference between a love poem and a poem about love; for me a love poem is a sharing, an experience "inside," while a poem about love leaves it all sitting in space between the author and reader, "outside."

Two, the poem should, in its way, be rational. It should catch my mind long enough to force me to think about its subject, what it is trying to say or convey. It should not be like a lightning bolt, all instant flash and nothing left behind, but more like fine whiskey of the brain, with a growing glow and an insistent warmth that continues long afterwards.

Three, the poem should make me wonder, should expose a little of the everyday miraculous that takes special effort to bring to my awareness. This is the "art" for which the craft is practiced; this is the holiness of creation - the ability of words to extend me beyond my ordinary self.

So that's how a poem works for me. It should make me feel; make me think; make me wonder. And not all to the same degree. A poem that makes me wonder may not seem as rational or emotion-based as others; the same goes for any of the three concepts. I'm just trying to say that those three must be present in some combination to work as poetry. To work for me.

Words and Pictures

2010-01-09T22:02:00.005-05:00

The old saying goes,"A picture is worth a thousand words." How do you compare the value of words with the value of pictures?

A short time ago I bought myself a painting. For several reasons. First, it speaks to me; it has a sense about it that connects the two of us, my self and the painting. That sense is intrinsic and has little to do with the artist. I don't know her, have never met her. Second, after loooking at it on the gallery wall several times, then taking some time to inspect it closely I felt something intimate towards it, a need to take it home and live with it. Third, the price was right, something I could afford.

And that brings me to the question currently on my mind. How do artists put a price on their work? Materials + labour + time and then what about the idea, the craft, research - whether specific for this or just general to the work? Is there a measure of self-valuation, of other-valuation?

"A picture is worth a thousand words." Could I sell a thousand words on the open market and make enough to buy the picture? As an article, a review, or should it, too, be artistic: a short story, a long poem, a series or collection of poems? Does it matter if I collect the poems in a book, sell a number of copies of the book to purchase an uncopied painting?

No, let the questions chase themselves.

Because of intangible and incalculable things about the painting, I was willing to pay the price asked. It had nothing to do (for me) with "worth." Similarly when I sell my poetry, I hope it goes to someone who has a special appreciation for the poems no matter what I put into them.

And then we cut our creations loose to exist without us, in someone else's care.

Conversation Over Time

2010-01-05T21:08:00.005-05:00

I recently held a conversation with a friend of mine, a conversation of sorts that was conducted via email. It was an unusual but nonetheless quite satisfying way to exchange ideas and comments.

Usually an exchange like that would take place face to face over a coffee or other beverage. Certainly it often takes place by way of the telephone. (I’m not familiar enough with instant messaging or texting to consider them.) I do know that it is an alternative to exchanging letters by post.

I personally prefer the email exchange, especially over the telephone conversation. It gives me, and the person on the other end of the “conversation,” time that does not seem available on the phone. On the phone a question or comment seems to demand an instant response; there is nothing more uncomfortable on the phone that silence. (“Are you there? Hello! Hello? Are you still there?”) I don’t know about others, but I like to think about what has been said to me, what and how I will respond. I don’t need an inordinate amount of time; ten or fifteen seconds will do to marshal my thoughts and words. However, for most others this seems a lifetime longer than they’re willing to give.

I have several acquaintances who carry this into their personal conversations. If you want to say anything, you have to interrupt them in the split second they use to take a breath. If you happen to refer to something they said much earlier, that point seems to have been forgotten in favor of what’s said “now.” The torrent is more important than the content. How can you exchange ideas and information without a dialogue?

So, I prefer email. I can think, order my thoughts, decide how to present them without being expected to do so instantly.

How does this connect to poetry? It has given me insight into how I write a poem. I think, order my thoughts, decide how to present them. And it all takes time. I can’t remember a poem that sprang fully formed into my consciousness; they have all needed some deliberate thought, shaping, other touches. In some ways, a poem becomes a conversation with myself.

That feels true, like a proper analogy. Inside my head I talk to myself. Some of those conversations are exciting, some are humdrum. Some drift away before they’re finished, some perhaps would have been better left unstarted.

And there is no telephone link between my heart and my head.

New Year's Greetings

2009-12-31T19:21:00.004-05:00

Wishing all of you days full of contentment and fulfilment, with enough excitement to keep life interesting!

Merry Christmas to All !

2009-12-24T06:22:00.004-05:00

However you celebrate this season, my wish for you is for an abundance of the intangible blessings: some peace, much serenity, and enough happiness to make your life a joy!

Jefferson

A Touch of Trinidad

2009-12-22T05:21:00.004-05:00

The Artword Artbar is becoming an important artistic/cultural hubs of the city. This past weekend Ron and Judith, through their connections in the Toronto scene, brought us another wonderful mix of music and language.

The main performer was Rhoma Spencer, a transplanted Trinidadian now rooted in Toronto as a writer, actor, director, etc.; the evening was billed as "an evening of Caribbean comedy and the oral traditions." Her presentation, a mixture of stand-up comedy and storytelling, was complimented by sets from the calypso musician (acoustic guitar!) Roger Gibb.

