Blog # 129…May 2022

April was poetry month and in case you missed it, I’m here to celebrate poets and those lyrical forms that capture moods, feelings, sights and sounds like nothing else can.

I’m forever grateful that our high school English class required memorizing 200 lines of poetry every year…and being randomly chosen to recite in front of our mates.  I remember cringing as 13 year olds  monotoned their way through Ode on a Grecian Urn, dreading my turn. I probably wasn’t much better but the snatches of Browning, Wordsworth, Shelley, Milton and many other British poets that float up all these years later give me immense pleasure.  Rupert Brooke's nostalgia for home as war approaches " some corner of a foreign field that is forever England"  still brings a lump to my throat.                                   

In my twenties, thinking I was hip in my black stockings and turtlenecks, I loved the romance of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXX with its lines on friendship,"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend/All losses are restored and sorrows end."  I discovered that poetry could advance activism with Allen Ginsberg and confront racism with James Baldwin. I found  Canadian poets  - Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen. And women, Dorothy Livesay, Miriam Waddington, Karen Mulhallen.

Karen captures the anguish in our northern communities with these lines from her poem Pikangikum:                                                                                         "Ask ourselves, "our first world"/with no game for hunters/no food, no shelter for birds, fish, animals/no clean water, no elders with stories/children take their rite of passage/journey to adulthood, sniffing gas."

I read poets who experimented playfully with form, words, sound and humour.  Ogden Nash delighted me with:                                                                                      "The turtle lives twixt plated decks/Which practically conceal its sex/I think it clever of the turtle/In such a fix to be so fertile.  

I loved the acrid wit of Dorothy Parker "Oh life is a glorious cycle of song/A medley of extemporanea/And love is a thing that can never go wrong/And I am Marie of Roumania."                                                                                                                                                  

Today, on a somber note, Warsan Shire, a refugee herself -  Somalian, born in Kenya, raised in London, now living in Los Angeles - is in a prime position to express her feelings in Home, a poem with achingly poignant lines:                                                             

 " No one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying leave, run away from me now./I don’t know what I’ve become but I know that anywhere is safer than here.                                                                                                             And... " You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."   

                                                                       

Poets show us how to hear - if we can bear to listen, they open our hearts and our brains to the joy and beauty, the tears and sorrow around us. Verlaine, Lorca, Rumi...and poetry can be found in the voices of the 90 million refugees displaced around the world. One who had lived in a camp for over 8 years was heard to say "My home is the people I live with now, the ones I wake up with, I have nowhere to go home to, home is not land but people."              

And if you're in Toronto on Sunday May 15th, you're invited to meet four Canadian poets who collectively, have been challenging and delighting audiences for over two hundred years! The special guest of honour will be Arlene Lampert, first and founding executive secretary of the League of Canadian Poets (1971-1979) who continues to love and support poetry and poets in Canada.

                    Poetry on Markham Street

                     3pm,  n/w corner of Markham and London Sts.

                                              Featuring

           bill bissett, Robert Priest, David Bateman and Honey Novick

 Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts through the League of Canadian Poets                                       Masks and distancing are suggested                      

Please keep yourself and those close to you safe and well, and remember how lucky we are to be able to stay home to be safe rather than have to leave.

See you back here in June

                                                                                                        

                                                                                                          

        

                       

                                             

                                                            

                                                      

                                                   

                                                      

 

 

 Blog # 128...April 2022

Now that Toronto's winter is on its way off to wherever it spends the rest of its time, we’re left with the candy wrappers, masks and dog crap that was hidden by the beautiful white snow…yuck!

But there are some lovely images to distract our attention. In the alleyway behind our house, Max, a golden retriever who lived next door when we moved in over 40 years ago, is immortalized, larger than life, on a garage door. It’s festooned with graffiti and says in tiny letters at the bottom -  "I love dogs."  So do I!

Last year, when we badly needed to smile, a neighbor, Martha Davis, created Panda Land on a nearby school yard lawn. It began on a small scale with one or two pandas sitting quietly and gradually expanded into a glorious celebration of what pandas might enjoy…sitting at the movies, eating in cafes, generally cavorting around in amusing ways.

My cousin Cindy, florist by day with a side hustle creating cakes for special occasions, sends us photos of her inventions. Happy Bassday is one of my favourites - maybe to open the fishing season or to celebrate a sportsperson's birthday.

Hanan Abdu, artist and occupational therapist, makes black muslim women feel important, portraying them as strong and fashionable. Using her personal and professional identities as well as her creative energy, she gives us a view of herself and other women as unique and beautiful,

And finally, the cover of The New Yorker always delivers a message, capturing what’s going on in that city and in the world - sometimes trenchant, sometimes funny and last week, heart wrenching. Artist Ana Juan’s Motherland evokes Madonna and child…with artillery accompaniment.

