Tuesday, 22 July 2008

"Important companions"





[NEIGHBOURHOOD CHRONICLES 2]
Twenty or so years ago, novelist and translator David Homel referred to our street, in a journalistic piece, as amiably run-down Roy Street. In the intervening years since then, gentrification had its way (and it must be said we were part of the process)—rooming houses became single-family dwellings once again and condos sprang up like urban mushrooms. Not long ago the city planted trees and the Plateau Mont-Royal borough is becoming greener year by year.

Regrettably, the future does not look good for the young trees lining the streets of our neighbourhood. Due to the high-speed kamikaze tactics of the borough’s mini Caterpillar drivers who barrel down our narrow streets during the winter months gouging trees (and hydro poles) as they go, the trees are at risk. In our own survey (both sides of Roy Street between Laval and Colonial; and both sides of Colonial Avenue between Roy and Napoléon), out of a total of 40 trees, 32, or 80%, have been damaged. At greatest risk are the trees on Coloniale. In a recent newspaper article, City of Montreal executive committee member Helen Fotopulos was quoted: “Trees are our most important companions... particularly in the downtown boroughs where every tree counts.” Let’s hope that as the mayor of Plateau-Mont Royal, she takes steps to preserve our green heritage.

Monday, 21 July 2008

Maisonneuve Online

A couple of interesting pieces over at the Maisonneuve site. Toronto poet Jason Guriel files a hilarious report on the June 3 and 4 Griffin Poetry Prize events. And Vancouver poet Zach Wells releases his correspondance with publishers FSG on the issue of Elizabeth Bishop's Canadian identity.

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

Canada Day Poem

The newest Signal Edition, fresh as of last month, is Christopher Wiseman's 36 Cornelian Avenue, a collection of poems that revisits -- to powerful effect -- Wiseman's wartime childhood in Scarborough, England.

Richard Harrison, who read with Christopher at the launch in Calgary, e-mailed us afterward with these thoughts about the book.

"It's a kind of making peace with wounds and a settling, too, of scores. My own mother was evacuated from London during the Blitz, but she rarely talks about the experience. Reading Chris's book, I get a glimpse of why. It's a fascinating reflection on the nature of the self. My favourite line: "Another train and I'd be someone else." That war threw so much into chaos. I don't think that much -- really -- settled back. We have no idea what we'd have been had it not happened."

The story Wiseman tells gives us a sense of the larger price paid for the national birthday we celebrate today. Here, from 36 Cornelian Avenue, Wiseman takes stock and counts his blessings.

SOUNDS OF WAR

The worldwide roaring after dark
as the heavy loaded bombers climbed
ponderously from all those airfields,
one huge solid noise, an hour
or more, trembling the kitchen plates.

The Wheatcroft siren, shattering night,
its slow start, its pulsing waves sharp
but full, filling all our houses,
all our heads, pulling us, feared
and flushed, from sleep into the shelter.

My young brother's deep coughing.
His own war – pneumonia then croup,
my mother sitting with him all night.
Dr. Roxburgh's car up the road,
buzzing to our door. Her voice.

And wonderful, cheerful, in all of this,
Mrs. Johnson's familiar loud
yodel, heard right down in the woods,
bringing news to her sons, as we played,
that food was on their table, ready.

Thursday, 26 June 2008

"POETRY IS NOT BORING"

Over at Harriet, the Poetry foundation blog, DA Powell has dug up a hilarious piece called "Creeley Crawlies" which gives a failing grade to a poetry reading by the late Robert Creeley. Says Powell: "It describes a feeling that so many of us might have had at a poetry reading, at one time or another. Good to remind ourselves that no poet should rest on his or her laurels."

Thursday, 19 June 2008

Air Canada resolves author's dilemma

[This is the text of a Véhicule Press release sent out today.]

Over the past several weeks, Calgary-based author Jaspreet Singh encountered difficulties when checking in to Air Canada flights at Canadian airports. Mistaken for someone else with a similar name he has been intensely questioned and informed his name appeared on a no-fly list. Rather than experience the demeaning process once again, Singh cancelled two book events in Toronto, June 14 and 15.

Jaspreet Singh and his publisher were extremely concerned by the situation, especially because the author was in the middle of promotional tours for his recently-published novel, Chef, In a story that appeared in the Calgary Herald (June 17), a spokesperson for Transport Canada stated that Jaspreet Singh was not on Canada’s no-fly list. In a conversation Jaspreet Singh had today with Laura Logan, Director of Security for Air Canada, the author was told that he was not on the domestic or American no-fly lists, however, that there is another person with his name on the airline’s “internal” no-fly list, and that the airline would take steps so that this problem does not occur again.

Jaspreet Singh is the author of the short story collection, Seventeen Tomatoes: Tales from Kashmir and the recently-published novel, Chef.

Picture worth a thousand words

Véhicule co-publisher Simon Dardick and winner Simone Lee
in classic promo shot.

That might be the proverb, however, Simone Lee will find out this fall when Terence Byrnes, author of Closer to Home: The Author and the Author Portrait, will travel to Calgary to photograph her. Simone, of the much-beloved Pages Books on Kensington Bookstore, won the drawing at the Véhicule Press booth at BookExpo Canada in Toronto on June 16. The portrait contest was for librarians and booksellers attending the show.

Closer to Home fixes its gaze on writers as we seldom see them. Byrnes’ photographic portraiture explores and subverts the traditional photographic representation of the writer—portraits that take us inside writers’ lives and inside the process of making portraits—all served with a touch of refined literary gossip.

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Kafka in Kanada

Fall of Icarus (Bruegel The Elder, 1558)

Fed up with extreme security checks by Air Canada at both Calgary and Montreal airports, Véhicule Press author Jaspreet Singh reluctantly cancelled two appearance in Torontothis past weekend. He was to have participated in a main-stage event at the Luminato Toronto Festival of the Arts on June 14 and at the BookExpo trade show on June 15, part of an author tour to promote his recently-published novel, Chef.

In April he was intensely questioned by Air Canada in Calgary before he was able to board his plane to attend launchings and readings in Ottawa and Montreal. “Air Canadaemployees informed me that I was on a ‘list’ but refused to give me particulars … On the return flight [from Montreal] Air Canada staff made the preposterous suggestion that I change my name…”

Yesterday’s Calgary Herald reports that they contacted Transport Canada and were told that Singh was not on Canada’s no-fly list. An Air Canada spokesperson confirmed that they received a faxed complaint from Singh which he sent May 9 and that they would be in contact with him.
Please see the Véhicule Press June 14 press release and coverage in the Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail and the Quill & Quire Blog.