If you live far from BC, there’s a fair chance that you only know the BC coast, especially Vancouver and Victoria. If so, you’re missing a very different part of Canada. I know it because my brother-in-law Peter and his wife Heather live in Kelowna, which draws us there often. They were among the more than 200 people who lost their homes when the great firestorm of 2003 swept into town. After our success in publishing The Ice Storm, we at M&S knew how to rush out books about Canadian natural disasters, cold or hot, East or West, so by enlisting the help of the Kelowna Daily Courier we swiftly brought out Firestorm: The Summer B.C. Burned.
As I say in Across Canada By Story: “It raised lots of money for reclamation projects, although it was nothing compared with the estimated 250 million trees lost in the fire.”
In September I tried to (ahem) set the house on fire in the Okanagan College Theatre in Kelowna, where a polite audience, not all of them relatives, watched the very first public performance of my new power-point stage show, “Across Canada By Story”. It went well enough, and the fire brigade was not involved. The organiser, the tireless author and teacher John Lent, then outdid himself by arranging another show for me THE VERY NEXT DAY in Vernon.
Three points there. The drive from Kelowna to Vernon shows the Okanagan (pronounced “awe-gan”) at its very best. High, dry hills roll down to scenic lakes, with irrigated fields producing apples and wine-bearing grapes and many lesser fruits and vegetables. One of the towns along the way is now named simply “Lake Country”, although Vernon itself now has around 50, 000 people. Second, the show was held at the fairly new Okanagan College Vernon campus, surely the most beautiful campus in all of Canada, perched high above Kalamalka Lake. And third, the afternoon show revealed that the area is now rich in writers, including my old friend, the fine poet Sharon Thesen.
Finally, a quick trip into Vernon reminded me that we were now in Across Canada By Story territory. Signs there directed us to Nelson, where Jane and I had greatly enjoyed our time at the Elephant Mountain Literary Festival, before driving west into the breathtaking scenery of the BC Interior.
Author Archives: Douglas Gibson
SOOTHSAYERS IN VANCOUVER
In Ancient Rome, before a Caesar dared to launch a major campaign, he always consulted the natural world for predictions of success. The entrails of slaughtered goats, sheep, or pigeons would be messily probed, and events like high tides, floods, or thunderstorms would be pondered by skilled authorities. It was serious, head-scratching stuff.
Which brings us to Vancouver, and the launch of my new book on Monday, August 31. That evening the launch was held in the Book Warehouse on Main Street, hosted by James and Mary Ann. About 30 people came to hear me talk, and to celebrate the fact that a book whose title began with the words Across Canada should most appropriately take off there, in that great West-Coast book centre. Hal Wake (who runs the superb local Vancouver Writers Fest) gave me a very generous introduction, and then, wearing a tie whose colours you can guess, I chatted about my adventures. The world of books was well represented in the audience, by Mel Hurtig, Mark “Raincoast” Stanton, Mary Nicol (wife of Eric), Alan “BC Bookworld” Twigg, Trena (former colleague) White and other friends. It was good to be able to pay my fond respects to two retired book stalwarts who were sadly absent, Jim Douglas and Allan MacDougall.
All went well, and a fair number of books were sold and signed. The omens seemed good.
But a soothsayer would have been concerned. The weekend before the launch the Vancouver area was hit by freak storms that smashed down hundreds of trees. Power cuts affected more than 600,000 people. Our own North Vancouver hotel was left powerless and dangerous, since groping our way through the blacked out corridors required the use of our cell phones for slivers of light. We moved, delightedly, to The Sylvia, where I once lunched with George Woodcock, and which Jane and I on an earlier trip flip-flopped from, en route to a swim in English Bay.
But what would the ancient soothsayers have made of this freak weather? Is it very good news for my book, or the reverse? Time will tell.
BACK IN THE GAME AGAIN
As many of you know, writing a book is an all-consuming task. Other responsibilities — such as keeping your blog going out to faithful readers — fall by the wayside, as you work on this chapter, then the next one, then the next. So now that my new book is done (it exists, I can hold it in my hands, and even find it displayed in bookstores!) I can get back to the blog.