Although we non-Caribbeans had been warned that some of the terms and expressions of everyday Trinidadian speech would probably be incomprehensible to us, Rhoma often took the time to explain them and their origens. Doing so certainly drew me (with my curiosity for language and usage) deeper into her performance. Enough so that I truly felt part of the mostly Caribbean-Canadian audience.

Much of Rhona's spoken word delivery (both poetry and prose) was based in the tradition brought from WestAfrica of trading a (friendly) mixture of brags and insults as entertainment and competition, closely related to the Afro-American "dozens." The lilt and inflections of Trinidadian speech, as she pointed out, differed a great deal from that of Jamaican. Roger "Rajiman" Gibbs traced how calypso developed out of sung presentations and commentary on the news and concerns of the day, often with one singer answering a previous one and making this a musical competition rather than Rhona's spoken word; he traced the development of traditional calypso into soca, kaiso, rapso and other forms.

No matter where you look, the English language continues to change, proving that it is alive and well. I used to be a stickler for "proper" usage. Not any more. The changes in the use of language can't be stopped or tied down by rules. Now all I ask for is consistency: if you're going to say (or write) "I ain't" do not turn around and say "I'm not" in the next sentence.

The Olympic Flame as Metaphor

2009-12-20T15:09:00.004-05:00

Yesterday evening the Olympic torch, carrying the flame lit using a concave mirror at Mount Olympus in Greece and heading to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games at Vancouver, came to Hamilton as part of the relay that brought the symbolic spirit of those Games to many of the communities throughout the land. (Whew, what a mouthful of words that is!) Although it was cold and dark, I decided to go and take part in the festivities. Just to be able to say I did, you know. Like dipping your foot in the ocean when you're on the coast. And it was taking place only a few blocks from my home.

Several thousand enthusiastic supporters had gathered. There was music by several local artists. There was another creating a painting on stage. A troupe of acrobats cavorted. Drummers drummed. There was video when the stage wasn't monitored. And always the words from the sponsors and their displays and their hand outs.

The flame arrived as and when it was supposed to. Stirring speeches were made. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So what's it all about? Symbol and metaphor, the stuff of poetry. There was no poetry there last night even though the event (to my mind) cried out for something to embody that symbol, to use it in its full metaphorical context. I wondered if that had ever been done; someone must have put their mind to it but, unlike the record books, was any trace left?

Later at home I researched my question. (Alright, I googled "Olympic poetry.") I discovered some interesting facts. The early Olympic games in Greece BCE was a combination of several regional contests; one of those had included competitions of poetry and rhetoric. Imagine, barrel-chested men roaring poetry to an audience or to each other! And then I discovered a proposal to reinstate this at the London Games in 2012 with a poetry slam! Hmmmmm.

On a more realistic note, the Australian poet Mark O'Connor had written a series of poems about the Sydney Games as they were happening. What's more, he was supported with a grant by the Aussie government; the IOC, which he did approach, wanted nothing to do with an "official" poet, a sort of Sport Poet Laureate." Among the poems Mark created are two dealing with the torch. One is called "Torch Running," about the relay as it passes from place to place. The other is titled "The Olympic Torch As Metaphor."

That takes the necessity out of my hands! Only goes to show.

Erotic or Pornographic

2009-12-18T21:22:00.006-05:00

The warning here is that this entry is more personal in its opinion than usual. Don't let the XXX fool you; there are no pictures or descriptions here of people engaging in sexual activities for your 'prurient' pleasure.

I do want to take a little space to explore the porno-erotic question, not as a legal matter but as it applies to my own writing. Some of my more socially conservative friends think my poems and stories that have a more or less sexual basis are "pornographic." If writing or portraying any and all sexual activity is so then what they do in their bedrooms is not love but pornography (or prostitution, to revert to the Greek root of the term.)

Sex is a natural daily part of human life. Talking about it, writing about it, depicting it in any of the arts, is just as natural. It is the diverting of the relationship to a not inherent purpose that, in my eyes, makes pornography.

The matter arose some time ago when I answered a call for erotica with three poems and a short story. In due time they were returned to me with a note that my entries were not explicit enough. Oh, I agreed with that, but the editors had asked for erotica; I consider erotica to be suggestive rather than descriptive, a lyrical treatment rather than a prosaic one.

A good poet and a good story teller presents more than one level of meaning. My poems do that by approaching the actions and emotions from a certain point. My short stories will often use sexual activities to explain and explore character rather than be the total focus of the plot.

So, what does it all boil down to? The main fact as I see it is that both sides of the presentation of the material have to be in agreement for the work to be either erotic or pornographic. Let me explain. If I write something that I think is erotic but you read it, treat it as though it were pornographic, then it has lost its eroticism. But vice versa, if I write something with only pornography in mind and a reader finds it erotic instead, that too has lost its purpose.
Heaving a tired sigh, I will remark: one man's eroticism is another man's pornography.

At least as I see it.

