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#61 Fall 2009

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Migration Songs - Anna QuonAnna Quon’s debut novel Migration Songs tackles two weighty subjects rarely touched in Atlantic Canadian literature: the hidden lives of immigrants and the lonely isolation of mental illness, and she steps up to the challenge with grace and sensitivity.

Joan is a jobless 30-year-old loner, who pacifies her clinging anxiety by sucking on cough drops. Protected like lions by her parents, a therapist and Edna, a matronly Hungarian neighbour, Joan struggles to understand her place in the world, and the people around her. When Joan recalls how her parents met—her British father, David, is a staunch Mao supporter, and her mother Gillian, is a Chinese Canadian immigrant who became pregnant weeks after David spotted her in London’s Hyde Park—the story arrives well-worn and rehearsed; a tale that Joan says, “gripped me, overshadowing my own.” A large chunk of Migration Songs is dedicated to David and Gillian’s history: Perhaps Quon sees this as the fate of immigrant children—to forever be in the shadow of their parents. Though Joan says she was never bothered being a “sideshow, an afterthought. But something calls to me from the future—a bird sound, like that of geese in flight…”

Unlike Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For, a panoramic look at young second-generation Canadians living in downtown Toronto, Quon’s Halifax is a nondescript blur. Joan has created such a small life for herself she doesn’t seem to notice her surroundings. It’s an intimate place—in part because of Quon’s use of the present tense, first person—and there’s a real sense of privilege that, as readers, we’re allowed in, especially as Joan discovers troubling secrets about the people she most trusts.

There are moments when Quon’s confident writing flies beyond expectations of a first-time novelist. A sound of applause is “rain on the surface of the water” and unhappiness “bloomed like a dark, night-loving flower.” Migration Songs also showcases the continuing maturity of Invisible Publishing, and the importance of having a regional publisher dedicated to giving a voice to the quiet and often forgotten among us.

Migration Songs
By Anna Quon
$16.95, paperback, 224 pp.
Invisible Publishing, October 2009

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Coming to terms. Life can change in a heartbeat and while some adjust reasonably soon to a shock, others, like Helen, take 25 years to survive, in her case the disaster on the oil-rig that took the life of her husband and 80 more. Twenty five years of sorrow, of mourning, of living in the past and simply not accepting, leave her with loneliness as her solace and best friend, while she exists, filling her hours with yoga and her grandchildren and not really knowing that life can still be good. The circle, however, needs to be completed and more changes occur – an unexpected pregnancy for her son and a girl he barely knew, and Helen could really feel again.

The story is one thing, the way it is told the other. Complex yet clear, compelling and profound, the style is a joy to read and Lisa Moore’s story-spinning gift is great. Her people become our people, her richly described settings our own. We move into Helen’s Newfoundland and read about its folklore as we grieve with her. We see the dawn breaking and we trust that finally she will, too. We travel with her son John from his Icelandic break with Jane and its hectic results to Tasmania, Singapore and New York and suffer with him as he struggles to acknowledge this most profound of all changes affecting his own life. We are with Jane when John questions it all and wants an abortion and feel her anger and resolution. We play with Helen’s grandchildren and worry about her unsupported parenting skills which keep touching her. Her 15-year-old daughter becomes pregnant and she slaps her. We experience Helen’s emotions as she travels from the horror of the past to the present and back again, seamlessly, and her quest for acceptance and, ultimately, survival becomes ours.

We taste the stews, the spareribs and the snails; we sense the fog and hear the dogs bark and the profanities of New York’s street people as we fly between the dreams and the reality. We experience Cal’s life with her, their arguments and their making up, and his death through his own eyes as well as through Helen’s. With her, we accept we are all part of the same community of ordinary spirits, some with more courage than others, most with the same worries and concerns, the same rite of passage from birth, through adolescence, wedding nights, childbirth to death with Valentine’s Day cards, Christmas and Darfur in between, when the plumbing goes wrong, the sills are rotting and the house needs painting. But souls will soar. Even the mundane becomes special. Cal couldn’t swim.