The immediate excitement is that, in accordance with the book’s national scope, we’re launching it in Vancouver. You , and your book-loving Vancouver friends, are invited to the Launch at 7.00 p.m. on Monday, August 31, at the Book Warehouse at 4118 Main Street. For a book called ACROSS CANADA BY STORY, the West-Coast launch is appropriate.
There will be other public events across the country, of course, with Festivals in places like Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon sweeping me up, not to mention places as far-flung as Moose Jaw and Quebec City. But since my STORIES ABOUT STORYTELLERS show has hit 97 Canadian communities — so far — I expect to be everywhere with this new book, and the new show that goes along with it.
A final note about how far-reaching that show proved to be: in July this year Adventure Canada hired me to run a Floating Book Club on board their cruise ship going up the Labrador Coast. I had Terry Fallis to talk about his novel THE BEST-LAID PLANS ( set in Canada’s national village, Ottawa) and Kathleen Winter to talk about ANNABEL (set on the Labrador coast we’d sailed alongside). They were both superb, and the Cruise guests loved them. Finally, after we’d sailed around Cape Chidley, Labrador’s northern point, we were in Ungava Bay, level with the top of Hudson Bay. There I gave my own show, so that I can now claim that I’ve performed it in Canada from coast to coast ……to coast!
A NOTE FOR TORONTO READERS (WITH WAGON WHEELS AND WASHBOARDS)
I’ve spent a lot of time roaming across the country with my Stories About Storytellers show. Now, as the winter keeps us in its grasp , I’m giving three shows in Toronto Libraries in March.
They are in the TORONTO REFERENCE LIBRARY on Thursday, March 5, at 7.00.
DEER PARK LIBRARY (Yonge and St. Clair) on Tuesday, March 10, at 6.30.
RUNNYMEDE LIBRARY (Bloor West) on Thursday, March 12,at 7.00.
If you’ve read or heard about my show, now’s your chance to see it. The show runs about 70 minutes, is all about books and authors, and will get you out of the cold. It may even make you laugh.
As for me, it will be exciting to polish the show before I take it to China, to Beijing and Shanghai at the end of March.
It may be a good thing to get away to “The Bookworm Festival”, and far from our culture where “Metro” last week ran an article headed “Books stack up nicely as décor”. One paragraph reads as follows “Because many readers consume literature digitally these days, physical books also evoke nostalgia — not unlike displays of other authentic objects that originated in earlier eras, like wagon wheels or washboards.”
REMEMBERING JEAN BELIVEAU
The national mourning in December for Jean Beliveau was extraordinary. It ran from the formal Memorial Mass in Montreal, attended by several Prime Ministers, all the way to a feature on him before a televised Maple Leafs game that silenced a raucous sports bar in the Beaches and had the fans getting reverently to their feet, their Leafs caps clutched in their hands.
But of course Jean Beliveau was extraordinary.
I was lucky enough to get to know him when at McClelland & Stewart we published his autobiography in 1994. Naturally, we planned a major author tour for him. It began in the West, and from Vancouver onwards the crowds were larger than we had ever seen. Every newspaper and TV and radio station was clamouring for interviews, and soon the whole event had taken on the dimensions of a Royal Tour. Signing books for the hundreds of admirers who had lined up to meet him made for very long days, city after city, and eventually Jean began to wear down.
Near exhaustion, he phoned from Winnipeg to ask for help. Typically, instead of brushing him off on the phone, our Chairman, Avie Bennett, flew out to give help in person. He and Jean decided that as the tour proceeded into the cities of the East, we should cut back on the original plans. We would cancel the media interviews, to allow him to concentrate on the massive signing sessions in the bookstores. That was a great relief to Jean. Problem solved.
After the weekend, however, Avie got a phone call from Jean. He said, “Elise has reminded me that I have never failed to do what I promised to do. So we should stick with our original plan. I’ll do the media interviews.” And he did. Brilliantly, with the dignity and the grace that were built into him.