Sounds of Poetry (Encore)

2009-12-14T08:59:00.007-05:00

As an extension of the previous entry, I want to deal with the delivery of poetry and the way it is presented to a live audience.
I've had the chance to hear poetry read in foreign languages, where the combinations of sounds that form words which deliver specific meanings are not familiar to me. Still, such reading/presentation often had a certain level of meaning due to the manner it was presented.
If foreign language poetry uses rhythm, rhyme, and all the common non-word-based tools that English language poetry does, it can convey the same emotional meaning. This is often, depending on the presenter's level of skill and/or involvement, enhanced by body language and movement that involves the eye.
Even if the surface meaning can not be discerned, other levels of meaning still exist. A good poem does not depend simply on what words convey. By emphasizing the visual aspects of presenting poetry, a supporting level of meaning can carry its desired impact.
I remember attending a reading by the Russian poet Yevtushenko. Although I did not understand the words he used, the mood of the poems were established; the translator's English rendition came as no surprise but only accentuated what had already been conveyed by hearing the original.

So vocal presentation, volume, the rise and fall of intonation, all become essential when hearing or speaking poetry in a language unfamiliar to the audience or a part of that audience. For myself, I enjoy poetry presented in such a way in a language with which I am not familiar. Because it uses the structures of language, it becomes, for me, even more enjoyable than sound poetry that depends on sound without the strictures of language.

Then again, why deny any audience the way to explore other depths of meaning in English language poetry? On stage, at the mike, use the voice and body. They captivate the hearer and make your work more memorable!

Sounds of Poetry

2009-12-10T07:58:00.006-05:00

Let's be clear from the start. This entry is not about 'sound poetry,' the use of sound as opposed to words as a means of poetic expression. Here we are dealing with the sounds that are language, that form the words we use, and especially of those sounds as they take part in our poetry.

Two incidents brought this to mind recently. First I had taken my cat to the veterinarian for his annual checkup and necessary booster shots. When we got home he was quite put out and avoided me. Some time later I lay down on the bed and invited him to join me. He did, and after some time ended up lying against my chest, purring. In return, I hummed deep in my throat and chest in response. We quietly lay, side by side, exchanging vibrations. It reminded me of how a mother will use a wordless hum to soothe a fussy baby.

Now for the second influence. I was reading a passage of poetry aloud to myself when I noticed that the author had used an unusual number of 'm' and 'n' sounds in one of the four line stanzas, and the soothing effect (much like the cat or a baby) that had on me. I had read the poem before, but never aloud. I was so intrigued that I read the poem again several times, this time emphasizing and lengthening those sounds. Granted, I sounded as if I suffered from an acute stammer, but it certainly heightened the effect.

I thought about how poets when they read their work aloud in public seem to ignore the importance of sound in favour of putting across the meaning of the words. Seldom is there any lingering over a single sound or emphasis on a series of sounds. And sound is so important to poetry. We use its repetitions to enhance our words: rhyme, both at the ends of lines and internally, and with its many elaborations; alliteration, the repetition of initial consonants; assonance, where the vowel sounds repeat but not the consonants; consonance, where the final consonants agree in sound but the vowels do not. And, of course, the many variations of these.

So if a poet goes to all that trouble to use it in the written word, why not note it in the spoken? It doesn't take much. It is not necessary to stop so long that the silence underscores it, or to voice it in such a way as to bring undue attention. The simple answer is to read slower. If we read slower than normal speech (and speech in modern times has tended to quicken noticeably), the hearing ear can catch patterns of sound that could easily pass ignored. Those patterns of sound are as much of the poem as the words and meaning.

So, poets at the mike. Slow down the tumble of words; sing out the sounds.

The Prose Poem

2009-12-08T10:36:00.006-05:00

A number of years ago I won a prize for a prose poem. Since then I have been asked every now and then what the distinction is between poetic prose and a prose poem, and how you can tell the difference. I remind the questioner that (in modern times) the prose poem began as a poem that rebelled against the strictures of form in much the same way as free verse did. With both of these, the main difference from conventional poetry is in the presentation.

A prose poem should first of all be a poem; it should use language to do what poems do. It can, and should, use poetic devices that are not acceptable in simple prose. An extended metaphor may be the underlying conceit. The use of meter, of repetition, of internal rhyme - all the tools employed by the poet only enhance the prose poem.

Try taking a formal (shaped) poem and present it as prose: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove." Shakespeare's sonnet remains just that, no matter the presentation.

In my own work, I often develop a poem/idea in paragraph form, throwing in everything that I want to say and often twice. Then I look for places the piece can be broken into sections or stanzas. After that, I tackle each stanza separately, honing it down to what needs to be expressed in the best way I can express it, always with a sense of the whole. Only after that do I take a look at it and consider form. Would certain restrictions enhance the poem? If I present it as free verse, will the subtleties of rhythm be lost? Different questions for different presentations. Even going back to the prose poem is considered.

All that thought goes into the formation of each poem. That's why poetry is not simply inspiration, it is a learned and practised craft.

And by the way. If your free verse poem, when the line breaks are ignored, looks and sounds like a prose paragraph, it probably is. Try to write a poem using the tools inherent in language.

Poetry on Stage

2009-12-05T09:50:00.006-05:00

Klyde Broox, as promised, returned to the Artword Artbar for his second monthly presentation of poetry on stage. He's still considering what to call it. "Poemagic" was the handle of the series he did at the Staircase; so far he is leaning toward a "soiree."

So, with some speechifying about what he expects and hopes for, he began to present some of his poems in dub style - spoken with appropriate gestures, voicing, posture and movement. Two had built in refrains which called out for audience participation, and participate the audience did: once in two parts, where he divided the room in half and had one side call out the first part of the refrain, followed by the response from the other half, and then all together on the last line. In another poem he divided the chorus into four parts to deliver one word statements (in full voice) and come together for the conclusion.

