Fathom

Tim Bowling grew up in a fisher family along the tidewater flats of the Fraser River in Vancouver and although he has since moved across the continental divide that is the Rocky Mountains to reside in Edmonton he finds it impossible to get the salt water and fish scales out of his blood. That an authour writes what he knows is a truism that indeed holds with Bowling’s writing. One can picture that little boy struggling to keep a bike too big for him balanced as he peddles to collect papers from a bullying agent among the older boys in The Paperboy’s Winter. He writes about the salmon fishery and the death of his father in previous books of poetry and prose. In Fathom he again returns to his fisherman roots.

One gains the impression that although fishing was Bowling’s birth rite; he did not inherit a particular knack for the trade and although he does not say so in so many words; one also gets the feeling that even if he had been good at it the fishery no longer supports the number of boats it once did. My impression that it takes an unhappy childhood and a mal-adjusted adult to make a good writer and a poet in particular still holds. Lest anyone think I’m insulting the authour in writing this I hasten to add that after nearly sixty years of living I have no idea what a normal childhood or adulthood would be; what writer’s bring to living is a heightened self-awareness and the ability to articulate those emotions in words.

Writing these notes brings to the fore in my mind what it is about Bowling’s writing that appeals to me as a reader. My father’s cousins were fishermen as well; though of the inshore variety on Canada’s East coast. My cousin Carl suffered the ignominy of becoming sea sick as soon as he lost sight of land—every time; he never gained his “sea legs.” My mother’s cousin Iris lost her father when his ship returned to Lunenburg Harbour with its flag at half mast as its captain was lost at sea. My own family lived 20 miles inland and try as I might I’ll never get that red farmer’s soil out from under my fingernails. I have lived to see Cod sell for over $20.00 a pound but when one learns what the men who risk their lives to catch it get for a pound of fish one receives a rude awakening to the fact that the money is not in the harvest but rather in the marketing of the fruits of the ocean. The men who catch it barely earn enough to pay for their marine diesel—few indeed can put even a small dent in the capital cost of financing the half-million dollar capital cost that is their boat. My cousins owned a boat but not a car. Farming suffers a similar fate these days. Why would anyone with half a million dollars to invest tie it up in land for the meager and risky returns that farming provide? Even the land I grew up on is now worth over $1000 an acre. Farming and fishing are in one’s blood and are a way of life—few that ply either trade get rich doing so.

Selected Poems-Derek Walcott

It has been said that you can never go home. When you grow up black on a small Caribbean Island and have to leave it for another to further your education; then leave that island as well to live in predominantly white America you suffer both dislocation and discrimination. The very process of education creates a gulf between the intellectual and people back home with whom you grew up. The price you pay is being left with a feeling of dislocation that leaves one uncomfortable in both worlds. To the people back home you are an object of admiration but they’ll never understand you; to the people in your new-found world you’ll always be that upstart who will never quite fit in. These are the themes that inform the poetry of Derek Walcott. I should mention that the authour also provided the art work on the cover.

No matter where a writer goes he must draw upon what he knows and the most deeply engrained memories are those created during a writer’s formative years. Therefore Walcott writes about his home in the islands but infuses his poems with literary illusions he has learned since leaving. One of the banes of a writer’s life are the book tours publishers insist on mounting to promote their products and Walcott writes candidly about the experience. It is an irony that to make a living writers must engage in a process that is counter-productive to their work. Racial prejudice is an experience no person of colour can ignore and for Walcott it is augmented by the added stigma of having risen about his station in life as apprehended by Black America. In his later poems Walcott confronts the universal theme of his mortality and exhibits resignation with his own death.

BUTTER DOWN THE WELL

“Reflections of a Canadian Childhood”

[This edition is illustrated by Len Gibbs.]

Robert Collins grew up in Shamrock, Saskatchewan in the Dirty Thirties, served in WW#2, and went on to become a much-published Journalist. His WW#1 vet father took on a rather non-productive acreage despite lingering war disabilities, married the local school marm, and attempted unsuccessfully to make a living as a wheat farmer in spite of his lack of agricultural skills.

