Stephen Morrissey on Guy Birchard and Artie Gold

Photo by Stephen Morrissey : Home of Mary Brown and Artie Gold at 3667 Lorne Crescent

Prompted by reading Guy Birchard's above/ground press debut, VALEDICTIONS (2019), Montreal poet Stephen Morrissey wrote on Birchard and Artie Gold (as well as a mention of his 2003 above/ground press chapbook, THE HOTEL VICTORIA POEMS). You can see his original post here. As Morrissey writes:

Before George Bowering was GB there was Guy Birchard, maybe the first GB, both named as such by AG, Artie Gold. Valedictions (2019), published by rob mclennan's above/ground press, is Guy's farewell to three deceased artists, poet William Hawkins, musician and visual artist Ray 'Condo' Tremblay, and our mutual friend, poet Artie Gold. I met Guy in the spring of 1973, I met Artie through Guy. I never met Ray Tremblay but one day my brother took a taxi in Ottawa that was driven by William Hawkins; somehow the subject of poets came up and Hawkins said that he had heard of me. It's a small world; we were all a lot younger in those days, we knew a lot of people. And now Guy's memoir has caused me to think about Artie once again, he was an imposing and domineering figure for many of us in the early 1970s.

Life seems to be a series of coincidences and cumulatively they can add up to something meaningful, or nothing at all. For instance, Guy says that he first encountered Artie at a reading by Michael Benedikt, but I was also at that reading, it was on 16 March 1973 in the Hall Building, the ninth floor I believe, and it may have been at this reading that I also met Guy, sitting a few rows behind me. Around that time, winter-spring 1973, Hopeton Anderson invited Guy to read at Karma Coffee House and that was the occasion on which Guy met Artie Gold; to get this sequence of events accurate, it was also at Guy's reading at Karma that Richie Carson, another poet of that era, invited Guy to read again at Karma. By then I knew Guy and he extended to me an invitation to read after he read (the reading was on the third week of April 1973), just as Hopeton Anderson had extended a similar invitation to Guy, all of these readings taking place at Karma. Karma Coffee House was located in the basement of the Sir Williams University Student Union Building.

Artie was an extraordinary person, there was an aura of excitement surrounding him, he was a genuinely creative person; I doubt most of us meet someone like Artie Gold more than once in a lifetime. One winter day he and I and my first wife took a train to Ottawa and visited the National Gallery of Canada. For years I had a copy of The Far Point, bought on that occasion, an article in that issue was my introduction to what was happening in poetry in Vancouver where many of the most innovative poets were living at that time. There are other, happy memories of Artie; it was a seminal time when we were apprentices as poets. But now, after reading Guy's memoir of Artie, what is for me an unpleasant and pivotal memory has surfaced. It is a memory that explains what happened to my relationship with Artie. I remember talking with Artie and him telling me that he had published more than I had and that he was more important as a poet than I was. It may have been true but do we say that to a friend?  I have never said that to another poet and no other poet has said it to me, except Artie.

Remembering that comment by Artie I also realized that it is may have been around this time that my relationship with him began to diminish.  Artie was getting ahead in poetry, considering his talent and his intelligence the only thing that could hold him back was himself, the baggage of his life; the baggage eventually won: he was now being published by Talon Press in Vancouver; he was giving readings in BC, Ontario, and Quebec; other better known poets had heard of him and made him a celebrity of sorts; he was one of three poetry editors at Vehicule Press, the other two editors were Ken Norris and Endre Farkas. Artie had now become a "somebody". I benefited by Artie's ambition, Artie, Ken, and Endre published my first book, The Trees of Unknowing (Vehicule Press,1978) and I am grateful to them and to the press for that.

So, Artie moved on and was an important poet with a future. Then, Si Dardick, the owner of Vehicule Press, fired his three poetry editors and installed someone else in the job; I don't know the details of this firing but I do know that the books the new editor published never interested me; the emphasis was now on formalistic poetry.