He invited me up. I presented two of my cat poems with voice and movement enhancements. (When the evening was finished, I watched one member of the audience talking about my performance to someone else; I could tell by the movements and facial expressions. A more honest compliment than common applause or even a thank you afterward.)

After a few more of his own poems, Klyde introduced a man he called "a certified Dub poet, certified by Durm-I" whose name I didn't catch but who had an intriguing story. At Hamilton's first Dub Festival (organized by Klyde) he was moved to explore performance poetry. He wrote one that he performed at a slam in Toronto, was seen by someone who wanted to use it for her show in Poland and perform it there. Her presentation was so well appreciated that he was invited to Poland and did a series of guest performances. His work and intensity held the room at the Artbar spellbound.

Klyde then finished with a few more, and by special request we all joined in on the old favourite, "Yank the Chain."

Although the audience wasn't as great in number this night, it was more than equal in spirit. It may take some time to become as much a part of the community as Poemagic was but it sure feels like it's on its way.

Poet / Storyteller

2009-11-29T22:34:00.009-05:00

The other evening I went out to hear Charlie Chiarelli perform. He's an actor, musician, and storyteller who made his name telling stories about his immigrant Sicilian boyhood here in Hamilton. He's no longer working the Canadian-Sicilian bit but was trying out a new direction. I enjoyed it; it suits him.

He is taking stories (plots) from Boccacio's Decameron and using them to tell today's stories. In itself, this is nothing new; Shakespeare too borrowed freely from Boccacio. The surprising thing is that the stories, transposed into today's language and imagery, come across very well. It may be true that, as I've been told, there are only a small number of possible basic plots: the rest is details and embellishments. In Charlie's hands (and mind, and mouth) the embellishments made the stories.

The twist came when our host introduced him as "the poet of the North End" and at first I went "Humphf, a poet? Not likely." But I began thinking. The main function of the bard, the skal, the scop, the poet in the beginning was to remember and tell the stories of the tribe. The storyteller continues that tradition perhaps even more so than the poet.

Now that poetry has given in to self-indulgent introspections and explorations of emotion and experience, who is left to tell us about things, and other people, and far away places? Even the singer/balladeer has become self-involved. The popular media is so skewed that much of it is irrational flim-flam, an entertainment for the masses. So who will tell the story about Jake down the street or what happened to Betty last week? The mantle seems to have been passed to the storyteller, the one who can keep it straight and simple the way the poets and the singers used to.

It's probably a good thing that many of our immigrants come from places and cultures that still honour the storyteller. Without such "new" blood our records of the simple parts of our lives could become as distorted as soap operas. Who will record the true story of Colvin's Brave Stand? Not one song will be recorded, not one poem published. But sometime down the road a storyteller will say, "Once there was ... "

Poets, in a time of unrest and injustice we need to do more than bemoan the times. We need to lead by example; we need to keep and tell the stories of ordinary people.

Collaboration Among the Arts

2009-11-27T18:19:00.004-05:00

I recently finished writing a poem for an acquaintance of mine who wants to use it as part of a framework for an interdisciplinary project for which she is approaching a television network for funding. You may know how lukewarm I am about writing for a special occasion or purpose, but when she outlined the project for me I was intrigued. Using my poem as narration, spoken by a professional voice (i. e. actor), as well as video of a free-form dancer (perhaps in situ) she would explore in film the waterfalls of Hamilton.

I like the idea; I can see it work. I am honoured that she chose me to write the words as an artistic narration rather than a descriptive or historical line of approach. I have been involved with a group that is heralding Hamilton as the "City of Waterfalls" to replace the old "Steel City" image and have visited and observed the wonder of many of the more than one hundred places where water falls over the edge of the Niagara escarpment.

The initial problem was one of approach; how was I to portray the waterfalls? There were several false starts that bogged me down for a time. I finally came up with one that satisfied me, and I hope it works for my friend and her presentation.

I used as theme the ancient concept that all the world consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. I briefly explore the attributes of each element and show how they interconnect, and how a waterfall is the majestic manifestation of the elements coming together while remaining separate.

I've done this type of thing before. I had in mind a series of poems based in native symbology. With a musician/composer and a dancer/choreographer onside, we worked out a program of poetry, music and dance. We submitted it to the Canada Council for the Arts and applied for funding as an Interdisciplinary Project. The project was denied, and instead of fine-tuning it and elaborating on it as we might have, we abandoned it and went our separate ways. In some ways, I have no great expectations; been there, done that. But this is interdisciplinary and not mine. I hope she gathers her material in the way it needs to be presented, that it all comes together and gains for her the funding she needs.

Me, I'm content to be a small part of a common effort.

Literary Genres

2009-11-24T22:53:00.004-05:00

I don't know if it's because of envy or what, but sometimes I find myself getting irritated by writers who, having achieved a successful reputation in one genre of literature suddenly switch to another. And find even greater acclaim there!

