So what if this is old. It’s good:

Heidi Julavits, the 35-year-old co-editor of The Believer , the new Dave Eggers–sponsored literary magazine, arrived for her interview dressed in a style that might be called haute zoologist: angular tortoise-shell glasses, khaki zip-front jacket over a white polo shirt, and a denim skirt. And on Friday, May 2, Ms.Julavits acted like she was stepping into a cage with a dangerous beast.

"I definitely felt that by agreeing to do this, I was putting my head in the lion’s mouth," said Ms. Julavits with a nervous laugh-and all her laughs were nervous-as she nursed a Coca-Cola at Sebastian Junger’s bar, Half King, on 23rd Street. Ms. Julavits was self-conscious because she recently named The Observer one of the "laboratories" of a nefarious "disorder": "I call it Snark," she wrote in an essay of some 10,000 words, "The Snarky, Dumbed-Down World of Book Reviewing," which appeared in The Believer ‘s premiere issue in March [2003]. In it, she earnestly chides the literary-industrial complex of book reviewers for succumbing to a "hostile, knowing, bitter tone of contempt" that is suffocating the creative lives of the literati."

Snark: exhibiting the lowest levels of anti-intellectualism or an admirable passion for literature? I’m examining this question in an essay on negative criticism currently under construction .

Any thoughts?

Let’s put this into perspective.

I saw the Ottawa Senators play the Tampa Bay Lightening last night. This was a nothing game. The Sens have to win 15 of 16 remaining outings to make the playoffs. Tampa has no really big name players. Two mediocre teams, at best, took to the ice. Not much hitting, lots of dumping the puck in, lots of turnovers, no fights, lots of missed checks, shots off the net. Lack lustre, it was. Shoddy. The best thing about the event was watching the big screen, between whistles, as parents held their babies’ hands up to dance in time with the music.

Not that I don’t appreciate the immense charge that can be had from following a good team battle successfully, deep into the playoffs. Nothing quite as electric as being in a building full of rabid fans when your home teams scores to win a series. Seriously. And its worth every penny spent. Brings the community together too, like little else can.

No.

It’s just a bit jolting that’s all, to realize that last night close to 20,000 people, a sell out crowd, paid, on average, say $60 a ticket   – when you take into account corporate giveaways, etc. (plus a medium coke and brat for $10) – to watch two teams, neither going anywhere, make a bunch of amateur mistakes. Provide less than stellar entertainment, and yet, still draw in one night numbers that couldn’t be replicated in decades of weekly literary evenings.  Yes, there was the lively videotron exhorting fans to clap and make noise, yes, the neat ads whirling through the neon strip curled around level two of the stadium, and Stompin’ Tom Connors playing the Good Ol’ hockey game…and the babies. And people seemed pretty happy.

No. What jolted was that so many would be so satisfied with such a boring brand of ‘cultural’ entertainment, and willing to spend such money on it, when so few seem interested in exploring Canadian literature; spending time listening to authors talk, or poets read. Part of it may be that many such events are plain boring too (even if there might on occasion be a clapping baby in the crowd) but from experience, many aren’t. Many are stimulating, inspiring, fun. Not to diminish sport; but the disparity in numbers just seems odd.  Oddly disheartening. Perhaps literary event organizers should start selling hot dogs, or charging $50 dollars and up…or removing the gloves.

***

Juxtapose stompin’ Tom with an alternative form of entertainment: reading Canadian fiction or poetry: Sales of 5,000 books constitutes a best-seller in Canada. Most independent, small press publishers are pleased if they sell 1,000 copies of any given title. Few enjoy even these paltry numbers: one twentieth of the audience for one evening’s hockey game between two pathetic teams, despite the books costing one third the price of a ticket. 

According to Hill Strategies Research, Canadians, per captia, spend roughly $42 per year on books. Approximately 10% of these are written by Canadians. Don’t know exactly what percentage are novels or poems – doubtless below fifty. So this leaves us spending less than two dollars each on Canadian literature per year…about what it cost me last night to buy half a hotdog.

Perhaps these priorities explain why prices for first editions by Canada’s ‘best’ authors (Alice Munro? Mordecai Richler?), are so laughably low. I discussed this with John Metcalf yesterday afternoon. Stay tuned for an animated conversation about book collecting, Canadian authors, and the sad state of literary culture in Canada.

Incoming search terms:

• half a hotdog

In the comments section of a post entitled ‘The Best Canadian Poem?’ Ross McKie nominates "Dinner" by Patrick Lane. Here,from here, it is:

DINNER
Patrick Lane

I would like to have dinner with the man
who didn’t follow Christ, the one who,
when Jesus said: Follow me and I
will make you fishers of men, decided
to go fishing instead, getting in his boat,
pushing out from shore, his nets clean
and repaired, thinking I will have to work
even harder now in order to feed
everyone left behind. I would like
to sit on the beach with him
in front of a careful fire,
his wife and children asleep,
sharing a glass of wine, both of us
telling stories about what we’d done
with our lives, the ones we caught,
the ones that got away.