I still knew Artie after he was no longer an editor at Vehicule Press; I gave him readings for several years, beginning in 1976, at the college where I was now teaching, I knew he needed the money. From these readings he would go home with a little money and office supplies from the college. But there were other changes happening in Artie's life; his decline into poverty, worsening health, and increasing drug dependency is usually dated from when Mary Brown, who supported Artie, ended their relationship by moving a few doors away but still on Lorne Crescent; later she moved to a house she helped build in the country. Mary Brown died in 1999. But now I wonder if  Artie's decline might also be dated from when he was no longer an editor at the press.

My long forgotten memory of Artie's comment to me had other repercussions on our relationship; it explains to me my distance from Artie in the years that followed. For instance, I continued knowing Artie but on a more formal basis, the old familiarity we once had was gone. Nothing lasts forever, everything changes. When he stored his boxes of archives in our basement, around 2005, I offered to give him a receipt (of all things!) and this surprised Artie as much as it surprised me at the time; however, I didn't want any problems with Artie and I didn't want Artie coming back at me saying I had polluted his papers with cat dander, an alleged trigger for his COPD (not asthma).  When I bought groceries for Artie, or clothes, or what have you—this was when he had friends supporting him so he could remain living autonomously—if I said I didn't have the time to go to several shops that day to buy him croissants or cans of chick peas he wouldn't push me to do it, he just agreed and let it go, in fact, I noticed he was uncharacteristically meek in accepting what I said. No good deed goes unpublished is one of my mottoes and it included Artie Gold.

Artie died in February 2007 and later that year a small group of us scattered Artie's ashes at places we thought significant to Artie. One of the people at this gathering told me that when she separated from her husband Artie phoned to offer his sympathy, at first this was an incredible thing for Artie to have done, she must have felt supported by Artie's phone call; but, more importantly, it must have at first felt doubly compassionate as it was from someone who was rarely compassionate about anybody. The point of this anecdote is that literally thirty seconds after Artie expressed his sympathy he returned to his favourite subject, himself. We both laughed at this, it was "good old Artie" being himself.

When I first saw Artie's cover drawing on his last chapbook, The Hotel Victoria Poems (above/ground press), I thought it was prescient, that this was the same bed in which the police discovered his body on Valentine's Day in February 2007. But I was wrong, Guy tells me this image appeared on a postcard he received when Artie was still living on Lorne Crescent, it is not the same room and bed where he died in 2007. Artie was a friend of our youth, he was one of the first real poets some of us met on this journey in life.

new from above/ground press: VALEDICTIONS, three essays by Guy Birchard

VALEDICTIONS
Three essays by Guy Birchard
on William Hawkins, Ray ("Condo") Tremblay and Artie Gold
$5

Hawkins was the capital's chief charismatic in the early 1960s, that's a fact. Even before I knew he was a poet, even before I would've much cared, aged fourteen or so, ogling fetish objects, guitars I could no more afford than play, down the Treble Clef basement on Bank Street worked Hawkins, drawing attention away from the Gibsons and Guilds and Martins somehow upon himself. 

Then when I was sixteen and fin-de-siècle Ernest Dowson finally turned me on to verse, there was Hawkins, the first and sole livin'-breathin' parish poet already on my radar.