I'm thinking of people like Atwood who had a fine reputation as a poet before she began publishing novels. Ondaatje went the same route. Nowadays the poems that they publish are few and far between. They concentrate on the novel; that's where the glory and the money are. As representative of those who continue to struggle in their original genre, I sometimes feel that we have been discarded. Poets and their work are not worth much to a modern society. It must be fed on massive tomes of prose.

It's not that I write only poetry. I've written some fiction, some non-fiction, essays (some of them, like these blog entries, short and pithy.) My problem, if "problem" it is, lies in the fact that I believe in poetry. Any other writing is, for me, an adjunct to my single purpose. I ride the horse I bought and am not looking to trade for one more handsome or stronger.

Once I wrote most of a novel. It had reached just over a hundred pages, when I lost it. I considered beginning it over again but figured that if the forces that control the universe saw fit not to let me bring that work forth, it could probably exist without it. No one will ever know.

I continue to compose, write, publish, and share poetry because I must. It defines who and what I am: a poet, not a novelist or essayist; a writer, not a singer or musician; an image maker, not an actor or dramatist. I can live with that, and do so gladly.

"Cat" Poems

2009-11-22T20:23:00.005-05:00

At a reading in Toronto the other evening, an acquaintance brought up what he referred to as my wonderful "cat" poem. I had difficulty remembering which poem he meant. Over the years I have written a number of poems about or featuring a cat. He was referring to one I had read to a small gathering in Gage Park several years before. I didn't have that one with me so I read a more recent one. The incident made me pause and consider.

Since I began to go out with my wife, long before we were married, we have always shared our home with one or more long-lived cats. One lived for nineteen years, one for over seventeen, and the current cat is going on sixteen and still quite healthy. So a cat, in one way or another, has always been there. And, since we write about what we know, about what touches us, it is no wonder that I have produced some "cat" poems.

I don't write little lyrical passages praising cats. Cats (for me) deserve much more. I tend to use one as a metaphor, sometimes for myself, my inner self, or for all humanity in its relationship to the natural world. I often use "catness" as a mirror to being human. Not in a fable-like way, nor do I endow a cat with human characteristics. Usually it's the other way around: I point out the "catness" inherent in people.

Cat poems have been good to me. They have won me prizes (cash and prestige) and brought me much satisfaction. Perhaps I'll leave you with one of my earlier ones.

SO LIKE A CAT

Your cat has particular manners, ways
developed for her own purposes. A voice
that leaps from articulate whisper to
bone-scraping howl in less than a second.
Hiding places that will change just as fast
as you can discover them. She has need
for constant warmth; on cold days she cocoons
among blankets, in the sun she stretches
out full length on her back.
----------------------And you have wiles
in common with your cat. Your body too
stretches to capture my warmth, slips away
from cool indifference. The place you hide
changes with the moon's phases. Tentative,
my hand reaches out for your approval.

2009 Acorn-Plantos

2009-11-21T11:13:00.006-05:00

The 2009 recipient of the Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry was announced recently. He is Brian Bartlett of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches literature and creative writing at St. Mary's University.

On reading his book, The Watchmaker's Table, I agree fully with the judges' decision. For those who have been following this blog, or who have explored it thoroughly, that may come as a slight surprise. When he read here for the Hamilton Poetry Centre last year, I ended up with some criticism here. Please remember that I was not turned off by his poetry as such; I only objected to the "haiku series" that he read.

That not only irritated me - it also blocked my mind from appreciating the nature of the rest of his poetry. It is accessible and lyrical, and a good follow-up to Acorn, Purdy, Nowlan, and Plantos. It intrigued me and made me think, consider the world we live in. And that's what poetry should do.

Oh yes. I read those "haiku series" that so upset me. Some of them aren't as bad as I had made them out to be. It's just that they don't meet my personal standards for haiku. (Even I don't meet them all the time!)

So, congratulations to Brian Bartlett, a fine poet. for The Watchmaker's Table, a fine book.

Gender and Poetry

2009-11-17T20:28:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, it seems, the old dichotomy that separates women from men is still strong even though it has been some time since we classified writers by gender. We've come a long way from the times that female authors felt they had to write and publish under masculine names to be read and taken seriously. We've finally dropped the designation "poetess" from our lexicon the same way "actress" has disappeared. And on the surface, that's a good thing.

But any real differences have not been obliterated. A writer writes with his whole being, and that includes gender as well as many other characteristics that formed the person. If the writer is true to him/her self (see how awkward this is already?) those traits, including gender, will show. I, as a male, find it impossible to write honestly with a female point of view. I can try to imagine, but only imagine.

For some strange reason, poetry written by women appeals to me more often than that written by men. I don't know why. Perhaps I am more in tune with a feminine insight into daily existence than a masculine outlook. It does not seem to affect any other aspect of my being. This too has become a part of how I express myself.

I have just finished reading two books, one fiction and one non-fiction, about strong women and found myself with strong feelings of empathy. That's what set off this musing. And that brought to mind an incident that happened a long time ago: I was giving a reading to a (mainly Afro-Canadian audience and included, as contrast to my own, several by the American poet Gwendolyn Brooks. I was somewhat taken aback when several of the ladies took me to task. Who was I to try to interpret the work of Ms. Brooks? At the time I thought that it was because she was black, but now again I think it may also have been because she was female, and female sentiment and expression were not expected from a male.