Incoming search terms:

• parick lane \have dinner\ jesus poem

Poet, author, Priscila Uppal, an English professor too at York University, challenges traditional psychological and anthropological models of mourning in her new book We Are What We Mourning: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy, suggesting that Canadians mourn differently.

Traditional models define successful mourning in terms of detachment from the loved one who has died; the ability to cut the strings of grief, and to step into the roles of mothers and fathers vacated by the dead. To become unnecessarily identified with grief and death is, according to traditional views, to fail at mourning. To succeed – to maintain health-  one must ‘move on;’ accept that the dead are gone; celebrate the fact that they are in heaven. All of this Uppal debunks.

After reading thousands of Canadian elegies she concludes that mourning, at least in late 20th century Canada, is not about forgetting, but about claiming identity. You are, she says, what you mourn. And we, apparently, mourn our parents in elegies to a much greater extent than do others in the U.S. and U.K., for example, who tend to mark the death of youth more frequently with this poetic form.

Many immigrants to Canada didn’t know their parents very well; didn’t know their countries of origin, didn’t learn much about their traditions. In order to take over the roles their parents played – to learn about themselves – many have used mourning as a way to create and recreate the past; as a means to carry on into the future. Art – the elegy – is used as a way to attached to the past, and to connect and incorporate it into the present. What you mourn – what it is you are upset about losing -  will determine, according to Uppal, how you see history.

We talk about all of these topics, why and how the work of mourning has so drastically changed in Canada during the latter half of the twentieth century, why the contemporary English-Canadian elegy emphasizes connection rather than separation between the living and the dead.

Please listen to a ‘lively’ conversation here: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

LOC flickr

Spent, thanks to an intro from my friend Frank Wilson, a pleasant morning with Bob Hoover, Books Editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tracking down bookstores and learning about "The City of Bridges," "The Steel City." The city of steel bridges…yellow ones…(pictures to follow).

Several numbers stick from our conversation, including: 446: the number of bridges, according to Professor Bog Regan who counted them, within city limits; three more than there are in Venice. Arch, beam, suspension; one made from coral, even one inside the USX Tower.

2509: According to Wikipedia Andrew Carnegie funded this number of public libraries between 1883 and 1929, ’1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in Britain and Ireland, 156 in Canada (Ottawa’s among them) and others in Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, the Caribbean, and Fiji.’ The first was opened in 1883 in Dunfermline, Scotland. Carnegie’s approach was to build and equip, but only on condition that  local authorities provided a site and operating expenses. Very few towns that requested a grant and agreed to his terms were refused.

Mr. C founded the Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh in the 1870s.  Thanks to vertically integrated control of the most extensive iron and steel operations ever owned by one person in the United States, the enterprise grew into the largest most profitable in the world. Cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails for railroad lines were the ticket. He sold the company in 1901 to J.P. Morgan  for $480 million ($297 billion in 2007 dollars) twelve times annual earnings. Carnegie’s cut was some $225 million. At 66 he devoted the remainder of his life to giving it away.

Not that eradicating disease is exactly a waste of money, but wouldn’t it be nice if some of AC’s love of the literary found its way into Bill Gates’ heart.

 Conducted an interview with Chad Post, Director of Open Letter, a press that specializes in publishing English translations of International works of merit, mostly fiction, yesterday morning at his office on the pastoral campus of the University of Rochester. We started off musing over the fact that among our most favourite books (Russians, French, South Americans) few were written originally in English. And yet, look at what  we mostly read: contemporary fiction written in English, so much of which is mediocre ( despite publisher superlatives to the contrary). Translated works on the other hand, typically represent the very best of what has been written. The chances of coming across something of real merit in translation are therefore much higher. Stay tuned for the audio.

And from Chad to Pittsburgh, these

book

stores

and a meeting with Pittsburgh Gazette Books Editor Bob Hoover.

This week marks the release of Eric Kraft’s Flying, a collection of three novels that include Taking Off, On the Wing, and the previously unreleased Flying Home. Ed Champion has just hosted a five-part roundtable discussion of the trilogy, in which I had the pleasure of participating. Here’s Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five.

My post on George Murray’s poem Hunter  prompted several responses, including suggestion that if I were a mite better read, I’d change my mind about ‘the best’. I have my doubts. But it’s true, I haven’t read much Layton, or Klein, Outram or Avison, Van Toorn or Page. I plan to, but somehow, I suspect Hunter will stay lodged up there, in my pantheon at least.

Votes from others for best Canadian Poem include:

"Mountain Tea" by Peter Van Toorn

"A Tall Man Executes a Jig." by Irving Layton

"Cold Green Element" by Irving Layton.