I've bought and sold a hundred thousand books in my time but I keep The Poems of Ernest Dowson (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1919; eighth edition) with Aubrey Beardsley's gilt decorative green buckram boards, filched (for shame) from the Ottawa Public Library, and Hawkins' first six titles. I had Hawkins, Poems 1963-1965 (Ottawa: Nil Press, 1966) memorized without trying, I read it so many times in high school. Got it, of course, at Shirley Leishman Books on Gilmour Street. Saw Two Longer Poems: The Seasons of Miss Nicky by Harry Howith & Louis Riel by William Hawkins (Toronto: Patrician Press, 1965) on C.C.J. Bond's bookshelf out at his house and that impressed me enough that I went and got a copy and hand-lettered the unprinted spine in red ink just the way C.C.J. had his. Quickly scored Shoot Low Sheriff, They're Riding Shetland Ponies! Poems 1959-1964 (no place: no press, 1964) and Ottawa Poems (Kitchener: Weed/flower Press, 1966). How fascinated I was that year by the televised, crude, mock-Gjon Mili proto-rock-video of the "Young Man of the Year" moodily reading Ottawa Poems from CJOH studios. (In about 1970, the first press I ever submitted a callow book-length manuscript to was Weed/flower—because it had published Ottawa Poems.) Much later, I tried to sell a duplicate copy to a pre-eminent Ottawa second-hand book dealer. Hawkins' stock was so low circa 1990 that that dealer wasn't interested, at any price. Couldn't give it to him... Wouldn't be that way anon. John Oughton (go on, say the brother's name) gifted me with a review copy of The Gift of Space, Selected Poems 1960-1970 (Toronto: new press, 1971) that he wasn't going to tend to, in which is to be read disturbingly, concentrated for a cold eye to assess, the self-sabotage that cancels artistic progress. (I myself saw the inside of the Donwood Institute, hired as part of a control group testing varying dosages of antihistamine in the treatment of barbiturate freaks and alcoholics. Where sagged Hawkins in therapy in the commissary.) And lastly, I was given one of the twenty-eight signed copies of The Madman's War (Ottawa: S.A.W. Publications, 1974) by its esteemed printer, Cam Christie. All shall remain safe in my possession as long as I live.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Guy Birchard: I am by birth a deracinated Canadian: Don't panic, stalwart sons—no fault of mother's, no foul of father's—don't jump to conclusions, gentle maidens. The issue is unremitting agon and zero-sum. Reason not the conundrum. 

Cigarette Cards (Vermont: Longhouse, 2009), Further than the Blood (Boston: Pressed Wafer, 2010), Hecatomb (Brooklyn: Pressed Wafer, 2017), Aggregate: retrospective (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2018), Only Seemly (St. John's: Pedlar Press, 2019).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

William Hawkins (1940-2016)

Ottawa poet and above/ground press author William Hawkins has died. See my obituary for him here, and Cameron Anstee's appreciation for him here.

some author activity: mclennan, Hawkins, Lea + Robinson,

rob mclennan has a poem, originally posted in the print edition of Literary Review of Canada, now online as part of their newly-revised website; an article on legendary Ottawa poet William Hawkins now lives online at Apartment 613, as does an article on N.W. Lea (the artist formerly known as Nicholas Lea); and Elizabeth Robinson is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Weaver, Anstee, Hawkins, Reid, Pirie + mclennan,

the eleventh issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics includes, among other pieces, a new poem sequence by Andy Weaver, and Cameron Anstee's introduction to the forthcoming Chaudiere Books title, The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (spring, 2015); Monty Reid provides a short essay in the "At the Desk" series over at Open Book: Toronto; and Pearl Pirie has two new poems and a short 'commentary' by rob mclennan posted at Jacket2.

some author activity: Tucker, mclennan, McElroy, Anstee, Hawkins + Barwin,

Aaron Tucker has a couple of new poems up at Moss Trill, as does rob mclennan; mclennan is interviewed over at 'poets touching trees'; Gil McElroy has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series at the dusie blog; Cameron Anstee posted this bibliography of Ottawa poet William Hawkins, for the sake of Hawkins' recent seventy-fourth birthday; and Gary Barwin was recently announced as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario for the 2014-15 academic year. Congratulations, Gary!

VERSeFest 2014: Earl, Brockwell, Hawkins, Irwin + McFadden,

above/ground press authors Amanda Earl, Stephen Brockwell, William Hawkins, Marilyn Irwin (as part of The Factory Reading Series) and David W. McFadden will all be performing this year for the fourth annual VERSeFest in Ottawa, running from March 25 to 30. For a full schedule of authors and events, as well as ticket information, check out their website.

Amanda Earl to be inducted into the 2014 VerseOttawa Hall of Honour!

above/ground press author Amanda Earl (see information on her three above/ground press titles here and here and here) is one of two inductees in the 2014 VerseOttawa Hall of Honour, following the announcement of William Hawkins (another above/ground press author) and Greg "Ritalin" Frankson for 2013. Congratulations, Amanda!

The VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour is an independent body with close to ties to VERSeOttawa and VERSeFest. It was formed to recognize the important contributions of individuals to the Ottawa poetry community.

