The Citizen, 2010-12-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010. PAGE 5.
Publishing a volume of verse is like
dropping a rose petal down the Grand
Canyon and waiting for the echo.
– Don Marquis
I can’t remember exactly when I stopped
reading poetry. Not in high school, for sure – I
was mesmerised by Frost and Eliot; Pound and
Dickinson. Not in my 20s either. Those years
were saturated with the Beats and with
Dylan. Not to mention a handsome young
Montreal stud in a black leather jacket, name
of Cohen.
Actually, I never lost my love of poetry – it
was contemporary poetry that did me in.
Nobody put it better than the American
columnist Russell Baker who wrote:
“I gave up on new poetry 30 years ago when
most of it began to read like coded
messages between lonely aliens in a hostile
world”.
Exactly.
Somewhere towards the hind end of the 20th
century it seemed as if most poets turned their
backs on the reading public in favour of
playing increasingly obscure word games with
each other.
Poetry devolved into an exclusive
ecosystem: poets writing for other poets, their
editors, publishers and close blood relations.
Readers can take a hint; they left in droves.
Nowadays in most bookstores the Harry Potter
shelf is longer than the entire Poetry Section.
If there is a Poetry Section.
Which is a pity, because poetry matters.
Ideally, it is as good as writing gets. Poetry
is to prose, somebody once said, as dancing is
to walking. The poet William Carlos
Williams suggested that what passes for
‘the news’ these days is a delusion. He said
that the real news is in poems.
“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”
But things have changed since the days
when a Frost or a Sandberg or a Robert
Service could fill a concert hall for a reading.
Today, a poetry comeback would have to
compete not just with the conventional
print/radio/TV media, but also with the all-
enveloping internet – Facebook,
YouTube…the entire Twitterverse.
Compete…or join in.
The good news is, a poet by the name of
Elizabeth Bradfield may have found a way to
re-inject poetry into the public bloodstream.
For the past five years Bradfield has been
stage-managing a phenomenon called
Broadsided. It’s a guerrilla project dedicated
to, as its manifesto states, “putting literature
and arts on the streets.”
Bradfield’s idea was to show people exactly
why poetry matters – but first she had to get
their attention. “I thought that perhaps if
people ran into poetry on the streets, if poetry
was paired with something eye-
catching…then maybe I could persuade them
that literature and art can speak to them
directly and viscerally.”
Here’s how it works. Each month, Bradfield
and a handful of editorial assistants choose a
few poems from submissions e-mailed in by
poetic hopefuls. Next, they invite graphic
artists to “respond” to the poems with some
original artwork. Bradfield and pals then
marry the art work with the poems and publish
the results on the first of each month on their
website as a “broadside” – a hoary term for a
sheet of cheap paper printed on one side that
19th-century rabble rousers were wont to tack
up around town to inform (or inflame) the
public.
The next step is strictly 21st century. The
poem/artwork goes on the website
(www.broadsidedpress.org/) for all to see
and use. Joe and Jane Poetrylover are
free to download it, photocopy it, and do
whatever they like with the copies. The copied
works show up on office bulletin boards,
hospital waiting rooms, airplane seat pockets,
even slipped into the pages of magazines
and newspapers. “What subversive fun,”
says Bradfield, “to find poetry and art
in a newspaper insert, when what you
expect are ads for computer gear and cheap
socks.”
The world seems to agree. Bradfield’s
broadsides have been published and dispersed
on six continents and as far afield as Tasmania
and Alaska.
Poetry running loose on the streets. What a
concept. Marcus Valerius Martialus would
understand. He’s the Roman poet we call
Martial and he wrote: “He does not write at all
whose poems no man reads.” Martial figured
that out 1900 years ago.
Seems like we’re just catching up.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Caution: guerrilla poets ahead
As fallen leaves and soggy streets give
way to road closures and Christmas
lights, Movember has come to a close
and last month’s mustaches will soon be
shaved to make room for what many people are
calling their Decembeards.
And as the dust settles on a furious month of
fundraising, Canadians can hold their heads
high once again, as they raised over $20
million for Prostate Cancer Canada this year.
There are no losers with Movember though,
as over $60 million was raised for worldwide
prostate cancer foundations. At press time,
Australia had raised over $19 million, the U.K.
raised over $12 million, the U.S. raised over $6
million and Ireland raised over $1.5 million.
All fundraising figures will continue to grow
and will be finalized in 2011.
On a personal note, I raised just a few dollars
under $1,750, and finished the month within
the top 1,000 on the list of Canadian
fundraisers. A truly amazing feat that has
humbled me immensely.
Since the end of November, I’ve had this
feeling that people may benefit from my
participation, and that is the best Christmas gift
I could ask for. So many things can be
accomplished with that kind of money and it’s
all because I grew some facial hair and happen
to know some of the best people in the world.
So I offer my most sincere thanks to
everyone who was kind and charitable enough
to donate to Prostate Cancer Canada on my
behalf. I never expected to raise this much
money and as the campaign grows year by
year, awareness will rise and funds will grow
for this important, but often neglected, cause.
Thanks first to my fellow MoBros. And
while I know there were just under 120,000 of
them in Canada alone and well over 400,000
around the world, I donated over $150 from
my own wallet to these fine men, bringing my
total involvement in this year’s Movember
campaign to over $1,900. So thanks to Geoff
Rohoman, Daniel Barron, Mike Cowley, Dale
Van Allen, Andrew Arsenault, Andrew
Fernandes, Adam Chitussi and Eric Coates for
donating their faces to the cause. Thanks also
to Jon McKendry, my American MoBro who
collected for the American Prostate Cancer
Foundation and Livestrong, and won the
“Barely-There” mustache prize at his office.