This was an era when anything you needed could be ordered by mail from the T. Eaton Catalogue including a kit for building a home. Nobody had any money so even the school marm was paid in kind, though she was provided with a dwelling attached the school—the teacherage. This is territory covered by Max Braithwaite in Why Shoot the Teacher? and W. O. Mitchell in books such as Jake and the Kid but neither tell it quite so candidly in the first person as Collins does here.

Living as we do in an era where only 15% of Canadians reside in rural areas most cannot understand what it meant to live 10 miles from your nearest neighbour, use a 20-party telephone line, and go shopping once or twice a month—less in winter. Liking and getting along with your neighbours was not optional; in an emergency they were the only people you had to depend on. If something broke down you repaired it, if someone got sick or injured they were patched up, animals either lived or died—who could afford a vet?

Visitors of any kind were a major event that served to break the monotony of a world before TV or even radio. Entertainment was wherever you could find it and generally self-invented. Needs were simple and gifts often created by the giver. Flour and sugar came in hundred-pound patterned bags which became pillow cases, clothing, curtains. Hand-me-downs were the rule and clothing was worn until it could no longer be patched at which point fabric that was still viable got used to hook rugs or make quilts.

In spite of the fact that I was born a quarter-century later and half a continent away I too began school in a one-roomer, walked to church and school, tilled the earth, and counted a visit to grampa’s a major treat. It would seem the experience of growing up on a mixed subsistence farm translates worldwide.

The Last Light of the Sun

Guy Gabriel Kay writes CBC Radio plays but his books are pure fantasy with the occasional poetry chapbook thrown in. The arrival of a new volume is always cause for rejoicing particularly since this writer is Canadian through and through with his roots in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Kay is one of those rare creatures these days, a fantasy writer who owes few debts to Tolkien. At the moment I’m actually behind by one book in my reading.

Kay’s Medieval Worlds are inhabited by fighting men, Norselike longboats, witches, seers, fairies, castles, and horsemen. His characters are well developed revealing their inner thoughts, their motivations and their weaknesses. These men and woman are a product of the harsh environments they inhabit. Some may be overly ambitious and cruel but few could be described as truly evil. Also though some exhibit special abilities the plots are driven by action and character, not magic.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Not being retired or unemployed I’ve read only 100 of the 600+ pages of this book and the last seven. May I confess that when I’m wrong, I’m wrong?

BEWARE OF PLOT SPOILER COMING UP

I was fully expecting that Joanne Rowling would kill off her hero in this her final opus in this series. This book is not literature for young children. Or rather I would hope that young children would find the subject matter disturbing. I still believe in the possibility of the innocence of youth or I’d like to. This being my first copy of Harry Potter I’ve read in hard cover binding I’m not accustomed to the sprained wrist syndrome.

I don’t expect posterity to declare Harry Potter great literature; in fact I think literary historians are going to asking, “What was all the fuss about?” Nevertheless I will admit to being attracted as a moth to a candle. It would seem that little has changed in English Grammar Schools since the time of Dickens and Sir Walter Scott. This book breaks the mould of the first three though as usual it begins with Harry at home at Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging in Surrey; moves to the Burrow; and progresses from there. This time, however the triumvirate do not move immediately to Hogwarts.

Wesley McNair.doc

Wesley McNair is an American Poet who fits the mould of a poet who supports his avocation by earning a living as an academic. Unlike so many others he has retained his contact with the agrarian roots that spawned him. The Town of No & My Brother Running is set in his native Maine and his subject matter reflects that bucolic background. This is not to say that his poems lack wit or sophistication; but that they are evocative of country living. In large part I appreciate these poems because they evoke my own childhood memories of growing up in rural Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

Selected Poems: Mona Van Duyn

Mona Van Duyn was poet laureate of the United States for 1992-3. Although there are poems in this large collection that I liked including those that persuaded me to purchase this book in the first place; too many are devoted to her unhappy childhood and themes of sickness and death. Is it just coincidence that so many poets had unhappy childhoods or is an unhappy childhood necessary for forging a good poet? Similarly, are writers drawn to the profession because they are too unhealthy for more robust pursuits or does ill-health lead to the kind of introspection that makes a good writer?