An induction ceremony will be held on March 30th, 2014 – the final day of VERSeFest ’14.

As the press release begins:

It is with great pleasure that the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour announces the two inductees for 2014: Amanda Earl and Danielle K.L. Gregoire.

Amanda Earl is a fearless and supportive promoter of poetry and poets in Ottawa, and she is a long-time poet herself. She is a very visible and active member of the community. Through her organizational work, she promotes and encourages poets — emerging and established, and of diverse styles. The Ottawa poetry community would not be what it is without Amanda’s contributions through Bywords and her many other important contributions. In these activities, Amanda Earl is vital in keeping the poetic arts alive and thriving in the Capital.

See the entire press release here.

Amanda Earl will also be doing a lecture as part of The Factory Reading Series' VERSeFest fundraiser later this month!

William Hawkins' 60s band, The Children, finally release their first album

Ottawa poet, musician, songwriter and above/ground press author William Hawkins is well-known in musical circles for, among other accomplishments, his participation in the 60s band, The Children, which has finally released a first album from 1960s masters. If you want to know more about William Hawkins, check out the profile I wrote on him recently, here, soon after he was one of two inaugural inductees into the VerseOttawa Hall of Honour. See here for the link to the original story (with audio files) on the CBC - All In A Day website, and here for the direct link (with audio) to ordering the cd from True North. As the CBC website writes:

The Children, now much older, finally release an album

Bruce Cockburn, David Wiffen, Bill Hawkins, Neville Wells, Richard Patterson, Sandy Crawley, Chris Anderson, Peter Hodgson.

You may recognize some of those names for being successful musicians in their own right. But for a few years in 1960s Ottawa, those guys were a band, a band called The Children. They never released any recorded material...until now.

True North Records has just released The Children -- Time Capsule: The Unreleased 1960s Masters, and Alan tracked down Bill, Sneezy and Neville to see what they think of digging up the past.

Ryan Pratt reviews Jill Stengel, and The Peter F. Yacht Club #18

Our good friend Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Jill Stengel's recent above/ground press chapbook, as well as the eighteenth issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club, over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

“poem” broadside #318: King Kong Meets Godzilla, by William Hawkins

From primordial depths, from God knows what muck,

His hideous form slumbered, or was simply stuck.

As me & mine swung from trees, grabbing fruit

Whilst I grew & grew into a hairy brute.

Was it man’s bombs made the sea’s floor break?

& did that cause Godzilla to awake?

As surely as they slotted me into a cage,

Inciting King Kong’s murderous rage.

So now we both monsters must hide

In furtive dank places on earth’s seamy side,

Where waters do flow but are seldom clean,

And a better life comes only when we dream.

King Kong Meets Godzilla

William Hawkins

above/ground press broadside #318

Ottawa poet and songwriter William Hawkins was considered Ottawa’s most dangerous poet from 1964 to 1974, and is one of two inductees into VERSe Ottawa’s first annual Hall of Honour. His Dancing Alone: Selected Poems appeared with Broken Jaw Press in 2005, and a double cd of the same name appeared a year later. Since then, he has released the chapbooks The Black Prince of Bank Street (above/ground press, 2007) and Sweet & Sour Nothings (Apt 9. Press, 2010); the latter was reissued in March, 2013 for Hawkins’ appearance at VERSeFest.

some author activity: Pirie on Hawkins, Markotić, McElroy, McNair, Brockwell, Gelèns and Lindner, + an interview with Butler,

Pearl Pirie was good enough to post some reports on William Hawkins being one of the first inductees into the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour, as well as the recent Factory Reading Series @ VERSeFest lecture by Gil McElroy and Nicole Markotić; and even post a whole slew of photos from the event, with all the above, as well as Christine McNair, Stephen Brockwell, rob mclennan, Hélène Gelèns and Erik Lindner; and there's a new interview with Jenna Butler on Connotation Press, alongside some new poems.

above/ground press @ VERSeFest: a small report (with pictures): Markotić, McElroy, McNair, Hawkins, Dolman, Lindner + Gelens,

On Saturday, March 16, The Factory Reading Series hosted its annual lecture series as part of VERSeFest 2013, with readings and talks by Nicole Markotić and Gil McElroy. The text of each of their talks will be posted online in the next issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics.Previous poets in the series (most of whom have already had their pieces posted online) include Monty Reid and Marcus McCann [see my report on such here], Barry McKinnon and Paige Ackerson-Kiely [see my report on such here], and Stephen Brockwell, Pearl Pirie and Cameron Anstee.