"Firewatch" by Ken Babstock

Searching the net for similar lists, I happened upon the following ‘most memorable’ Irving-and-Peter-less list at the Literary Review of Canada

 Margaret Atwood, “Death of a Young Son Drowning

 Margaret Avison, “Not the Sweet Cicely of Gerards Herball

 Margaret Avison, “Thaw

 Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose (She’s Canadian? My eye. Lived in N.S. from age three to six; like Rivka Galchen getting nominated for a GG))

 Leonard Cohen, “Marita Please Find Me I Am Almost 30

 Joan Crate, “I Am a Prophet

 Lorna Crozier, “Carrots

 Gary Michael Dault, “Branch Line

 A.M. Klein, “Portrait of the Poet as Landscape

 Douglas LePan, “Coureurs de Bois

Malcolm Lowry, “Christ Walks in This Infernal District Too

Gwendolyn MacEwen, “Dark Pines Under Water

Anne Marriott, “The Wind Our Enemy

David McFadden, “Secrets of the Universe

 A.F. Moritz, “The Chinese Writing Academy

John Newlove, “The Weather

Michael Ondaatje, “The Cinnamon Peeler

P.K. Page, “This Heavy Craft

 P.K. Page, “Planet Earth

 Al Purdy, “The Country North of Belleville

 Robin Skelton, “Night Poem: Vancouver Island

 Norm Sibum, “Girls and Handsome Dogs

 Raymond Souster, “Lake of Bays,

 Phyllis Webb, “Breaking

 Once I’ve read these and other recommended poems, I’ll be back with my short list. Please feel free to join me in the exercise.

Update: note that I will be crossing off, with scant (at least for now) explanation, those poems, above, which fail to make my long/shortlist (Atwood and Le Pan, just read, because they seem to me hackneyed, tired, dated), and bolding (long) in red (short) those that do

Incoming search terms:

• a tall man executes a jig irving layton poem
• branch line Gary Michael Dault
• lake of bays - souster
• lake of bays poem by raymond souster
• margaret avison “thaw”
• not the sweet cicely of gerards herball
• phyllis webb breaking poem

Experimental Farm, Ottawa.

Ottawa literary broadcasting icon, and award-winning high school librarian.

Jane Crosier was host of the excellent Literary Landscape radio show on CKCU 93.1 FM for 12 years. She worked tirelessly to promote local authors, and to foster a love of literature in her listeners and students. I never met Jane, however, I experienced her generosity. She was among the very first people to provide support and encouragement to me when I first launched my radio program The Biblio File.

This from her son Matthew Crosier, CKCU Station Manager:

 Jane Ann Crosier (Rioux) died March 2 2009 age 61 after a heartbreaking battle with cancer. Beloved wife to Peter, loving mother to Matthew (Valerie) and Benjamin. Devoted grandmother to: Catherine, Alexander and Tessa. Daughter to Ray and Dora Rioux. Sister to: Raymond, Francis, Carol and Nancy. Lovingly remembered by the Crosier and Rioux families.
Born and raised in Port Hope, a graduate of York University Winters College. She worked for the OCDSB for more than 30 years at Glen Ogilvie, Gloucester High, Colonel By and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. An inveterate gift giver and unrepentant doer of good deeds. Jane loved gardening, her felines, skating on the canal and preparing wonderful family events. "getting out and doing something". The service will take place at Saturday March 7 @ 1:30pm, in the Library of Gloucester High School, 2060 Ogilvie Road, Gloucester, Ontario, K1J 7N8
The reception will follow starting @ 3:30pm. The reception will take place in Kanata. For details call (613) 552-1832 or e-mail familycrosier@gmail.com

This from the citation for a CKCU volunteer award she received in 2001:

 "The Literary Landscape" aired every Thursday from 6:30pm-7:00pm. Each week Jane interviewed authors, poets and people connected with the literary world. Literature was a life long passion for Jane. As a young person she would spend her hard earned money on dog-eared paperbacks at the local Flea Market. Later she would further that interest by specializing in Literature while attending University. She passed on her love of books to her two sons and to thousands of young people who have frequented the high school libraries where she has worked for [thirty] years. Jane put countless hours into the CKCU fund raising drives, regularly ‘cooking up delicious treats for her fellow volunteers on the early morning Saturday phone shifts. And through it all she was also a pretty good mother to a couple of wayward souls.’

R.I.P. Jane.

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness." Helen Keller

Incoming search terms:

• literary landscape

Now that it’s Canada Reads season, and we’re on about ‘bests:’ this compassionate, honest telling of a father’s concern for, and relationship with, his 16 year old son is one of my favourite ‘Canadian,’ albeit non-fiction, reads ever.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmFtWSEDxY

Listen to my conversation with David Gilmour about his award-winning novel A Perfect Night to go to China, here.