Singing with Joy

Several years ago I heard Renny Khan from U. of A. International, originally from Trinidad, tell the story of a group of Caribbean islanders in the early 16th century. These people had heard of the Spanish and their ships--news had gone around the ring of islands fairly quickly of these sailing ships that arrived and enslaved or eradicated the populations. So when the sails appeared on the horizon, the entire population, which might have been Carib, or might have been Arawak, or maybe of some other culture (and probably did not call themselves either Carib or Arawak in any case), walked off the island and drowned themselves. The obvious story was framed in the knowledge of what they walked away from, drowned themselves to avoid. To me, the more pressing story was what they walked towards--what in their worldview was waiting for them in that possibly saving embrace of the sea. With the entire population gone, no one was left to tell that story, and it was that loss--the loss of a functional world view--that began to pick away at me. At that time, I had not turned my hand or mind to poetry in a shamefully long time, but the occasion put me back in that mode--in a messy and erratic way.

This past April, when Joy Harjo was the opening guest artist at the Edmonton Poetry Festival, my friend and mentor, Anna Marie Sewell (whose name comes up in earlier postings), the former Poet Laureate of the city, organized a Poets' Jam to kick off the Festival. She invited a number of us to consider performing something on stage, in a loose group, after Joy and Anna had done their opening performances. I had never done anything like this, and had not even tuned my old guitar in another shamefully long time, let alone sing along with some others or supply accompaniment. But we can die only once--so I submitted that poem of the islanders who chose the water, and Anna accepted it. That acceptance began an educational couple of weeks of rewriting to get it into a shape and rhythm that could work out loud and to accompaniment.

In the end, it appeared to work pretty well--thanks to some strong percussion support from the others on stage (Gary Garrison, Ivan Sundal, Joshua Jackson, Daniel Poitras as well as Anna Marie and Joy) and from the audience, to keep me on pace. At least, nobody got up and left or called for their money back...

(Photo credit Randall Edwards, who took pictures of all the Festival events, photos that can be seen on the Edmonton Poetry Festival Facebook site)

Taking Leave                                     Don Perkins

A community

known

unknown

misknown

to history-- maybe

Arawak--

or maybe

Carib--

or maybe—not,

saw Spanish sails, knew the score,

walked off

the island:

The future’s

vacation

playground.

Beach paradise.   Setting

for countless     beer ads;

symbol   of quiet   retreat.

Packed up   the children   and walked

offshore    and down . . .  into what?

Oblivion? Freedom?

Life? Choice?

What did they call it?

Call themselves?

Optioned out to slavery, debauchery, disease, belittlement, dispossession and all the

     benefits and joys

     of civilization

they took . . . leave.

Of what?

Their senses?

The senseless?

To what? Make sense?

Stay sensible?

Get   away   from it all?

They took ---- leave.

To say “NO”?

To say “Not us”?

These are not their words

but ours: Not their answers

but ours. They took--leave,

moved down – and under—

maybe not away

but to.

Just maybe

meant  not  “No,”

meant,  just maybe, “Yes.”

We latterly enlightened latecomers

presume empathy  

for fellow humans

gone,    not lost--

Can there be lost

when found is not an option?

Not absent.

Not away for the day

from the office or school,

or missing some great party.

If we hear it at all,

their silence

gifts us this:

Dead certainty of our eternal ignorance.

What I do in my Spare Time--Moonwalking EPF Style

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCLZIFrd2mc

A workshop we had back in September 2013, right at the brightest point of the brightest full moon of the year:


My contribution---

Harvest Moon we call this glow, this ripened

Moon of Gathering that guides our steps,

encourages our taking in,

through eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin

and yet even tonight as she comes to

full bright perfection, joins us

together points our ways along

moon-shadowed paths, because

the moon is made for changing,

ever cycling, waxing, waning—

eternal analogue reminder of

continuity in our

on-again-

off-again 

digital times, 

she styles herself as well

a Moon of Letting Go, 

shifts, begins to perfect her darker, 

shaded other faces.

       Here we gather, 

give and take illumination

collect ourselves, reflect upon, 

       then moon and we

            continue on....

 

Moon re-Calling

So today was the kick-off at Block 1912 for 40 Below: Edmonton's Winter Anthology. Jason Lee Norman, perceptive editor that he is, chose two of my submissions--a poem called "Cold Comforts," and a prose piece, "Moon Calling," that began life way up this blog site, but had to be cut out once selected.

It was interesting meeting several of the other contributors and hearing them read. I did not read at the venue, but was on CKUA ARTBEAT this afternoon, reading both pieces.

