Jack Layton: Art in Action, edited by Penn Kemp

Looking for a chance to win a prize?

Malahat 2013 Long Poem Prize!

Deadline: February 1, 2013 (postmarked)
Prize: two $1000 CAD prizes will be awarded
Entry fee:
$35 CAD for Canadian entries
$40 USD for entries from the USA
$45 USD for entries from elsewhere
(entry fee includes a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review)

Enter one long poem or a cycle of poems between 10 and 20 published pages (one published page = 32 lines or less).

Book Launch - a friendly reminder

Congratulations to Adrienne Gruber

Poet Adrienne Gruber is the winner of the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award for her chapbook Mimic, published by Leaf Press of Lantzville, B.C.

Lipstick Press was honoured to have Robert Martens' Poltergeist among the short-listed, including:

• Spencer Gordon, Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!, Ferno House (Toronto)
• Liz Howard, (skullambient), Ferno House (Toronto)
• Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin, let lie, above/ground press (Ottawa)
• Hugh Thomas, Opening the Dictionary, above/ground press (Ottawa)

Wishing Keith Wilkinson, author of Winter Gifts, a happy birthday

Keith, now retired from his paid professional work, reflects back on his life:


What's unrealized—
is it potential
or was it a dream?

Lipstick hopes the dream never dies, and that it realizes its potential in the world of new poetry.

Impermanence book launch December 7th on Gabriola

You are invited to a 
Book launch: 

Impermanence 

poems by Janet Vickers

published by Ekstasis Editions, 2012 

December 7, 7pm

at the Rollo Centre,  685 North Road, Gabriola Island 

In Impermanence, Janet Vickers explores the roots of a profound energy driving the universe: why things change, grow old, die, and then life seems to flourish again. Heraclitus said that you cannot set foot in the same river twice. The river, like the passage of time, is in constant flux and change, never stopping, always flowing. Nothing remains the same, nothing remains still, all passes away in the flow of time and all is impermanent in a constant state of transformation. Life itself seems fleeting and transient, as each moment sifts through our hands like sand on an endless beach. It is the impermanence of existence that transforms all that is and all that will ever be: without death there is no birth, without the seed there is no flower. Those being born are already dying, as Bob Dylan said. Seed becomes the flower, the cradle becomes the grave and all is charged with the electricity of temporality, all is changed from moment to moment. In her first book of poems, Impermanence, Janet Vickers has captured these ephemeral moments in tranquility and grace, driven by a succinct and powerful spark that ignites all existence.

"Where are the measures of impermanence?" asks Janet Vickers in this extraordinary volume of poetry. In Vickers' world, even the self is a bubble that must constantly be renamed. Her poetry, however, measures impermanence against abiding things: the joys of nature, the struggle against power external and internal, unconditional love. A potent and magical book that swings deftly between tears and laughter. Robert Martens 

Cover art: Mindy Joseph. “Aquagain” 2008, 24" x 18", oil and encaustic on wood. Mindy lives on Gabriola Island, BC. www.mindyjoseph.com

Books available for purchase

Refreshments

RSVP if you can: 250-247-2077
welcome if you can't 

Pause - Response Tanka by Naomi Beth Wakan and David Bateman

Two very distinct voices, Naomi Beth Wakan and David Bateman have created a beautiful new blog of response tanka. Not only is it finely crafted, it is free.  You can find it here . . . Pause

the honesty, my token

flower – profuse in seeding.

I too aim

for its transparency so that

you can see right through me

                                                          Naomi

seeing in the dark

all the lightness we have shared

ink woman, diva

we unite in othered woods

infirm against firm earth 

                                                         David    

Says David "When I approach haiku, and response tanka, I approach them through a phrase from a Wallace Steven’s poem - “uttered word by word.” These forms graciously offer me the opportunity to deposit my emotions into a very measured, and for me, liberating form. Writing response tanka can be an act of reclamation and self-preservation. The literal translation of kokoro, a healthy heart, contributes literally and figuratively to my personal sense of an idea of order in the midst of a chaotic world."

Naomi asks "What on earth could a rather domesticated, unsophisticated woman living on a small, very rural island have in common with a transvestite, city-smart man twenty-five years younger?  How could they have enough in common to cause them to write back and forth for several months sharing their momentary thoughts in the form of tanka?  Even here the gap between them is large, as he sticks, for the most part, to the 5,7,5,7,7, syllable count of traditional Japanese tanka form, while she adopts the short, long, short, long, long lengths of line that many non-Japanese tanka writers have adopted."

You'll find the answer to Naomi's question if you read some of them.

                                                        

                                                                                                     

Robert Martens' Poltergeist shortlisted for 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award

cover painting: Chiu Ming Chiang

Lipstick Press is proud to congratulate Robert Martens on being shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award.  

Meet the Presses collective took over the administration of this annual award, originally launched in 1996.  Named for the late poet bpNichol, the prize is awarded to the author of the best poetry chapbook published in the previous year.