Thank you to all my donors, in order of their
donation: Karen Webster, Sarah Del Favaro,
Mike Teska, Aislinn Bremner, Jill Marven,
Scott Wandless (twice), Geoff Rohoman,
Daniel Barron, the PMC Maintenance
Assessing Crew at the Bruce Power A Restart
Project, Carrie Salentyn, Mike Cowley, Dana
Loughlin, Rose Loughlin, Lynne and Steve
Mann, Mary Lou Cameron, Chris Stunguris,
Monique Baan, Faye Bolger, Jamey Berrick,
Mike Pilkington, Diane Warham, Steve
Bellerose, Dianne Colgan, Kris Johnson,
Lindsay Dafos, Dianne and Paul Josling, Betty
Graber-Watson and Ralph Watson, Keith and
Jill Roulston, Joan and Steve Caldwell, Kristie
and Wade King, Pat and Angela Dolbear, Mary
Anderson, Mike Henderson, Laurie and Wayne
Bell, Rene Richmond, Vicky Bremner, Julie
Mann, Peggy and Henning Hesse, Betty and
Gerald Christie, Cheryl Heath, Scott Dowler,
Mike Minarik, Chris Obergfell, Sara Leone,
Jason Borisko, Dr. Doug Norsworthy, Adam
Chitussi, Denny Scott and Ashleigh Greason,
Kevin Keane, Jon McKendry, Brianne Hogan,
Kevin Austin, Matt Van Allen, Erin Tonner and
Dale Van Allen.
A special thanks to Jessica Mann, a true
MoSista, who was supportive and encouraging,
and even kind of liked my mustache.
The $1,750 Mustache
Premier Dalton McGuinty is renowned as
a faithful family man, which not
all his predecessors have been, but
he has a habit of attracting strange
bedfellows.
These are former political opponents the
Liberal premier keeps recruiting to help his
cause and most can be said to bring it some
strength.
The latest is Frances Lankin, who was a
senior minister in the New Democrat
government of premier Bob Rae from 1990-
1995.
Lankin ran for leader after Rae left and
while as former prison guard she lacked the
professional credentials of some would-be
successors, was admired so much she started
among the front-runners.
But some union members put an unfair share
of blame on her for Rae’s pay restrictions on
civil servants as he struggled to restrain costs
in an economic recession and she lost to
Howard Hampton.
The United Way of Toronto quickly saw her
merits and hired her to run its operations,
where she won praise for her ability to raise
funds and non-partisanship.
McGuinty has appointed her to a two-
member panel to recommend improving
his welfare system, which is not doing
its job.
Lankin is unlikely to shirk from calling for
huge and inevitably costly change to please
her new political master and both will know
this.
McGuinty’s previous choices of strange
bedfellows includes lifelong Progressive
Conservative Paul Godfrey, who runs a chain
of newspapers headed by The National Post,
the views of which, overwhelmingly, are
Conservative.
Godfrey’s mother was an influential figure
in the party and he was known as a
Conservative when he was chair of the former
Metropolitan Toronto.
Conservative premier William Davis named
Godfrey to the board of the domed sports
stadium being built in the early 1980s and,
when Davis retired, Godfrey was on the team
that helped his Conservative successor,
Frank Miller, plan an election, none of which
should endear him to McGuinty and his
Liberals.
McGuinty brought in Godfrey to run the
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation a
year ago, after it was caught failing to protect
lottery ticket purchasers from unscrupulous
retailers and some of its executives treating
themselves lavishly on the organization’s
money.
McGuinty may have brought in Godfrey
partly hoping to get more news media on his
side, but there is no sign yet that The National
Post is becoming more Liberal.
Godfrey is wealthy and has influence from
outside government, but may feel a need to
return to shaping public policy more
directly and be able to phone a premier when
he likes.
McGuinty appointed Steve Diamond, a
Conservative and lawyer for developers noted
for ending the dreams of many homeowners
not to have their lives disrupted, to the
prestigious Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
The premier discovered they were soulmates
at a dinner for developers.
But the strangest bedfellows have been
McGuinty and David Lindsay, currently
deputy minister, the highest civil service rank,
in energy, who once was the principal
secretary, or right hand man, of the extreme
right wing Conservative premier Mike
Harris.
Lindsay headed a group of Conservatives in
opposition who prepared Harris for the 1995
election campaign he won and remained
principal secretary and his main go-between
with ministers.
Harris later named Lindsay president and
chief executive officer of a so-called
SuperBuild Corporation, to advise on new
infrastructure, public-private partnerships and
privatization, on which the Conservatives
pinned many of their hopes.
Lindsay angered McGuinty, then opposition
leader, by warning Dr. Fraser Mustard,
Ontario’s most revered pioneer in education,
his ideas should not challenge government and
McGuinty called him a political lackey and
demanded his resignation.
Lindsay later worked outside government,
but after winning power, McGuinty
remembered him and made him a deputy
minister.
No adviser close to a premier of one party
has ever got so close to a premier of another,
but McGuinty probably felt, like many in and
outside government, Lindsay is exceptionally
talented, so he is not as strange a bedfellow as
he may seem.
Eric
Dowd
From
Queen’s Park
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
McGuinty’s strange bedfellows
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depends on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw
Final Thought