It’s typical of Avie (and he and I were constantly in and out of each other’s nearby offices, so I knew him very well) that when he was briefly in Winnipeg that day, he was able to see another touring M&S author, Karen Kain, who was proudly promoting her memoir, Movement Never Lies. It was clear that the investment he made in our authors was worth it, even if publishing in Canada is such a tough business that the rewards tend not to be measured in dollars.
For similar reasons, he enjoyed his time as a part-owner of the Montreal Expos. He loves telling the story of strolling out of the stadium with two M&S authors on either side: Pierre Trudeau and Jean Beliveau. This allows him to set up the classic line: “Hey, who are those two guys with Avie Bennett?”
Another Jean Beliveau story:
Some years after we published his memoir Canada Post brought out a stamp in his honour. I happened to be visiting the great Montreal book event, the Salon Du Livre, and in my ramblings I came across a Canada Post booth, where Jean was signing for a crowd. They were lined up around the Hall, in their hundreds. I was standing there quietly, enjoying the sight of my old friend surrounded by admirers of all ages. I had no plan to intervene, since he was obviously very busy. But he paused in his signing, looked up, and saw me. And Jean Beliveau put down his pen, got up, came around the desk and across the aisle to greet me, shaking the hand of his “old friend Doug.” It was wonderful, and we had a warm conversation. But like a good publisher I was concerned about the delay we were causing for the people in the line-up, and I managed to move him back to the signing table.
During all this time, the people lined up showed absolutely no sign of irritation. If M. Beliveau wanted to get up and go to greet a friend, that was fine with them. But they looked at me with keen interest. I wasn’t a hockey player. So which NHL team, they wondered, did I own?
It’s too bad that Jean was never able to accept the invitation to be Canada’s Governor-General. He would have been a great, distinguished occupant of that role. And as we’ve seen, he knew all about Royal Tours.
EDDIE GREENSPAN AND THE COUCHICHING GALA
The death in December of the celebrated Toronto lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, produced many fond and admiring recollections. Here is another one.
But first, a little background information. I am on the Board of the Couchiching Conference, a worthy group that encourages discussions of topics of public interest, especially at the annual August Conference beside, yes, Lake Couchiching. In fact, with Heather Keachie I co-chaired last year’s conference on Sport.
Running a public-interest group like this costs money, so we do lots of fund-raising. One of our most effective methods is the Couchiching Gala in Spring, where members of the public can get a fine meal, and choose to sit at a table hosted by one specific celebrity guest. At Archaeo Restaurant in April 2014 among many interesting possible table companions was Eddie Greenspan, widely recognised as Canada’s leading defence lawyer. Jane and I signed up for an evening of Eddie’s table talk, along with five fortunate others.
I had an extra role. As a Couch Board member, I was asked to “host” the table, in effect to direct the discussion, to make sure that Eddie held the floor, and to keep the table centred on one conversation. I was not a bad choice for the role. Leaving aside the question of natural assertiveness (some might use words like “rude”), I was a friend of Eddie’s. We had met way back in the 1970s, when I edited By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter, written by George Jonas and Barbara Amiel. The 1977 account of what was then the longest murder trial in Canadian history was a huge commercial success, won prizes for its authors, and was useful to my career as a trouble-making non-fiction editor.
Much more important, the Demeter trial brought the junior defence Counsel, Eddie Greenspan, into the limelight, until he eclipsed the famous defence lead, Joe Pomerant. It was clear to everyone around the headline-making trial that a legal star had just been born.
I met Eddie behind the scenes in those days, and was impressed by this comfortably-built man with a thick head of hair and a very direct look. I especially liked his natural style, which included the straightforward use of simple language. This is a gift not universally shared, as we were reminded when Eddie later took on the case of Conrad Black. Sadly, the verbose Conrad proved to be a poor loser when he went to jail, and his attack on the performance of his chosen counsel, Eddie Greenspan, prompted Eddie to write a wry defence in the newspaper, where he noted that it is not unknown for people in jail to blame their lawyers.