The finalists are chosen by contest judges, Bill Kennedy and Maggie Helwig, and the winner will be announced at the Meet the Presses Indie Literary Market, on November 17, 2012, noon to 4:30 p.m., at the Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Street, in Toronto.


The finalists for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award are:
Spencer Gordon, Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!, Ferno House (Toronto)
Adrienne Gruber, Mimic, Leaf Press (Lantzville, B.C.)
Liz Howard, (skullambient), Ferno House (Toronto)
Robert Martens, Poltergeist, Lipstick Press (Gabriola, B.C.)
Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin, let lie, above/ground press (Ottawa)
Hugh Thomas, Opening the Dictionary, above/ground press (Ottawa)

Review of Disease and Desire in current issue of PRRB

Yes, Kim Clark has been very busy of late, publishing, travelling and reading.  Now a review in The Pacific Rim Review of Books written by Linda Crosfield. And there are still copies available at Lipstick Press.

Kim Clark reads at Renaissance October 14

Reading at Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts - August 19

Kim Clark

author of Disease and Desire 

(published earlier this year) 

will be part of 

the New Voices reading 

at 2:30pm, on Sunday, August 19

along with Robyn Michele Levy

moderated by 

Host of CBC's North By Northwest

Sheryl MacKay. 

Visit the Festival's page for more information. It's a big event.

Happy birthday to Elsie Neufeld

Author of Grief Blading Up (sold out) has agreed to do Seven of the Proust to help us celebrate her birthday.


1.What is your idea of happiness?

Those moments when everything seems lined up, and “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” even when they are not.  This could be a moment or day long feeling, but when it’s there, it’s there! And it’s all there is; and you meld with it, unbidden.  Could be sharing a laugh with a friend; an Oceanside walk; pulling weeds; catching the scent of a Mock Orange shrub; a finch singing outside the window; hearing the scratch-scrabble sound of a squirrel ascending the cedar; a look in the eyes of another; a candle’s flare…. 


2.What is your favourite virtue?

Kindness – hands down!!  It astonishes me when I am the recipient of a stranger’s kindness. For example, in a grocery store recently, my arms were overfilled with items, and a woman came up to me and said, “I think you need a cart.” She pushed hers towards me, and retrieved another for herself. Sometimes kindness is returned immediately, and also surprising!  I was having coffee in a café, when a woman in a wheelchair entered. She was buying her elderly mother a coffee, but how would she convey two cups from the café counter to the seat where her mother sat?  I offered to do so.  When they left, the woman in wheelchair pressed a toonie into my hand and said “to pay for your coffee.”  She insisted.  How will the madness of this world heal if we are not kind to one another – our beloved ones, and the strangers we meet along the way? 


3.What is your biggest weakness?

I have so many!  Sloth; lack of discipline; procrastination; over-thinking.  Writing this, I think they are the flip side of my “strengths”! 


4.Who are your favourite poets?

Too many to list!  Wendell Berry; Jane Kenyon; Mary Oliver; Jane Hirschfield; Denise Levertov; and Mennonite poets Patrick Friesen, Di Brandt, Sarah Klassen; David Waltner-Toews – because they were the first poems I read that were written by “my people.” 


5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

From the Bible: The woman at the well, “who was seeking.”  Job: because he knew suffering, and abandonment.  All those who have a mental illness and those who love them as they are. 


6. What do you most dislike?

Self-righteousness.  Arrogance.  Judgement.  One measure for “worth and meaning.” 


7. What is your motto?

Listen with all your senses.  Be open to astonishment; then write about it. 

Al Rempel (The Picket Fence Diaries) has a birthday today

Al has agreed to participate in Seven of the Proust Questionnaire to help us celebrate his birthday.


1.What is your idea of happiness?

To be content with what I have and with where I am; to love and to be loved.


2.What is your favourite virtue?

Loyalty and integrity is number one. The ability to see the good in someone else. Warmth and openness and  a non-judgemental nature. The ability to ignore the question that is posed and to answer the one hiding behind. [Actually Al there are three favourites here but because they are all good virtues they are included]


3.What is your biggest weakness?

I’m an avoider of conflicts – which often backfires.


4.Who are your favourite poets?

I try to read as much poetry as I can – about half an hour a day – both online and in print, and poetry that goes beyond what I ‘get’ or what is similar to mine or what I like. I wouldn’t say I have any favourites though. Eliot, Blake, & Hopkins were early influences. Emily Carr (not the BC painter) and Gillian Jerome both gave me permission – through their work – to try new things with my own writing. I try to learn from everything I read.


5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

I’d be happy to do away with this notion when it involves putting people on a pedestal, idolizing them, and ignoring their humanity. There are people who do many good things in this world without notice; there are people who do a great thing when called on, when the ‘time is ripe’. I really can’t distinguish between one and the other.


6. What do you most dislike?

Entropy gets me down. Especially if it involves an expensive broken mechanical part. People with large egos or who are hateful and negative. When a driver won’t signal before turning in front of me.