Ah, well. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. The divide has not crumbled completely; in some places it is stronger than ever. With very few exceptions, women write romance and men write porn.

Poetry, War, Remembrance

2009-11-12T06:57:00.006-05:00

Since the end of the first World War, November 11 has become established in many countries as the day to memorialize and remember the sacrifice of armed services personnel in defence of their country or common ideals of peace and freedom. Many of the services held on this day will include poetry of some sort, especially but not exclusively John McCrea's "In Flanders Fields." I agree with the use of poetry to focus collective emotion in public ceremonies, but poets have a responsibility to do more than tell about the horrors and sacrifices of wars past and present.

There is a need in our society to try to change that mindset that conflict can solve problems. As long as we have existed, conflict has been part of our life. For poets, the first great and lasting poems were the heroic epics that came out of wars and struggles, poems that created heroes and memorialized war. Only seldom was the ugliness and destruction held up to view. If there were poets writing or speaking against war, they have not been remembered.

Especially today poets have an obligation to make their voices part of the social fabric. They can not stand aside and claim that war, violence, crime, and other "ugly" topics should not be considered as subjects for poetry, for poetic expression. War especially is such a transforming and spiritually crippling matter that to ignore it is dishonest. And a poet's duty first of all is to express truth honestly.

The problem remains that war and struggle have been pigeonholed; we do not let it become part of our daily life until the reality is all around us and can not be ignored. Poets worth the name must step out of a comfortable existence and become the voices of those who can not or are not allowed to speak.

The existence of organizations like Poets Against the War, Poets For Peace, and others are only a small means to spread the words and ideas. We need poets to write, to speak, to shout from the rooftops and in the halls of legislatures. Tucking words into books and pulling them out at memorial services is not enough. Even if we can stop no conflict ours is the duty to speak out.

We must do more than remember.

Mixed Arts

2009-11-08T22:04:00.004-05:00

Friday I went to watch my friend Klyde Broox perform at the Artword Artbar. Klyde is an outstanding poet and performer in the Dub tradition. His performance went well. He had provided for musical breaks, a marimba player who accompanied him for several numbers,improvising a rhythm behind him. Klyde also saw fit to introduce a couple of up-and-coming young spoken word artists.

The main point of interest for me, however, was his expressed desire to run a word/performance evening here once a month. He had done this before at the Staircase a few years ago. As he explains, it is an attempt to get the different cultures to work together on the same stage, in the same venue. He envisions black dub poets and white spoken word artists, mixed with musicians and dancers, performers together in a real potpourri. I performed regularly with him at the Staircase and would gladly do so again.

The Artword Artbar, with its already eclectic establishment of entertainments including film, theatre and dance could be the right venue at the right time. The vibes seem positive.

So, let the action begin! Let the colours blend! Let the multitude of cultures come together and present a heady brew!

The "I" of Poetry

2009-11-04T07:58:00.007-05:00

Anyone reading or writing poetry should keep in mind that when using the first person singular pronoun "I" the writer is not necessarily speaking for himself or about himself.
Granted, so much of poetry is about personal expression. Poets describing their feelings and reactions to the world around them in imagery and language will most naturally use that pronoun. Sometimes, however, it may begin to interfere; egotistically the poet can become so self centered that his reader/listener begins to feel left out. However impressive the use of language and the skillful use of poetic devices, the poetry loses its audience and thereby becomes redundant, another "blowing in the wind."

A skillful poet will often use a mask. Rather than lay his own persona open before the world, he will create an "other," someone or something he can hold at arm's length. Whether such a character is named or remains nameless doesn't matter. What does matter is the poet's stance: this needs to be said but don't pin it to me as a person. Another way he may do this is by using the second person, "you." Then it becomes necessary for the reader/hearer to decide if he is referencing "me" or "not me." Either way, the poem implies that the self of the poet is not the main thrust of the poem.

And then there is the impersonal "I" where the poet puts himself in the place of a group of voices that includes his own. He may use the imperial plural "we" but more often remains with the first person singular. We are asked to see him as representative, the voice of the voiceless expressing truths held in common. This is the ancient and honoured function of the poet. He is everyone of us, speaking for the tribe, the voice of his people.

A great responsibility, but a great honour.

Action / Reaction

2009-10-31T09:21:00.004-04:00

I did something on the spur of the moment last night that I hadn't done in a long time: I attended a performance of classical music (or should that be 'formal' since contemporary music was included.) I soon remembered why I had stopped attending many, many years ago. It's not that I don't enjoy music in any form, it's the audience at these events.

The performance of chamber music by the quartet Made in Canada was exciting; the venue and its acoustics were excellent. The ladies used their energies, their instruments, their skills to offer a marvellous experience that was met by an unmoving, dead wall.

Personally, the music and its performance did what it should: it involved me, made me want to dance and sing, anything to express the emotions it aroused. Even in the subdued surroundings I couldn't help shaking and bobbing my head, tapping my fingers and toes. When a nearly inaudible "bom, bom, badda bom" escaping from my mouth brought forth nasty looks and one hiss from my neighbours, I screwed the lid on tight and surreptitiously watched the audience.