I’m having to extend my cognitive therapy inspired worrying time to handle all that’s going on! But, we'll be back in May, when the only certainty is that things won't be the same. I spoke too soon about winter being out the door though, and it wasn't an April Fool!

 

Blog # 127…March, 2022

I don’t particularly like the term differently- abled. It’s a bit clunky, but it does convey a better sense of how we all are…well, abled differently. Just as we’re gradually opening our hearts and minds, and books and films to include people of various colours, shapes and sexual definitions, we’re also accepting that we all hear, see, walk and talk at diverse levels of competence. Some of us may not walk up stairs as well or hear as clearly, but can sing Broadway musicals or knock off a great omelette.

I worked with children, most of them in wheelchairs, many years ago and found them thoughtful and unusually expressive…energy that other kids expended running around was available for thinking and talking to me. Alan who was 11 couldn’t walk unaided but he could beat me at chess. Eight year old Vancel came every day on his elbow crutches to take me to lunch in his taxi, making very realistic sounds of the doors opening and closing, the noise of the engine, the traffic’s honking and squealing brakes. Nancy, who was only 5 arrived when I was on crutches from a skiing incident, asked me who my physio was when I was little, which still brings tears to my eyes.

Ivan Illich (remember him from the 60’s?) had interesting ideas and wrote about  Disabling Professions. One of my greatest heroes, Oliver Sacks introduced me to the notion of hurling people at their deficits, as professionals put people through endless assessments from positions of power and authority.

Art can be an equalizer – think of the brilliant jazz of Jeff Healey; Daniel Laurie who plays Reggie Buckle’s Down Syndrome in Call the Midwife so touchingly because he lives there himself. Watching dance smooth out their tremours, we feel the music along with people with Parkinson’s and TV's Fashion Dis challenges traditional norms that lack inclusion in how we dress. An initiative to help people with disabilities achieve an MBA has been launched by a group of young people in Toronto...so things are happening in all sectors. 

And, coming up in a few days in Beijing – the Paralympics, launched in England after WWll at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital which specializes in spinal cord injuries. I always find it more interesting and inspiring to watch a blind speed skater or a skier missing an arm. How do they do it, and what courage it must take!

We’re being moved, sometime slowly but definitely surely into accepting and valuing difference, whether it’s in how we look, act, move or love....makes the world more vibrant, and also more accepting and less lonely for us in our uniqueness.

Here it is, another March... International Women's Day approaching, Spring and an unknown future. We've had enough surprises lately, and now the horror of the attack on Ukraine! And speaking of  unrecognized talents, we all wondered about the Ukrainians electing a comedian as president...now Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reminding us of George Vl staying in London during the blitz...and responding to offers to get him out with "I need ammunition, not a lift." Loving him for that as well as his brave leadership.

But wait, one more thing...actually two things that have made my spirit soar, at least temporarily, reading Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould  and watching season 10 of Call the Midwife.

Back in April with some beautiful images.

 

Blog # 126…February 2022

Quite a few years ago, I enlivened a job I’d taken in a hospital, out of financial necessity, by involving art students…it was a win/win situation. By bringing in artists, I enhanced their lives, broadened their experience and influenced their practice as well as my own. Oh yes, it also enriched the environment and the people there, brought smiles to both patients and staff who felt less isolated and focused on illness.

There’s a natural relationship between art and science – dancers need to understand the physics of movement, painters depend on chemistry to get the subtle effects in their work and musicians and mathematics work hand in hand. And scientists often use imagination and creativity in solving problems

Over the years, I’ve seen art and artists appear in a variety of roles in unique settings, collaborating with other specialities and putting these connections into practice. Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto employed poet Ronna Bloom who ran workshops for staff to help them process their experiences. The late and wonderful Priscilla Uppal was  in residence at the Rogers Cup for tennis, the Vancouver Winter Games and the Summer Olympics in London, rendering the spirit of sport in lyrical and moving poems. 

The latest initiative involves palliative care doctors at Toronto Western Hospital and the Art Gallery of Ontario. The stress of delivering sad news to families and friends can be overpowering and the opportunity to have a close and thoughtful interaction with art in a group helps provide some relief and room for reflection and mindfulness. Equally important is talking about what they’ve observed and felt, bringing the group members together and enhancing awareness of others' thoughts and opinions, deepening their capacity for empathy and making them better doctors.

