Readings in Tough City (aka Tofino)

For those of you on the west coast there are two readings next week by local writers.

On October 28, Chris Lowther launches her new book of poetry, My Nature. 7 pm at the Darwin's Cafe in the Tofino Botanical Gardens.


On October 29, Caroline Woodward launches Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny. 7 pm at the Salal Room at the Wickaninnish Inn.

Remembrance Day Trio

This will come late to anyone hoping to plan something for the classroom or library, but, honestly, these books are good enough to haul out whenever you are discussing war, peace, poetry, history, and the lives of children here and there. I have just emerged from a very long book project and this was the earliest I could get to making this post, but these titles have been a diversion in the past for weeks for which I've been very grateful.

Linda Granfield, one of the finest non-fiction writers in Canada, has one new book out this year: Remembering John McCrae: Solidier, Doctor, Poet and, from last year, there is The Unknown Soldier.

I suspect that almost every child in Canada can recite at least the first few lines of "In Flanders fields, the poppies grow / Beneath the crosses, row on row...". Granfield's book brings depth to this poem as we learn the story of John McCrae, the man who scribbled it on a scrap of paper in honour of his friend, Alexis Helmer. This is just the kind of book I love—a running story line supported by a plethora of photos, paintings, journal excerpts, ephemera (even a photo of bone forceps) which adds graphical, and textual, interest to the pages. I can imagine a child browsing through the book, being drawn in by these images. Quotations from McCrae's letters and journals allow us to hear from McCrae himself.

This book is many things, but one thing that struck me after I finished is how it helps bring context to poetry. I think poetry if often intimidating to people, young and not so, and there is somehow a feeling of inadequacy when trying to "understand" it. But poetry is a source of expression — be it of joy or grief — and this book helps give context to that expression and somehow, I hope, make poetry — or at least the idea of poetry — more accessible to everyone.

Here's a review from Canadian Materials.

Apropos to this book, there is a show discussing Remembrance Day on the radio and one of the hosts just said that one of the greatest sorrows of veterans is to be forgotten. Was is such a tragic waste of life — usually young life — and with each death, a bit more of the human potential is lost. Memorials to the Unknown Soldiers help to remind us of those who were lost, and, tragically, never repatriated. These monuments give a place for people to remember all of the men who died and buried on the battlefield.

The Unknown Soldier also brings us to "The Unknown" monuments throughout the world as Granfield describes the monuments in 15 countries. The traditions surrounding these monuments was most interesting to me. In Moscow, for instance, it is a wedding tradition for newlyweds to leave flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Being one who enjoys visiting graveyards — they always seem very beautiful to me — I also enjoyed the spread explaining the symbols on gravestones. These sorts of details may be the perfect conduit to bring children into this book. The Unknown Soldier is another valuable addition to any bookshelf.

Here's a review from Canadian Materials.

Finally, the book Too Young to Fight: Memories From Out Youth During World War II compiled by Priscilla Galloway. I suspect this book is out of print now as it was first published ten years ago and, its publisher, Stoddart, is no longer with us. It is a gem, however, so worth searching for. (Wait! It's been republished by Fitzhenry and Whiteside!) Books about war are almost always about people fighting the war, but there were many ways in which people were affected. Perhaps a parent went to the battlefield, or your town was bombed, or you were interned because of your ethnicity. This book includes the remembrances of 12 Canadian writers who "were too young to fight." I'll confess that it's awhile since I've read this book, but it's on my stack for later today.

I'm not sure exactly how to sign off, but I can't help but remember a childhood friend of my sister's who brought my parents a "Happy Remembrance Day" card. Perhaps she didn't quite have the sentiment of the day right, but it was certainly memorable!

One More Alphabet Book

Okay, a week or so ago I said I was going to review some alphabet books and then stopped at two. Not much of a list, so here’s another one: M is for Maple: A Canadian Alphabet. Another one from Sleeping Bear Press in Chelsea, Michigan. Apparently they have plans for one from each province (and territory perhaps?). If, like me, you’re wondering why an American publisher is so keen on Canadian content here’s some insight from the June 2008 issue of Quill and Quire: “…publisher Heather Hughes grew up in PEI and also lived in Edmonton before settling in Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

First, the Q, X and Z test:

Q is for Quebec
X marks the spot (where the Last Spike was driven)
Z is for zipper

I like how the author has handled the Z, which was actually not designed by a Canadian:

Z stands for Zipper, which everyone knows
is very important in tents and in clothes
A U.S. inventor had a zipperish notion
but it took a Canadian to get the zipper in motion.