They sat there. And that's it. Not a whisper or rustle, not a movement of any body part that might hint at pleasure. All that beauty of sound and movement on stage, all that energy pouring forth, and no visible response. Fine, the applause at the end of each piece was warm but still formal: no shouts, no punching the air (as I wanted to do.) The dress may be much more informal nowadays but the attitude still sucks. I don't intend to subscribe to any formal music series in this lifetime.

But this blog is about poetry so what has that to do with this. Poetry, when read to an audience, is a performance. It shouldn't hesitate to elicit an immediate reaction. Dub poets know this; rappers and hip-hop artists demand such involvement. Too many of our poetry readings, even of popular or people's poetry, are becoming staid and solemn. We need to put the joy, the despair, the laughter back into it.

Tonight at a Halloween event I intend to do a 'dramatic reading.' I'm going to ask the audience to respond as they see fit: shout, laugh, scream, throw food, whatever they are moved to do. I'll do my best to handle their reaction!

Young Writers

2009-10-25T09:34:00.003-04:00

This past Friday evening the annual "Power of the Pen" Awards for young writers were held again; again, I had had the honour of judging the poetry submitted by seventeen year olds. Much of the event was the same, but let me dwell on a few things that were different.

Previously I mentioned that I had greater difficulty choosing the top two (and their order) than in years before. Speaking to other judges, I found that I was not alone. Therefore, I think it fair to say that the overall quality of writing entered was better than before. I didn't feel so awkward about suddenly giving out honourable mentions.

The overall awards given out by the Hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art, which seem usually to go to older and more mature writers went to relatively young writers this year. The short fiction award went to a fifteen year old; the poetry award went to a thirteen year old. After reading the award winning entries, I concurred with the judges. Just as an aside, the second place overall for poetry was the one I had selected for second prize in my age category.

That brings me to the one disheartening part I feel I must mention. When I opened the book of winning stories and poems, I didn't recognize at first the poem I had selected as first in its category. Why did I choose this one over the #2 which seemed so much more direct and poetic? Then, nosing around in the presentation envelope I saw a copy of the original work. Part of it (a part just as important as the rhythm and the images used) was the placement of words and phrases on the page. In the publication all that was lost, all the intricate possible relations between words and images, simply by centering each line. I hope the prize satisfied the author; the layout of its publication certainly dismayed me.

Anyway, enough vexation to make me want to stop judging if I can't control the quality of final publication. But then, would someone else have seen the significance of the layout, and rewarded it? That's enough to keep me in the game. I would have liked to congratulate the young poet in person, but that didn't happen. And so it goes.

The Long Poem

2009-10-22T16:11:00.004-04:00

As happens as often as not, this musing came out of an adventure with used books. No matter where I am, I will usually make time to browse through any books around, be they new or used. This time I was snuffling about in the various materials available at a local used book store. The treasure I found for myself was a copy, in good condition, of a poem by Joy Kogawa as illustrated by Lilian Broca called A Song of Lilith.
I knew and admired Kogawa's poetry long before she became an award-winning novelist, but I had not read or even seen this work. It seems that Broca had produced a series of works dealing with the mythical "first wife" of Adam; friends who are classical musicians suggested she find a composer, a writer, and a number of actors and musicians to present a concert/performance around the pieces. Kogawa was the writer brought in. This is part of the multi-disciplinary result.

What attracted me was the label poem, the singular, on a full size book. The work consists of seven sections, with more subsections. Then I looked at my own work and again wondered at the difference between a collection and a long poem.

Remember, the earliest of our poems are long ones, the epic poetry of Greece and Rome and the great works in English like Beowulf and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The tradition continued through Milton to Whitman and Hart Crane. Even early Canadian poetry has its examples.

So what constitutes a long poem, as compared to a collection of poems? First of course is its length - but not simply its length. The length should be so integral the the poem could not be and say what it does in any other form. Second is the unity of the material. Like Kogawa's poem, all segments (if the poem is divided into such) should flow from and into a common idea.

This brought me to consider my own works. I have a long poem, Garden Concert, which falls easily into these parameters: it is self-contained, all segments are variations on one theme. But I also have a small book consisting of thirteen pieces which I consider a "sequence" rather than a long poem. Even though it is partially narrative and deals with the same specific idea, there is a plurality of voices and time is fragmented enough that I'm not comfortable considering it as a whole although something like Eliot's The Waste Land is. And then again I have a long, book-length collection of short poems which I sometimes tend to see as one extended poem. Ezra Pound spoke about the long poem as an "expression of the tribe" in regards to his Cantos, and my We Measure Our Time In Coffee Cups would fit as a voice of the "Tim Hortons" tribe.

So it's good to see the long poem holding its own. Its problem seems to be finding a place for publication. Perhaps a multi-media approach, as illustrated by, as performed by, or again as narration for film ... (something I hope to be working toward soon.)

Sound Poetry

2009-10-20T10:43:00.005-04:00

There is a form of poetry that happens in performance and is separate from "spoken word," a poetry that basically stresses sound as sound and not as words delivering meaning, etc. Even though I don't write (formulate?) material to be presented in such a manner, I do emphasize the role of sound in poetry and its presentation. The use of repetitive sounds - rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance - have always been a staple in poetry. In "sound poetry" the main emphasis is on vocal sound and how it works, much like music in a way.
I had the good fortune recently to share a stage with bill bissett, Canada's foremost practitioner of the style and probably one of the best in the world. Often his work consists of familiar vocal sounds and the changes that can be worked through and from them.