Because of our link, I once took the chance to see Eddie in action in court. It was not an especially important case, except to Gordon Allan, Eddie’s client, who had been accused of murder. I went along for Eddie’s summing up. He said, in effect : “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we’ve been here for many days, and we’ve heard many confusing suggestions about what happened on the day of this sad event. Let me try to explain to you what really happened….” And he went on, very simply, with no courtroom theatrics, no fancy oratory, just kindly explaining it all.
When he had finished, and we broke for lunch, it was obvious that Eddie’s client was going to be found not guilty. And he was.
I began our evening conversation by recalling that trial, and Eddie described the details well. Then we were off, ranging across his cases over the years, from Demeter to Black, and dealing with wider issues such as the wisdom of juries against the errors of judges, and the whole issue of his successful fight against capital punishment. It was all frank and witty, and such a constant source of information that I had to interrupt to allow him to snatch a bite to eat. At the end of the evening, Eddie slipped off into the night, after I had ushered him to the door, trying to express the deep gratitude of all of us at the table.
I saw him again in November, when once again Eddie was slipping away from another legal-book event. We hailed each other, I clapped his arm, but we did not have the chance to chat. The Couch Gala remains a vivid memory, however, of the unforgettable Eddie Greenspan.
BURNS-LOVERS ALERT — “THE ADDRESS TO A HAGGIS” TRANSLATED
The Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759, which means that the anniversary celebrations this month will deafen Canadians from coast to coast. There are, after all, reputedly more statues in Canada to Burns than to any other figure. And every year hundreds of thousands of whisky- lovers from St. John’s to Victoria become temporary Scots to celebrate the man and his work at thousands of noisy Burns Suppers across the land.
As a literary Scot, I offer a public service here and now – a translation of what the heck the person at a Burns Supper who “addresses” the haggis is actually saying!
First, a word about the background. Every Burns Supper centres around his famous poem,“ The Address to a Haggis”. The haggis is marched into the dining room and “addressed” in Burns’ words before being served.
In the Ayrshire countryside where “the Ploughman Poet” lived and worked, meals were very basic, usually featuring oatmeal, herring, turnips, kale and potatoes. Meat was rare, so even the sausage-like haggis – “a peasant dish compounded of meat left-overs, oatmeal, spices and offal all pouched in a sheep’s stomach” as one scholar described it – was a special treat.
Tradition has it that Burns wrote an early version of his tongue-in-cheek poem in praise of the haggis as a surprise for a group of Ayrshire friends who expected the usual mumbled grace before the meal. Later, when he was an acclaimed poet visiting Edinburgh in 1786, he wrote the expanded version that audiences around the world know today.
Or hear today.
The big problem is that when the ceremonial haggis is borne into the room today amid scenes of napkin-waving enthusiasm and is then loudly addressed in Burns’ words, most of the diners don’t have a clue about what is being said.
It will be clear to them that a basically simple event (“Here’s the haggis. Looks good. Let’s cut it up and eat it.”) is being transformed as a joke into a mock-epic ceremony of pretended deep significance.
But the language might as well be Swahili: words like sonsie, painch, thairm, hurdies, dight, kytes, rive, sconner, nieve and jaups, among many others, are a mystery.Even worse, many of the familiar words that seem to point a way through the fog of misunderstanding – puddin’, wordy, hums, rash, nit, flood and taps among them – have totally unexpected meanings.
As a service to my Canadian fellow-citizens, to demystify the event, I offer my own translation. It has, as they say, met with some approval, with Margaret Atwood kindly calling it “brilliant” (modest cough).I make no claim that it is definitive, since many of the lines offer alternative versions that also make sense. But I can claim some expertise. Born in Kilmarnock, I grew up among farming folk in Ayrshire, and in my youth the old farmers for whom I worked in the hayfields still spoke in very much the same way as the poet. This was so much “Burns Country” that in the Stewarton kirkyard his uncle lies buried near my great-grandparents.