As Helen finally comes to terms with the loss of Cal, so she is freed up to find life and, Lisa Moore gives us reason to hope, happiness anew. There is a future, it is looking good, and we can breathe again.

February
By Lisa Moore
$29.95, paperback, 320 pp.
House of Anansi, June 2009

 

 

 

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Buddhist practice and thought influences more aspects of our lives than ever before

Buddhist writings make sense; they are definitely works for our current age. These days Buddhist practice and thought is influencing more aspects of our lives than ever before, moving into mainstream culture, attracting readers in the arts, the environment, business, hospice care, psychotherapy, and, my discipline, yoga. Publications cover every aspect of living, from parenting and children’s books to recycling and philosophy.

As Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief of Shambhala Sun periodical in Halifax and editor of Best Buddhist Writings 2009, says, they are not just for committed Buddhists, but for anyone who seeks thoughtful direction in life.

At Westminster Books in Fredericton, New Brunswick, marketing person Gloria Nickerson says there is a constant interest in Buddhist books from the very active Buddhist community in that area. “Biographies of the Buddha such as Deepak Chopra’s new one are currently popular”, she says. “There is also an increasing number of what we call cross-over books, such as Buddhism and business, which suggest a Buddhist approach to doing business.” Mike Munro is co-owner of Therapeutic Approach Yoga Studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches and offers Yoga Teacher Training. He belongs to the Halifax Nalandabodhi Study Group. Members practice and study the teaching of the Buddha under the direction of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche who is acknowledged as one of the foremost scholars of his generation in the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche has three books in print: Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of Samantabhadra, Wild Awakening, and Mind Beyond Death. The latter has been described as an indispensable guidebook through the journey of life and death.

Mike says, “A key book that helped start my journey was The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chödrön. I am currently reading Brilliant Moon by H H Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. It’s an autobiography about my Guru Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s teacher. It’s very revealing and inspiring to read about the life of your Guru’s guru. Another book that inspired my journey was Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. It talks about meditation and integrating it with daily life and family and creating enlightened society. These two books really helped me understand the meditation journey and encouraged me to make it a part of my daily life.”

There are a number of Shamabala Meditation Centres throughout the Atlantic region. Usually they provide free, qualified meditation instruction and a wide range of classes and programs in meditation and Buddhist teachings. Some centres offer special programs for children; often including art projects and theatre; all promoting mindfulness.

Talking to a Shambhala member from Saint John, New Brunswick, books mentioned were The Myth of Freedom, and Journey Without Goal by Chogyam

Trungpa Rinpoche. Meeting the Buddhas: A Guide to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Tantric Deities, by Vessantara, was also recommended. The Buddhist authors most often enthused about are the Dalai Lama, Pema Chödrön, Chogyam Trungpa and Thich Nhat Hahn.

Several years ago, serendipitously I picked up a book that had an immediate and lasting influence on my life and teaching. Thich Nhat Hahn’s joyful teaching on ‘mindfulness’ immediately resonated. A concept I recognised as needed in my own life and which became a focus in my yoga practice and teaching. It’s a word I use daily. When I do meditations, particularly with beginners, we use his Mindfulness of Breathing Meditations.

Other books that have affected me include the Dalai Lama’s writings, Cave in the Snow, a fascinating story of a British woman, student of Chogyam Trungpa, who became a Buddhist nun. Underlying the connection between yoga and Buddhism I have studied with Frank Jude Boccio, yoga teacher and ordained dharma teacher. His book Mindfulness Yoga is a very accessible read.

 

So it was with a sense of anticipation I opened the first of the two books reviewed here. Reading Taking the Leap, the latest book by Pema Chödrön, the renowned American Buddhist nun now teaching at Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, it was as if she was sitting on the tree-shaded deck with me talking, elucidating, encouraging my mind to open to the freeing, the letting go, the pausing. All necessary, she believes, for us to break free of old habits and attachments, to be present and stop our ‘knee jerk’ reactions to situations. I am familiar, like most people, I imagine, with shenpa, the Tibetan word for that tightening, shaking in the belly we experience in uncomfortable situations. Pausing, taking three long, slow, conscious breaths helps us find balance and prevents the accustomed response.