In the notes that accompany this page, he adds more information. (The zipper was invented by an American, but it was perfected and patented by Canadian Gideon Sundback.)

The Canadiana covered in this title is broad indeed: Anne of Green Gables, Kim Campbell, the Dionne quints, Eh, northern lights, Ojibwa, Stampede, Underground Railway, etc. It’s a cursory look at the country, of course, but what can one do with only 52 entries. (Each entry has a main entry – the rhyming text – and then another entry for that letter. For example, U covers both Underground Railway and Ukranians.)

This title is written by Mike Ulmer and beautifully illustrated by Melanie Rose. Ulmer, who is the sport’s columnist at the Toronto Star, has also written a few other alphabet books, including J is for Jumpshot: A Basketball Alphabet and H is for Horse: An Equestrian Alphabet. Rose has been the illustrator for a number of Sleeping Bear titles and it's clear why -- her illustrations support the text well and, in particular, she captures the essence of people well. A particular favourite is the joy on the gold seeker's (K is for Klondike) face as well as the two children playing in a pile of ruby red maple leaves (M is for maple.) This last image is used on the cover.

Here’s a review from Canadian Materials and here's a teacher's guide.

Happy Poetry Month

Forget April Fool's Day, today is the first day of National Poetry Month. So git yerself to your local bookstore, library, or bookshelf in a home near you and crack open the spine on a book of poetry. If you have any young poets kicking around you might check out the activities sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets for Young Poets' Week, April 7 to 13th. The theme for this year's celebration is Poetry Without Borders, where the Leage asks poets to ponder:

How can poetry celebrate the diversity of cultural traditions in Canada?
What are the possibilities for multilingual poetry events?
How can poetry combine with other forms of creative expression?
What does poetry without borders mean to you?

In our family we have, on and off over the last couple of years, read a poem before dinner. Usually they are funny kids' poems, but that's just fine with us. So that's one way to celebrate the month. Do you have other ideas? Send 'em on over.

The Braid (in all its permutations)

I wrote one of my local history pieces not too long ago about a family forced off their land in Scotland who eventually made their was to the west coast. With that era of history on my mind, plus my love of Cape Breton and interest in verse novels, I was primed, ready and eager to read The Braid by Helen Frost.

It's 1850 and The Highland Clearances are forcing people off the land. The landlords have decided it's more profitable to raise sheep than to collect rents from tenants. Sisters Jeannie and Sarah, along with their family, are being forced off their land on the Isle of Barra. They are due to sail to Canada (destined for Cape Breton) in a few days. The night before they are to leave, the sisters weave their hair together in a braid and then curl up to sleep. When Jeannie awakes, she sees that Sarah has cut off the braid and left half for her sister. As we will learn, Sarah has gone to stay with her grandmother on a nearby island, rather than take the voyage to Canada. With this scene, we have the first braid.

But there are more. In The Braid, Frost alternates narrative poems by Sarah and Jeannie. In between each narrative poem, is a praise poem, which praises something in the narrative. We see the girls' lives unfold, the tragedies and sadness, but also moments of hope and joy. All of the family except Jeannie, brother William, and their mother, die on the journey to Canada and they arrive with nothing. Back in Scotland, Sarah goes to live with her grandmother, on the nearby island of Mingulay, where life is also hardscrabble but, for now at least, they can stay on the land.

For those intrigued, a bit of Googling will find more of the plot laid out for you, but I think it's better to let it unfold as you read. There was also a huge surprise for me at the end, which made it all the better. SPOILER -- if you plan to read this book, don't read on.

Frost has taken the metaphor of a braid, and Celtic knots, to make literal braids through the story with her poetry techniques. First, the praise poems are braided horizontally. so, the last line of one praise poem is braided into the first line of the next praise poem.

So, for example, the last line of Mussels is: white inside, shining like the sun. The first line of the next praise poem, Hair, is: white, shining in the sun, Grandma's/hair winds round her head, a braid,....

Then, the longer narrative poems are braided vertically. The last words of each line in one narrative poem are the first words of each line in the following narrative poem (sometimes slightly varied). Here's one line of The Braid: Willie fussed, and wouldn't go to sleep. It was late, we were/ and the corresponding line of After Three Days: Were they angry? Could they understand how this place holds me, so/....

And...at the end of the story, when Jeannie is weaving a braid, images and words from the first two narrative poems, as well as the subjects of all of the praise poems, are woven into the lines of the last two narrative poems.

But wait, there's even more! Each line of the narrative poems has the same number of syllables as the narrator's age. When Jeannie is fourteen, each line has fourteen syllables and so on. Finally, each praise poem is composed of eight lines, each with eight syllables.