Later, at St. Andrew’s University, I studied Burns, and put my local knowledge to good use to win the Sloan Prize for composition in the old Scots tongue.
And I am, heaven knows, a veteran of many Burns suppers, starting in my long-ago student days, and continuing through many speeches at events in Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal, and even as an import back to Scotland.
No doubt other suggested translations will occur to knowledgeable readers. It goes without saying that the 1% who do understand the poem consider themselves to be the only living authority on its meaning.
With proper humility, then, I offer up the following to allow attentive readers to astound their table companions with their learning.
| Address to a Haggis
by Robert Burns |
Translation by Douglas Gibson |
| Verse 1: The Haggis is Greeted
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face Great chieftain o’ the puddin’-race! Aboon them a’ ye tak your place Painch, tripe or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang’s my arm. |
Greetings and good luck to your honest,
cheerful face Great chieftain of the intestine-based race of foods! You rank above all other dishes coming from The paunch, tripe or guts; You truly deserve a grace As long as my arm. |
| Verse 2: Tribute is Paid to its External
Dimensions and Attractions The groaning trencher there ye fill Your hurdies like a distant hill Your pin wad help to mend a mill In time o’ need, While thro’ your pores the dews distil Like amber bead. |
You fill this platter that groans beneath your weight,
Your hips swell like a distant hill, A skewer on that scale would help to mend a In time of need, While through your pores the dews distill To form amber-coloured beads of moisture. |
| Verse 3: The Personification of Rustic Labour Slices the Haggis
His knife see rustic Labour dight, An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight, Trenching your gushing entrails bright Like ony ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin’, rich! |
Watch as rustic Labour wipes his knife,
And cuts you up with easy skill, Digging a great trench in your bright moist innards Just like a ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Steaming, warm, with good rich smells! |
| Verse 4: An Imagined Group of Diners
Demolishes the Haggis Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive, Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive, Till all their weel-swall’d kytes belyve Are bent like drums; Then auld guidman, maist like to rive “Bethankit!” hums. |
Then, wielding their horn spoons they dig in,
Stretching and competing, Every man for himself, on they drive, Till in due course all of their well-swollen bellies Are stretched tight as drums; Then the master of the house, the one most likely to burst, Stammers the usual grace after meat, “God be thanked!” |
| Verse 5: Effete French Dishes Are Disparaged
Is there that owre his French ragout, Or olio that wad staw a sow Or fricassee wad mak her spew, Wi’ perfect sconner, Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view On sic a dinner? |
Is it possible that anyone- over his French“ragout”,
Or his “olio” stew that would bloat even a sow, Or his” fricassee” that would make her vomit, In total disgust – Could look down in a sneering, scornful way On such a dinner as this haggis? |
| Verse 6: Those Who Eat Effete French Dishes Are Disparaged
Poor devil! See him owre his trash As feckless as a wither’d rash, His spindle shank a guid whip-lash His nieve a nit; Thro’ bloody flood or field to dash O how unfit!
|
Poor devil! Just look at him eating his trashy fare,
As feeble as a withered reed, His skinny leg, thin as the end of a whip, His dainty fist small as a hazelnut; How unfit he is to play a dashing part In battles at sea or on the land! |
| Verse 7: By Contrast, Tribute is Paid to the Formidable Nature of Haggis-Fed Men
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed, The trembling earth resounds his tread Clap in his walie nieve a blade, He’ll mak it whissle; An’ legs an arms, an’ heads will sned, Like taps o’ thrissle. |
But consider the haggis-fed man from the country,
The very earth trembles beneath his heavy tread, Put a blade into his mighty fist, And he’ll make it whistle to good effect, Shearing off opponents’ legs and arms, and heads As easily as cutting off thistle tops. |
| Verse 8: The Gods Are Invoked To Keep
Scotland Supplied with Haggis Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care, And dish them out their bill o’ fare Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware That jaups in luggies; But, if ye wish her gratefu’ pray’r Gie her a Haggis! |
You Powers who look after mankind,
And distribute food among them, Old Scotland wants no watery dishes That splash around in their bowls; But, if you want her prayers of gratitude, Give her a Haggis! |
Address to a Haggis : The colour commentary
Verse 1
In the old days Burns extremists in Scotland would greet the entry of the haggis by standing on their chairs, putting their right foot on the table, drinking a dram of whisky, then tossing the empty glass back over their shoulders to the floor.