Pema Chödrön’s writing is clear, down to earth. The precepts she offers are universal; we are with her all the way. It’s as though we have always had these thoughts, this knowledge but been unable to articulate it. She brings it to the front of our minds with clarity, and a touch of humour. Read this book a chapter at a time, meditatively savour it, embrace it. It’s important because it is ‘the’ leap not just ‘a’ leap.

McLeod edits the annual collections of Best Buddhist Writings. Of Pema Chödrön he says, “I love her writing. Her message is hard-nosed, demanding, the ultimate teaching from a core of honesty. Her writing has evolved from personal to the global.”

In the 2009 edition of Best Buddhist Writings you will discover powerful and inspiring articles, essays and stories that speak to contemporary issues. Many are personal, some narrative, others teach, are analytical, intellectual. Taking a break in my garden while reading I knew exactly what Wendy Johnson meant when she wrote; “Sitting still on the earth restores you to yourself.” You will be inspired by the couple coping with Alzheimer’s, by the meditation on dealing with death; filled with sorrow, yet a sense of delight reading of the rare blossom that was infant Liam; touched by ‘Santa without the suit’, respond to Thich Nhat Hahn’s clarion call for eco-spirituality and certainly laugh out loud with Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

Both books are concerned with our relationship with others, the environment and the world. The writings help us to face life’s difficulties and concerns, openly and directly, working to alleviate suffering for all beings. They are salutary and stimulating.

Dan Keating, member of the Fredericton Shambhala Meditation Centre, sums it up succinctly; “What I appreciate about a lot of Buddhist writing is a willingness to look at things “as they are”, without having to dress things up particularly. I think this is refreshing for some people and somewhat stark for others. Buddhist writing can be very mundane on one hand and profound and deeply challenging on the other.”

This story was originally published in the fall 2009 issue of Atlantic Books Today

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Lorne Elliot

Funnyman Lorne Elliott takes on the stage, a novella, The Word on the Street Book and Magazine Festival…and scotch

Writers gather ideas from some pretty strange places, but Lorne Elliott may have come up with one of the most original: he’s literally planting a story in his yard.

The well-known humourist, musician, playwright and former host of CBC Radio’s Madly Off in All Directions has embarked on an experiment that he refers to as “turning my lawn into a case of scotch.”

He has sown his lawn with barley and intends to harvest the grain, dry it over a peat fire and cold-distill it in a snow bank—a process that he says forms a handy loophole in Canada’s liquor distillation prohibition. From there, he hopes to have created both a delicious alcoholic beverage and fodder for one of his distinctive, wacky, slice-of-Canadian-life stories.

“It’s literally grist for the mill,” he says with a dry chuckle during a phone interview from his summer home on Prince Edward Island. “A huge part of writing is experiencing, and this is the kind of experience I dream up for myself.”

Elliott, a man completely at peace with the designation “jack of all trades, master of none”, is pleased to be adding “novelist” to the catalogue of his accomplishments. His novella The Fixer-Upper is an adaptation of his play Tourist Trap, a work which he originally conceived as a radio comedy told in seven phone conversations.

The Fixer-Upper is the story of the tribulations of the luckless but lovable Bruno MacIntyre, a resident of the fictional community of Savage Bay on PEI’s South Shore. Bruno’s mishaps while renovating an inherited cottage and his dealings with his tart-tongued Aunt Tillie and difficult tenants make for some zany adventures, as well as some keen observations about human nature.

“I strive to communicate things to people, and a really nice way to do that is through humour,” says Elliott. “Just because something is funny, it doesn’t mean there isn’t some sort of serious message too, although the critics might discount that idea. But humour is certainly a way to keep people interested in what you have to say.”