So, having read all this you may be wondering, Is this a gimmic? I doubt it, and if so, what a HUGE amount of work to go to in order to pull it off. The story is a solid one -- it is solidly grounded in historical fact with enough tension and passion created for the characters to pull you along. I enjoy historical fiction and poetry, so it was a shoe-in for me. When I finished it and clued in (duh) to the intricate style I just wanted to read it over again.

I have one small quibble. In Sarah's narrative poem Such Immense Love, Sarah and Murdo are out on the cliffs of Mingulay where they are wont to wander. After I read this: Waves crashed onto the cliffs below us, and we -- kissed./In love, they say, as if love is a place you enter-- as if we/ slice open time and find a whole new island inside one moment./I'm shaken by the strength of this. Does what we did together mean/I'm going to have a child? Why did no one warn me?... Okay, so I read that and figured that Sarah, like so many other girls through history who have no knowledge of sex, assumed that kissing meant you could get pregnant. But, no, as we learn, "what we did together" was actually having sex. When I later learned she's pregnant, I went, Hey, wait a minute, and had to go back and re-read this passage. Did I miss something? Obviously. This "loss of virginity passage" was just a little too vague and cagey for moi. Overall, a small quibble, however, in a very enjoyable, and ambitious, verse novel.

You can read some more reviews here, from Fuse #8 and here's an interview with Frost from School Library Journal. The author also has some great links about the location, the history, the book (including review excerpts) on her website.

Remembrance Day Reading - 1

With Remembrance Day on the horizon, I thought a post on a few great Canadian titles to share with kids. For younger readers, ages 5 to 9 or so, there is Heather Patterson's A Poppy is to Remember (North Winds Press, 2004). This picture book, with lovely images by the fabulous Ron Lightburn, explains the symbolism of the poppy and how this flower became the symbol of remembrance. You can hear a podcast review on Just One More Book.

Pausing with Poetry

After an intensive few weeks of writing about robots (a new kids' book) I took a short break yesterday afternoon and spent the afternoon with my writing group at a workshop given by one of my favourite poets, Kate Braid. Kate has an endowed "chair" at SFU for the year that allows her to do outreach, so we were thrilled she agreed to come to us. It was a beautiful day, the sun stream into our workspace and we looked out onto the mudflats, the flocks of shorebirds providing diversion. We did a few writing exercises, but what I enjoyed most was the discussion of "form poetry." As opposed to free verse, form poetry is anything that (obviously) follows a form, so sonnets, ballands, haiku, etc. I found it very interesting and there were so many that I'd never heard of -- ghazals, palindromes (I know what the word means, but had never encountered it with poetry), glosa, pantoum, and more. I suprised myself by getting excited about this discussion. Not being one who finds writing about poetry easy, I liked the idea of using a particular form as a starting point. In many ways, I think the structure forces you into more creativity, rather than just being free to go wherever you want, as you can in free verse. I walked away with Kate's new book: In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry.


Here is one of my favourite poems of Kate's, from her book To This Cedar Fountain. (In this book she writes poems in response to Emily Carr's paintings.)

Trunks

Her trees are Michelangelo's sculptures
not born to Italy but conceived
in the passionate heart
of British Columbia
by a self-confessed old spinster.

Buttocks and thighs, muscle and flesh
rise from canvas so clear
that hands lift, fingers twitch
impolitely.

No wonder she wants
to be alone
in the woods
with the trees.

by Kate Braid

Other books by Kate: Covering Rough Ground and Inward to the Bone: Georgia O'Keefe's Journey with Emily Carr. Check them out!

The Crazy Man
As any of you interested in children's lit. will know, The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter won this year's GG in the children's lit. category. I'd read a few reviews and decided to give it a read. My copy from the library arrived just as we were to go on a road trip so I read it to my family as we were driving. All of us, ages 9 to 52, were captivated by the story of Emaline and "the crazy man", Angus. The story is told in a prose poem, which was intriguing to me and new to my children, but it really worked. My husband, who once worked at a "mental" (a terrible name, I know, but that sentiment was fairly common I believe) and grew up in a town that could very well have been the one in the novel, said it captured the essence of small prairie town life in the '50s wonderfully. Emaline, Angus, the mother, father, Mei, the neighbours (who think the presence of the "crazy man" next door is a threat to their safety), ... every character is very believable and you've just got to love a character "who can speak meadowlark" and "see colors around people." After that weekend, I bought the book. It is one I know I will come back to time and again.

The Crazy Man is published by Groundwood Books.
Cover illustration above by Karine Daisay