creative forces

Blog 7 March 2012

My romance with art in unusual venues embraces a book that became a huge favourite of mine when it came out last year. In Winter Sport, Priscila Uppal treats us to a collection of poems long and short - haikus, odes and love poems about the 2010 Olympic Games.  Some are funny like Curler Want Ad or poignant like Lament for Disqualification.   Winter Olympics Parade, starts with Albania and marches all  the participating countries past us with a sporty transition - Cayman Islands camel spin to Chile, Morocco moguls to Nepal, Slovakia slaloms to Slovenia, and Uzbekistan Zudnicks to…CANADA...I just learned that Zudnick was a skiing dog.

In her introductory essay, Priscila, who was CANfund’s  first resident poet for the Games, gives us a sense of her love for both sports and the arts and helps us see the close relationship between them. Both require concentration and dedication, practice and patience. Arts competitions (including poetry) were part of the ancient Olympics and revived for the modern Games from 1912 till 1948. During that period medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport…paintings, sculpture and music, not  for poems though.  The cultural competitions were eliminated in 1954 when it was deemed that artists were professionals while athletes were amateurs.  This distinction has become blurred more recently and it’s good to see artists included in the opening ceremonies and to have poetry coming to the fore.

Priscila captures the best aspects of the Olympics in A Brother Has Your Back, for Alexandre and Frederic Bilodeau.  Alexandre’s affection for his brother came close to burning brighter than that first gold medal…well almost… well for me anyway.

Grace and courage emerged unexpectedly in the figure skating competition: 

                                 Ice Opera

                                 for Joannie Rochette

                                No one had to say, Get out on that ice.

                                Nobody needed to give you a nudge.

                               You were born to spin and spiral,

                               serve the gods of spectacle and suspense.

                               You courted the music in your heart,

                               soared with it, sharpening your edges,

                               softening landings.

                              If the stands were nearly empty, you imagined

                              crowds, you the heroine in an ice opera,

                              roses flung at your feet, the roar

                             of encores, the scores of symphonies.

                             But tonight, while we listen to the orchestra and

                             thunder applause, you are skating to a new

                             sanctum of silence, of shadows and silhouettes,

                            where mother and daughter mouth the words

                            to all the secret love songs ever written

Two essays complete the collection…one is Priscila’s sensitive coverage,  informed by familiarity with her father’s paraplegia, of the Paralympics which always follow and complete the Games. The other is a long piece on the Arctic Games, giving us a wonderful glimpse into the particular activities that are possible in that unique climate and reflect the spirit of Canada’s North.

Winter Sport is published by Mansfield Press, who will also put out Summer Sport which Priscila will be working on this summer in London.  She’s generously offered to share this experience and the resulting poems with us in a future blog.