As we struggle with the isolation of the pandemic, it seems to me there’s a big role for artists, many of whom have lost their livelihood. Mental health issues abound in schools, workplaces and long term care facilities…how about actors recording stories to read to kids and elders, dancers leading movement groups, visual artists introducing sessions on observing form and colour  in the world around us. I know it’s a leap, but a hopeful one -better than some of the stuff on screens -  and important things often begin with a small thought. Maybe if even a couple of you who read this blog take a step to include art in your lives in some way, and talk about it with your friends, some ripples will expand.

Remember that we look more attractive when we smile, so search out some reasons to do it, or better still to have a laugh...here's one from a recent New Yorker.  

We'll be back in March, look forward to those longer days and a more controlled pandemic!

 

Blog # 125…January 2022

Here we go again, launching a new year with high hopes in the face of grim circumstances…never more important to take refuge in the joys and sorrows of a good story. And what a wealth of stories our Canadian writers have to tell!

They live in every corner of the country and come from every corner of the globe…they’re old, young and in between and from a range of ethnicities and genders. They tell true stories, their stories, and the stories of others, real and imaginary, set here and elsewhere. If you feel like a laugh or need a cry, you’ll find it in between the covers of a book. And Bruce Cockburn has some advice ”Pay attention to the poet, You need him and you know it”.

I’m grateful to books that have helped me process personal emotional conflicts over the years. My name in the front of The Alexandria Quartet is written in a tentative small script that reflects the way I felt in my early 20’s, when it helped me understand that the world is full of very different people and no one really fits in.  More recently the Mummy Noir genre has given me a sense of the real joys, but also the hard and ugly feelings involved in motherhood. I’m still struggling with understanding life and each book I read urges me along.

I haven’t taken up bread making or weaving or learning  a language this past year and have spent most of the time reading…here are some of the things I’ve enjoyed. I now give myself the luxury of abandoning something I’m not liking, so this is the cream of the crop.

First, although I love fiction, some nf sometimes creeps in…I was intrigued by an interview with Kamal Al-Solaylee, a writer and professor at Ryerson (wish they’d get that name change going) about the notion of returning to home. He left Yemen as a teenager and has lived in Egypt and England, settling in Toronto several decades ago, losing his fluency in Arabic along the way. Recently, he’s started thinking of leaving Canada’s safety, health care (and winters) to return to a cabin that he knows is really a figment of his dreams. Prompted to examine other returns, real or imaginary, he speaks to individuals who have gone back to Jamaica, the Basque counties, New Zealand, Ghana, Taiwan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, discovering the unique qualities of each return (the book's name btw).

And the fiction I’ve loved: Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Jocelyn Saucier; Fight Night by Miriam Toews; A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson and Louise Penny, punching above her weight with The Madness of Crowds.

Books by Canadians looking at life through the lens of another culture: Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez; We Have always Been Here by Samra Habib; What Strange Paradise by Omar Al Akkah: Butter, Honey, Pig, Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi and How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammasonga.

A nod to two American women, Samantha Power for The Education of an Idealist and  Stacey Abrams for a great thriller - While Justice Sleeps  - the latest in about a dozen books - when did she have time for politics…and a life?  

This is a partial inventory rather than reviews and this year I have no intention of learning a language, baking bread, weaving or doing anything other than reading more books!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, see you in February when it’ll be lighter later.

Blog # 124…December 2021

I know I mentioned writing about Canlit this month, but there are so few places to be spontaneous these days, so I’m going to change the channel and talk about a program  I just discovered that moved and encouraged me - important to focus on the bright lights that come along nowadays .

I’m starting this on the day before Remembrance Day – I was touched by a piece on The National last night about a piano teacher in Victoria who encouraged her young students to compose and perform pieces for individuals who had served Canada in war zones around the world. Each piece was personal, reflecting the individual veteran's unique experience and story. It was a great way to link ages, to give the vets the sense that they weren’t forgotten and let the young composers see that wars involve and affect real people.

Betty Carroll

It resonated particularly with me because I know Emily Armour, the musician and teacher who created the program. She contacted me about a year ago after discovering a profile I’d done of Phyllis Carleton, a physiotherapist who had served overseas in the Second World War. Emily was searching for information about her grandmother, Betty Carroll who had also been a physio at the same time and in much the same place. We weren’t able to find anything specific to connect the two women, but engaged in a series of lively and enjoyable conversations with a number of people.                                                

Phyll died recently, a few days before her 102nd birthday.                                 

Emily’s devotion to searching out information for her father about his mother Betty (who died when he was a young child) seems to extend to her interest in making connections between her students and veterans. Another prompt for her wish to honour the individuals who served us so well is her partner Devin, a veteran of the war in Croatia.