Richard Van Camp, when he was Writer-in-Residence at the U. of Alberta Department of English and Film Studies told me some two years ago that I seemed to write a lot about the cold, and should try to get some of it published, so there it is. Richard celebrates the full moon every month, calling out "Happy Full Moon" to anyone in earshot (and given Richard's skill at projecting, that can be quite a distance).

It turns out I also write a fair bit about the moon. And snap a lot of pictures of it with my cell phone camera.

Two months ago, Anna Marie Sewell and I took a group from the Edmonton Poetry Festival through the North Saskatchewan River valley at Louise McKinney Park at the full moon, to see what the experience might inspire. We arranged to have everybody out on the Capilano Footbridge just as the moon came up right in the heart of the river, downstream. At first is was just a hint of something going on behind a screen of evergreen  trees. Then a faintly orange crescent began to assert itself, and after fifteen or twenty silent minutes, there is was, shining full, and changing to ever brighter silver as it got higher above the horizon.

Several of the seventeen participants mentioned that it was the first time they had just stood and watched the moon rise, and were amazed because they swore they could actually see it move--and I agree: with patience and rapt attention to its relationship with the foreground, the moon was in slow, deliberate, practiced motion.

Eventually we made our way to a building with some lights on its outside stairs, and people began to write up their impressions. Four later submitted drafts to the Edmonton Poetry Festival Facebook site.

My contribution was this:

Harvest Moon we call this glow, this ripened

moon of gathering that guides our steps,

encourages our taking in,

through eye, ear, nose, tongue, and skin;

yet tonight even as she comes to

full bright perfection, joins us, together

points our ways along

moon-shadowed paths,

because the moon is made for changing,

ever cycling, waxing, waning, 

eternal analogue reminder of

continuity in our 

on-again,

off-again 

digital 

times, 

she styles

herself as well 

a Moon of Letting Go, 

shifts, begins to perfect

her darker, shaded other faces.

Here we gather, give and take

          illumination, 

   collect ourselves, reflect upon,

        then moon and we

                 continue on.

But I think the Perkins who really got the moon was our son David, when he was two-and-a-bit. I used to take him for a ride in his stroller winter evenings after supper, while Eva went to work, four evenings a week at the ESL program at Alberta Vocational College (now Norquest). He would sit all bundled in his snowsuit, holding a flashlight. One night, as we went north towards a strip mall where he could look at the toys on display at a large drugstore, and take his time explaining them to me and discussing their merits as potential Christmas presents, he did not need the flashlight. There was a full moon reflecting off new powder snow--not deep, just enough to freshen the surface to bright sparkling white. He looked up to his right and said. "Daddy. The moon." 

"Yes," I agreed. "The moon. A full moon." 

"But Daddy, the moon."

"Yes, the moon."

"But Daddy. The moon. It's following us."

And he was right. There it was, coming with us to the store.

And there it was again, later, to our left, following us home. 

And if I and we pay attention, it follows us faithfully, every month we let it. 

And every month we do not.

Tonight's Moon

It is so useful, dammit

It’s not that I haven’t had a thought or found anything provocative since June 26. It’s that for late June and all of July, I was making up new eClass websites and notes for my Fall Term classes, so I could go on holiday at the end of July but be ready to go back into the classroom when I got home. 

Then it was that I was spending a lot of time in the sun on the beach at Nice, thinking about going into the water. And a lot of up to my chin in the Med., thinking about getting out to enjoy more of the sun. And a lot of time thinking about which restaurant we would go to for supper, to enjoy more piles of fresh seafood.

Then I was thinking about how relaxed I felt after coming home.

Then I was thinking about plans for a Sept. 19 poetry workshop I was co-hosting with Anna Marie Sewell, for the Edmonton Poetry Festival.

Then I was back into Fall classes, thinking through the dullness of a cold that was draining my energy for much but teaching.

I was, with many of my colleagues, also thinking about provincial government policies and practices, backed by University blogs and state-of-the campus missives, that seem to indicate there is some concern that showing up to do our job is maybe wasting our students’ time, as we in the Faculty of Arts are not “training” them for jobs.

Pronouncements from the Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education the past few months mention the plan to develop more jobs through a more entrepreneurial spirit. Then they cut the budgets and shrink the programs of the universities and colleges where entrepreneurial (as opposed to MBA managerial) skills and vision can get a start.

Then the tech schools brag they are being spared because they are training people for jobs. But without imagination developed through non-job-training types of education (i.e. not just apprenticeships and other training to be employees), without imagination to see opportunity and to have the confidence and thought processes to see it through, what jobs are they training people for. Not the new ones that have not been created.  Just the existing ones—the ones that disappear with the end of every resource boom and the end of every construction project.