This is no longer advised. Because this is a mock epic, however, the person addressing the haggis tends to adopt a properly exaggerated tone, full of dramatic gestures.
Verse 2
Hurdies, translated here as hips, can also mean buttocks. Pin can mean hip-bone, but some believe that Burns was also making a pun on the virile nature of the jutting skewer. A mill would of course, contain the largest piece of machinery known to the poet’s audience.
Verse 3
The reference to His knife allows the orator to brandish the knife to great effect, before the actual moment of slicing. One hero in my presence turned in mid-brandish to lunge at the attendant chef who was standing respectfully beside him, and proceeded to impale his white chef ‘s hat. It is very important that this move be rehearsed with the chef.
A knowledgeable orator will pronounce dight, slight, bright and sight as licht, bricht,and sicht – as in “braw bricht moonlicht nicht”.
Verse 4
“Deil tak the hindmost” – devil take the hindmost – i.e. the slowest, has entered the general language. As has the parallel proverb based on spooning from a common dish: “ He who sups with the devil will need a long spoon”.
Verse 5
Note that sow rhymes with ragout and spew. If you wonder where hog-calling competitors of the U.S. got their “sooo-eee” call, look no further. The Scots (and the Scotch-Irish settlers from Ulster) who poured into the Appalachians to settle the American West originated the call when out on their homesteads in search of their sows, using the equivalent of “piggy, piggy”.
Verse 6
The orator usually lets himself/ herself go at this point, since the whole verse is ideally delivered through a sneer, with “Poor devil” properly pronounced “ puir deeil”, which goes well with a sneer.
Verse 7
Frequently a sturdy attendant is singled out as the rustic, haggis-fed, and his manly frame indicated , his shoulders clapped resoundingly, and so on. Equally effective is to single out a small, frail, bespectacled, undeniably urban figure for this role, preferably a blushing lawyer or accountant.
Verse 8
The final line, “Gie her a Haggis!”, is usually delivered as a climax ,with all the company joining in. Frequently this is followed by everyone drinking a toast of whisky. Or simply drinking more whisky, showing that they have grasped the essence of the event.
EDITING TIPS FROM DOUGLAS GIBSON (#29): BOTH SIDES NOW
As readers of this blog will recall, on occasion I tip-toe into the territory of giving advice on editing. Always with trepidation, because writing, in all its variety, tends to be resistant to rules, and editing is dictated by the writing that precedes it. So hard and fast rules about editing are hard to propound with total confidence.
Last month I was reminded of this when I had the “both sides now” experience of (A) editing, and (B) being edited. As an editor I had the pleasure of working, yet again, with my esteemed friend Terry Fallis, who has a new novel due out in the Fall. As I did my editorial stuff (jokingly telling Terry in the cover note that he would find the edited version “totally unrecognisable”) I was struck, as always, by how often the editor finds that with an experienced author the trick is simply to outline a potential problem area and to say, possibly in these very words, “You might want to think about this…”
Meanwhile, as an author, I’m benefitting, yet again, from the editorial attention of Jen Knoch of ECW, who is putting my manuscript under her microscope, suggesting that the reader doesn’t need to know this, but will be puzzled by that, and wondering if we really need this piece of history, and saying the equivalent of “You might want to think about this…”
It’s an intellectual challenge to respond to these questions and suggestions, and I know that my book is better as a result of Jen’s suggestions. I hope that Terry feels the same way.