Windsor, Ontario poet, writer and critic Markotić's talk was a response (in part) to a recent piece by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, "On Poetry and Accessability." Gil McElroy's talk (which also launched his chapbook Twentieth) was far more informal, talking about chance and accident, astronomy and other threads.  

The talks were lively and compelling, and triggered an interesting question-and-answer period, with contributions by jwcurry, David Currie, Steven Price and Rod Pederson.

Markotić and McElroy are easily two of my favourite poets. I first heard Markotić read in Ottawa at The Manx Pub back in 1994, around the time I first started reading the work of Gil McElroy. I'm pretty sure that this event was McElroy's first reading in Ottawa.

above/ground press author and press favourite Christine McNair did a reading at The Dusty Owl event from her trade book, Conflict (BookThug, 2012), as well as a couple of new poems, finished just in time for the reading. Below is a picture of her in all yellow, reacting somehow to the light in the space.

At the 7pm event, VERSeOttawa inducted William Hawkins and Greg "Ritalin" Frankson into its first annual VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour. There was something oddly soothing about the regular sigh of Hawkins' oxygen tank through the sound system that a number of the audience noticed, and mentioned to me after the event. 

Despite looking a bit frail, William Hawkins [see his updated website here] was his usual sly self, and gave perhaps one of the finest readings I've heard in some time. Pearl Pirie was good enough to post some photos of such online.
 

Dutch poets Hélène Gelèns and Erik Lindner closed our third annual festival, with a brief opening reading by Ottawa poet Anita Dolman, who is also the translator of their new above/ground press chapbook, Two Dutch Poets.  

Dolman published a chapbook through above/ground press way back in 2004, and we've all pretty much decided she requires a trade book soon. Lindner, who has read in Ottawa previously through the ottawa international writers festival, read his poems in Dutch alongside David O'Meara (left), who responded with the same poems in English translation.

Hélène Gelèns gave an utterly charming reading from her work, performing a call-and-response in Dutch and English. Here she is reading from their chapbook, which was produced for the sake of making their work available in English translation. It's great to have the opportunity to produce a work by the two of them, but why hasn't someone else long produced a book each of their works in English?

Some author activity: Hawkins, Turnbull, Sand, Anstee, MacLeod, Pirie, Earl + Young,

rob mclennan has written a profile of Ottawa's most dangerous poet, William Hawkins, performing tomorrow as part of the inaugural Verse Ottawa Hall of Honour; Chris Turnbull has some new work up at ditch; Kaia Sand was recently selected for the inaugural City of Portland Archives and Record Center Artist in Residence Program; Cameron Anstee, Kathryn MacLeod and Pearl Pirie all have new work in the sixth issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; Cameron Anstee and Amanda Earl each have new work up in the March issue of The Steel Chisel; and Deanna Young reads at the Sunnyside Branch of the Ottawa Public Library for Poetry Month at 2pm, Saturday, April 20, 2013 with Heather Cadsby and Mary Ellen Csamer.

William Hawkins inducted into the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour

Ottawa poet and above/ground press author William Hawkins is one of the first two inductees (along with Greg "Ritalin" Frankson) in the VERSeOttawa Hall of Honour, to be held towards the end of this year's third annual VERSeFest, on March 17.

above/ground press published William Hawkins' poetry chapbook the black prince of bank street (2007) as part of our fourteenth anniversary reading/launch, and new poems have appeared in various issues of The Peter F Yacht Club, including #4 and #11.

Other items have appeared with Cameron Anstee's Apt. 9 Press; he writes his own note on Hawkins, here.

Ben Ladouceur + William Hawkins poems reprinted at Odourless

Ben Ladouceur and William Hawkins poems reprinted from their above/ground press chapbooks on the Odourless Press blog.