Having now read over a hundred modern poets I am lead to the observation that none make a living from it and too many seem to inhabit the halls of academia. This leads me to wonder if creative writing courses are actually conducive to good writing. This observation comes from the same perverse thinking that maintains that too many lawyers are politicians. Another aphorism holds that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Could it be that the average man in the street finds the learned and convoluted allusions in so much modern poetry too arcane to interest him? Would poetry be more accessible if it didn’t try so hard to impress us with its erudition and worked harder at telling stories or evoking daily life?

Full Metal Jacket Diary

Calling Matthew Modine's account of his 18 month experience making the Movie under the direction of Stanley Kubrick a hard cover book is an understatement. My copy of the limited edition (13,613 of 20000) run has an metal cover complete with hinges and binding of undetermined mineral content. Published nearly 20 years after the movie was made and five years after Kubrick's death it would appear to be a form of catharsis for the writer exorcising some of his lasting demons. Stanley Kubrick's oeuvre are not easily quantified spanning the likes of Sci Fi--2001: A Space Odyssey; Historical Fiction--Spartacus; Horror--The Shining; and Romance. His work does not lend itself to pigeon holes giving an entirely new definition to the word quirky. When it came to making a movie about the war in Viet Nam his take is raw, brutally realistic, and ruthless making the need for commentary superfluous. For the grunts who served in his make believe army the experience was as brutal as the war itself taking an equally remorseless human toll.

Some interesting facts get revealed in Modine's telling of the story. R. Lee Emery got the part because he was a Drill Instructor, he wasn't acting. Where most directors shoot 10 feet of film for every one they use Kubrick's ration is 100:1; easy to say that but another thing if you're the one doing take after take after take after take ad infinitum.... Matthew makes being on a Kubrick set sound like a living hell--tedious and mind numbing. This is not a book one would take to the beach. I suppose now I have to watch this movie again in light of my new insights.

The Taste of Country Cooking

The average cook pays $ 30.00 for a cookbook and is lucky to find 3, maybe 5 recipes in it she/he will add to her permanent collection of favourites. The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis is another kind of book. Although I may not ever use her recipes for corn bread or muffins I will remember in future that the secret to keeping them from sticking to the pan is to heat the fat that is used in the batter in the pan and pouring it on the batter from the smoking hot pan just before I bake then in the pan which is still sizzling hot. Most of us would not buy bacon with the rind--skin--of the pig still on it let alone fry it that way; but it is interesting to note that Edna's family did and finished it in a slow oven which make the rind crispy. But then her bacon was probably not the paper thin shaved product we pick up in the cello pack. Some cookbooks are for recipes, some are reference books on proper technique, and some few are read from cover to cover for the lore they contain. Edna Lewis' is one of the latter.

Stranger Music

Poems by Leonard Cohen

Funny thing, until I started reading this book it had never occurred to me
to think of Leonard Cohen as Jewish. When one reaches the section entitled
'Flowers for Hitler' there is no ignoring it.

Although a trade paperback edition these poems are given full honours, each
poem beginning on its own separate page and not sharing space with the next
even if it is only 3 lines.

Songs without the music that one expects to accompany them seem incomplete
though in common with Bob Dylan, Cohen cannot be accused of actually
singing.

If this book ends up on school library shelves it will be because someone
didn't persevere to read through to the end of the book. At about the
midpoint there is an entire section on fellatio and sodomy. I say this
neglecting the preponderance of songs and poems about wooing, making love
to, and exploiting woman.

Cohen seems to have justly earned his reputation as the original dirty old
man.

Poetry of Mid-Century--1940-1960

Edited by Milton Wilson even the title of this New Canadian Library publication by McClelland and Stewart sounds stodgy. The poets represented here are the backbone of Canadian Literature—Earl Birney, James Reaney, Alden Nowlan, Irving Layton…. Those who still live would probably be embarrassed to read these juvenile tomes today. Half a century ago Canada was still largely an agrarian society, divorce virtually unknown, and most people attended church regularly. The telephone and electricity were modern innovations, motor cars were luxuries and television had not been invented. The copy I picked up in a local used book store is a first edition yellowed paperback and lacks an ISBN.

Poetry of this era was still expected to rhyme and the subject matter is bucolic and moralistic. Many of the allusions are anachronistic in this age of instant communication, the internet, and space exploration. All this by way of saying that this book is an artifact of its time and place; but only a few of the poems would make it into a collection of the respective artists' best works.