But note my use of the word “suggestions” here. I recently heard about an editor – at a respected major publishing house – who was given a first novel to edit. The young novelist had heard about editors sometimes being very tough, so was relieved when the edited manuscript came back in electronic form as clean as a whistle. With not a single change suggested. It was only when he started to read this splendidly clean manuscript that he realised that the manuscript now contained scenes, and characters, that were new to him. The editor had not made mere suggestions, but had enthusiastically joined the project as, in effect, a co-author.
You’ll be glad to know that this editor – who had somehow missed Editing 101 – was promptly removed from the scene. But she may be floating around out there, somewhere.
ABOUT THE YOUNG POET, CLAIRE CALDWELL
In Scotland, my mother had a first cousin called Douglas Caldwell. (I may even have been named after him, since we had no previous Dougs in the family). After service in the Navy in the Second World War he disappeared, sailing for parts unknown. More than thirty years later he got in touch, to reveal that he now lived in Canada, in Toronto, the city that was now my home.
Even better, he revealed that he had three children , including a son named Doug, who was a Producer at CBC Radio, where I did free-lance things. It turned out that I and Doug and his wife Judy McAlpine, also a CBC Producer, had lots of friends in common. Exciting contact was made among these unknown cousins, and their children, and our lives were enriched as our families expanded.
That’s why in November Jane and I were delighted to have our house provide the setting for a launch party for a new book of poetry by Doug and Judy’s amazing daughter Claire. INVASIVE SPECIES is her first book, but followers of the poetry scene in Canada already know her as the 2013 winner of the Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize. She is a credit to McGill, where she got her B.A., and to Guelph, where she earned her MFA.
As for the poetry (which inspired the National Post to single her out as an important new voice) let me just quote from the first verse of “Bear Safety” (which Claire read aloud on our staircase):
Bears could be anywhere
On the subway at rush hour.
Between couch cushions.
In the drawer with dull pencils
and batteries and nothing
you need. In the eavestrough.
On a soccer field
during a lightning storm.
In the pocket of your dirty jeans,
your unlaced sneakers.
Run a hand under the sheets
before bedtime. Bears prefer to sleep
on Egyptian cotton.
They can usually tell if it’s cheap……..
INVASIVE SPECIES is published by Buckrider Books, an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.
AN ASTONISHING STORY ABOUT HUGH MACLENNAN
As you know from Stories About Storytellers I’ve long had a huge admiration for Hugh MacLennan. There’s a whole chapter in that book about him, full of admiring stories, showing how this man bestrode Canadian culture, carving a trail for other writers. You’ll recall that he won three Governor-General’s Awards for Fiction, but — just as important — also two for Non-Fiction, thanks to his wide-ranging essays.
My new book will have a chapter on him. While most of the chapters are centred on a Province (“Saskatchewan!” or “The Coasts of B.C.”) his is simply “Hugh MacLennan’s Canada”. As you’d expect, it deals with Halifax, and Montreal, and Quebec City, and Sherbrooke and his beloved Eastern Townships, including North Hatley, where he died in 1990.
But since Hugh was also the author of The Colour of Canada, and The Rivers of Canada (where as a young editor I played a role as a minor tributary) for this book of Literary Tourism I have him take us right across the country, to the roaring Fraser in the West, and the mighty Mackenzie in the north. His love of the country comes through in every line he wrote.
He was such a major Canadian figure that he was often called up for national assignments. In 1958 the country was facing a General Election, with two leaders who were not well known, Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker (who had just won an unexpected minority). To allow people to get to know them better Maclean’s magazine selected Hugh to be one of a panel of three interviewers, with Pierre Berton as the Chair.
The interview with Diefenbaker did not go well . Here is how Pierre Berton described it in his memoir, My Times : “When the interview ended and the prime minister left, I looked at Hugh MacLennan, who was clearly badly shaken by the encounter. “The thought of that man being prime minister…” he kept saying. Suddenly he hurried to the washroom and threw up.”
There are other, much more surprising revelations about Hugh in the book.
Douglas Gibson 