Elliott says that while the structure of the story from Tourist Trap remains the same, turning it into a novel allowed him to really delve into the interior voices of his characters.

When asked whether the characters are based on people he knows from the island, Elliott chuckles again. “Like a lot of writers, I think my characters are a way for me to explore some things about myself. You know how Flaubert said ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi.’? Well, Aunt Tillie, c’est moi.”

Elliott is currently on a tour with his one-man show that will take him from Newfoundland to British Columbia, and is looking forward to his appearance at Halifax’s Word on the Street in September. Although he’s not sure whether his appearance there will take the form of a performance or a straight reading, one thing is certain: There will be no sampling of his home-grown scotch involved.

“I’m afraid it won’t be ready in time,” he says with a sigh. “Talk to me after Christmas.”

This article was originally published in the Fall 2009 issue of Atlantic Books Today

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Dawe-Squires

The book, Where Genesis Begins, was a project thirty years in the making

Where Genesis Begins is a collaboration of two of Newfoundland’s foremost artists; Tom Dawe, a profoundly visual poet, and Gerald Squires, a profoundly poetic painter. The book contains thirty-seven poems by Dawe, twenty-nine of which have not been published before, and seventy-one works of art by Squires. ABT’s Stephen Patrick Clare spoke with both men about the process of working together.

SC: Tell me about the genesis of Where Genesis Begins.

GS: Tom and I have known each other for at least thirty years and every time we would run into each other we would have a laugh and agree that we ought to do a book together. Finally, I put my foot down and asked him to send me some of his new poems. Over the course of about two years I would sit with his work and let it speak to me and then try to match those words with what I thought might visually capture their spirit.

TD: Gerry and I talked about a book for years, not sure exactly what that book might be—until about three years ago when he suggested the title, one of his major paintings inspired by lines from Patrick Kavanagh’s To The Man After The Harrow. Suddenly it made perfect sense. I had a dozen poems already completed and dozens more in my head, so I got to work. We planned a collaboration of art and poetry, though the paintings and drawings would not necessarily be exact illustrations of the poems.

SC: What were some of the difficulties you faced in putting a work of this scope and size together?

GS: Aside from finally getting down to actually doing it after talking about it for so long, there were really no major challenges working with Tom. The process was very smooth and natural right from the get-go. I have always admired him as a man and as a poet and I knew that we would likely be able to bring out the best in each other.

TD: For me, poetry is always challenging. Deep in my bones, I know what Auden meant when he said that, upon finishing a new poem, he felt like someone who might never write another. In the last year of the project, I worried even more, especially with a deadline from our publisher. I knew Gerry had an abundance of quality work collected from his prolific career, so I was determined not to disappoint anybody.

SC: What was the most rewarding part of the process?

GS: Watching it all unfold was certainly very exciting for both of us; to see that magic taking place. But I think that getting to know Tom better and seeing how well we work together was reward in itself for me.

TD: Aside from the satisfaction of creating a new body of poetry and watching a beautiful art book take shape, the most rewarding was a closer friendship with Gerry and his wife Gail.

SC: What did you learn during the process?

GS: I learned that even a couple of guys who have been around a while and are getting on in life can still contribute work that is good and important.

TD: I learned much, but the best of it resides in that way of knowing what St. Augustine was talking about when he said: “I know until you ask me.”

SC: What has the response to the work been like so far?

GS: Absolutely fantastic so far. In fact, it has been so good that I am just waiting for the other foot to drop.

TD: The critical response has been excellent—and those who know us, friends and community, are hailing it as a work long overdue.

SC: What happens now? Are you working on something new together?

GS: I have a few solo things on the go, but both Tom and I agree that this experience has been so positive that there is no reason not to have another go at it. So we have started that process already.

TD: We are always thinking about new projects. Right now Gerry is working on seven new drawings for a small, special limited edition of my light verse, Caligula’s Horse and Other Creatures.

This article was originally published in the Fall 2009 issue of Atlantic Books Today