And her initiative has far reaching ripples. For many soldiers the aftermath of war is more profound than the actual experience. The 30 or so veterans involved, mostly in BC, but also in Ontario and Nova Scotia, valued the attention and feeling of appreciation.  Some were buddies of Devin’s, others connections through her students "I'm known not to be an emotional guy, but that really moved me." said one of the vets.

The students (one as young as 5!) learned some real and personal history along with a chance to experience empathy and a sense of making an important contribution to other peoples’ lives. A 16 year old composer expressed this about his piece, ' It has the sort of emotional overtone that I like...I tried my best to understand what other people would feel."

And Emily had the satisfaction of using her professional expertise as a musician and teacher to reach out - to her students, to the veterans, and to us, reminding us of fellow Canadians who take on the tasks of protecting us and making a difference in the world. She was immensely proud of her students and felt - "they were fearless about it."

Betty Carroll

Lullabies encourage us to sleep as babies, brass bands arouse us to patriotic marches - or maybe to clean the house - and romantic ballads evoke memories of dancing close at the end of an evening. Music crosses language and culture, age and taste, it soothes or invigorates, whichever we need at the moment. Taking the creative work of young musicians to veterans of war is another way music enriches lives. It’s a great memorial to Betty Carroll who would be proud of her grand daughter Emily, I am too!

Remembering Stephen Sondheim as we're Into the Woods for the second Christmas. They're dark and dangerous here but even more so in many other countries, so as we let some light in to celebrate, send some thoughts (and vaccines) around the world.

Back in 2022.

 

Blog # 123…November 2021

 Not often am I moved to laugh out loud while I’m sitting quietly reading but Tomson Highway got me going with his memoir Permanent Astonishment. It starts with his unexpectedly early arrival (recounted to him by his older sister Louise) in a rough tent while his family were on the road so to speak, checking their trap lines in northern Manitoba.

Throughout the book, we travel with Tomson on many trips by canoe and dogsled to fish, hunt and gather the berries and plants that contribute to survival on the edge of the Arctic circle. He introduces us to the Cree language and we meet his family and friends – Samba Cheese (the Cree version of Jean Baptiste) Father EggNog (Egenolf), many folks called Gunpowder or Mosquito and a handful of Moony-asses (non-Native people).  His love for the place and the people is strong and contagious! 

A trip by plane at age 6 takes him to the Guy Hill Indian Residential School, joining his older sisters and brothers, who’ve all gone with their parents’ agreement and encouragement. We hear gruesome stories of the scoop of children from their parents' arms by priests, nuns and Mounties, all horribly true I’m sure, but we see a more nuanced view of one school through Tomson’s eyes, or one might say. his rose coloured glasses. His 9 years at the school sound almost idyllic: reasonable meals, warm comfortable beds, sports, art and music, with the usual mix of teachers, strict, kind, supportive or harsh. And a sexual abusing Brother, who visits the dorms after dark, mentioned briefly, almost as an afterthought.

Tomson opens a window into a world we long to know and understand, giving us a glimpse of weather, meals, tent furnishings, family relationships, schoolyard bullies and a range of community characters, some of whom may sound familiar from our own lives. This helps to take away the sense of "otherness" but also is in danger of diluting the serious effects of colonialism on indigenous people. Presenting a comforting view of community life and describing his residential school as a rather pleasant place where he and other native children could get an education and learn to play a sport or the piano. obscures their purpose. They were designed deliberately to extinguish their culture and render them unable to right the injustices of having their land taken. And most of the schools weren’t at all like Guy Hill!

It’s astonishing that indigenous people and their culture have survived to give us. as well as Tomson - Mary Simon, Kent Monkman, Drew Hayden Taylor, Michelle Good, Murray Sinclair, Wab Kinew, Lisa Richardson, Jody Wilson- Raybould, Richard Wagamese and Alika LaFontaine (anesthetist president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association), As well, there are many less visible nurses, electricians, lawyers. artists, clerks, mothers and fathers, teachers – going about their lives amongst us, contributing to society - others struggle on the margins.

Tomson’s book tells an unusual and entertaining story - his own story. It’s important, while enjoying it, not to let it divert our thoughts from recognizing the wrongs that have been done to indigenous people and working towards righting as many as we can.

Without consciously thinking about it, I’ve read Canadian authors almost exclusively over the past few months…not hard to do when there are so many on international lists of best things to read. I’d intended to cover them in this post, but got caught up in issues around Tomson’s book, so you can look forward to Canlit in December, in time for Christmas.