Sometimes, especially when used with ambient background music or an accompanying voice, the performance begins to feel like a jazz concert with structured improvisations. At other times, especially when he uses rattles or other small percussion instruments, it has the feeling of a tribal chant. And sometimes he makes you wonder if he isn't using a structured language, but one about which you have no knowledge, have never heard or experienced before.

To see the work printed on a page and deal with it like that is more than a challenge. Only with his voice still in your head do the sounds represented by words, scraps of words, approximations of sounds, etc. begin to make any kind of sense.

With bissett, with all sound poetry, the meaning is that mixture of dream and emotion and instinct that resonates with the listener. There is nothing grander than when, in this manner, the poet and audience become one.

Literate Rock

2009-10-12T08:30:00.005-04:00

Rock and roll can be a strange beast. A lot of the music will set your toes tapping, involve you in a peripheral way. Some will take you over so physically that you can't help but move your body, to make you dance. And there is a small segment that urges you to listen, to hear the words as well as the music, to sense the combination that makes it more than tune and lyrics.

I was at a concert the other night celebrating the release of a new recording by Tiny Bill Cody and the Liquormen. One of the reasons I have always liked Tiny Bill's music is because he is a writer as well as a musician, an artist expressing himself in several disciplines. The performance and the new disc carry on with his established reputation.

I like what he does to me, moves me physically and mentally. I can't turn off either mode of perception. For me, most classical music doesn't need the body; much of modern music doesn't engage the mind. Granted, there are singer/songwriter/poets that engage all the modalities; Cohen and Dylan stand out for me. A good blues number will engage my soul and leave mind and body behind. But a driving beat and the crash and flash of new images in the language carry for me a special magic. And much of it depends on the words, the poetry, the way the Taupin/John combination did for me years ago.

Yes, you can set literature to music. The music need not be etherial, contemplative, nor primally rhythmic. The nature of art is that it adapts to what it needs and the result is more and greater art.

Breaking Out

2009-10-11T08:48:00.006-04:00

I want to borrow a conceit from an old Rodney Dangerfield joke. He used to proclaim that he "went to the fights and a hockey game broke out." Well, I'm a man of words and letters, so I was surprised the other evening when I went to an opening at an art gallery and a poetry reading broke out.

Now there's nothing new about holding poetry readings in art galleries. It's a good use of dormant space, a means of drawing in customers who might usually not enter the place. Advertise a poetry reading and you attract people not usually drawn in by the visual.

The venue is new. The name perhaps explains its purpose. The Artword Artbar is trying for all it says: a bar/hangout for artists with gallery space and performance space for musicians and writers to showcase; a video component is in development, theatrical pieces are more than welcome.

That's why my visit the other evening was such a joy. The main draw was the opening of a show at the gallery in conjunction with a number of other gallery openings. (The famous 'James North Art Crawl.') Some galleries provide music; here a blues band was playing. When the band took a break, the other activities began. First came an interpretive dancer with violin accompaniment and a video backing. Then the artist whose work was on display and who is also a poet, read from his work. An attempt was made to show an eleven minute "video poem" by the artist/poet but that ran into technical difficulties. And then the band was ready to return.

So, in one evening a conglomerate of the arts. Paintings/sculpture in the gallery. On stage, music and dance, together and separate. An attempt to project videography. And in the midst of it all, poetry - poetry where it belongs, in there with and equal to all the other arts.

I wish the Artword Artbar well. We need more multi-use spaces in the arts/culture community.

(P.S. I'm reading there on Sun. October 18 as part of the launch of an anthology in memory of Al Purdy, And Left A Place To Stand On. Come down and inspect the venue, talk to the owners and the writers, buy a book or two.)

A People's Poet

2009-10-04T20:22:00.006-04:00

"The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright."

Just a short stanza from "The Land God Forgot" by Robert W. Service, still one of Canada's best known and most quoted poets.

Service was a Brit who came to Canada at age twenty-one looking for adventure. He worked at odd jobs in the West for some time; he found it not as romantic as expected so he returned to his first line of work as a bank clerk. The bank posted him to Whitehorse, Yukon several years after the gold rush where he became enamored of the people and their tales. He took snippets from stories and real experiences, formed them into verse that lent itself to being recited.

It's this love of the people and their lives, the ability to reflect their joys and concerns that made him both famous and rich. His poems put on no airs; they ring true to the folks he is writing about, and those he is writing for. He had no need for obscure or classical references in what he wrote. Like Kipling, his mastery of hearing and speaking the rhythms of language are the foundation of his poetry.

That expressiveness using the rhythms of words and lines, that music that is the heart of recitation is a great part of what keeps his poetry before a continuing audience. To memorize and recite works like "Thee Shooting of Dan McGrew," "The Cremation of Sam McGee," or even "The Bread-Knife Ballad." ("Please, Mother, don't stab Father with the bread-knife. / Remember 'twas a gift when you were wed.")

From pole to pole, anywhere the English language is used, you can find someone reciting Service. This entry comes as the indirect result of a friend of mine giving to me a copy of Service's complete poems that was a gift to his Aunt Mary in 1951.

And you? Pick him up and enjoy. You'll find a way.