7. What is your motto?

I often find myself saying to no one in particular: “One thing at a time”. It makes me feel like I have some control of the situation.

Jack Layton: Art and Action

For those who participated on this site's poems for Jack Layton last year, you might be interested in Penn Kemp's upcoming project. Penn is writing a book of anecdotes about Jack Layton and his involvement with arts and culture.

The working title is Jack Layton: Art and Action.

She is looking for stories, from a paragraph to a page or two, on encounters with Jack in the many arts and cultures that intrigued him. Each contributor will receive a copy. She is also seeking pieces on how Jack has continued to influence our lives and our activism; how his spirit has stayed with people since his death last August. Jack inspired her personally to move from performance poet to poet activist. Like throughout his long municipal and federal political life, Jack welcomed and encouraged everyone to become an activist to effect change. Now the time has certainly come!
 Email Penn Kemp for more information: penn@pennkemp.ca.

Please visit Quattro Books website for more information.

The Poet's Quest for God

Call for Submissions
The Poet’s Quest for God: 21st Century Poems of Spirituality
Edited by Dr. Oliver V. Brennan and Dr. Todd Swift
For Publication by Eyewear Publishing 2013-14
Deadline for submission: August 1, 2012

Eyewear Publishing is planning to publish an anthology of new, mostly previously-unpublished poems, written in English, concerned with spiritual issues in this secular age, by persons of any faith, or none. Submissions will be welcomed via email as word documents, containing no more than three poems, and including contact details and a brief 100 word biographical note about the author.

One of the characteristics of our contemporary culture which is generally described as post-modern is the human search for the spiritual. The advent of post-modernity has been accompanied by the dawn of a new spiritual awakening. Many spiritual writers say that desire is our fundamental dis-ease and is always stronger than satisfaction. This desire lies at the centre of our lives, in the deep recesses of the soul. This unquenchable fire residing in all of us manifests itself at key points in the human life cycle. Spirituality is ultimately what we do about that desire. When Plato said that we are on fire because our souls come from beyond and that beyond is trying to draw it back to itself, he is laying out the broad outlines for a spirituality. Augustine made this explicitly Christian in his universally known phrase: ‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You’.

This new emphasis on and openness to the spiritual dimension of human existence which is characteristic of contemporary lived culture is accompanied by a new emergence of atheism - ‘The Rage against God’ – as well as a sometimes-aggressive secularism. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are the two best-known exemplars of this in Western Europe. Perhaps the best response to this rage against belief in a Divine Power at work in the universe is a poetic one. In reply to people such as his brother Christopher and Dawkins, Peter Hitchens believes that passions as strong as theirs are more likely to be countered by ‘the unexpected force of poetry, which can ambush the human heart at any time’.

Hence we invite poets from around the world who can empathise with the new search for the spiritual to write about their belief, search or struggle with their quest for God (or a God), whether their image of God is what one young person described as ‘a creative energy that exists all around us, a life force’, the female image of God of the Old Testament, or the Abba (Father) image which lay at the core of the spirituality of Jesus of Nazareth, or indeed, some heretofore unimagined apprehension of the divine. The purpose of this collection is to awaken debate, create an imaginative discourse and generally open a space for religious poetic practices in the contemporary world, while at the same time refusing to delimit the horizon of the possible.

As poetry, and poets, have a long, rich, and no doubt complicated tradition of writing to, and about God (one needs only to think of Dante, Milton, Donne and Dickinson) and other issues surrounding faith, belief, and transcendence, the editors believe there should be no shortage of inspiring, inquiring, intriguing and imaginative poems available for readers at this challenging time in human history.

For more information, or to submit, contact Dr Swift at T.Swift@kingston.ac.uk or at Facebook.

Happy Birthday Kim Clark

Kim says "I'll be on CHLY radio [today] Tuesday, 2-4 with Pam Edgar. It's MS Awareness month so we'll be talking about MS in life, in fiction, and in poetry. Should be fun. :-) "

To help us celebrate her birthday Kim has answered Seven of the Proust Questionnaire.

1.What is your idea of happiness?

So many small things! A pretty little day with good company (like my kids ♥♥♥♥). Laughter. A flicker in the grass. A heron flying over. Being eye-to-eye with a hummingbird. Red wine. Laughter. Fall leaves. First blossoms. Good sex. Laughter. Blueberries. Making someone smile. Smoky cheese. Hickory sticks. Did I mention laughter?

2.What is your favourite virtue?

An open mind.


3.What is your biggest weakness?

Procrastination and cheese. One usually leads to the other.


4.Who are your favourite poets?

I don’t like to pick favourites but I will say George Bowering taught me the most about rhythm and rhyme and imagining the audience naked. At the moment I’m reading crawlspace by John Pass. Excellent!

5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Nobody historically famous. My mum. I wonder often what she’d think of my writing.

6. What do you most dislike?

Static plastic toilet seats and arrogance.

7. What is your motto?

Honestly? Buck up or fuck up.

Kim's latest collection of poetry, Disease and Desire, is now available for purchase via lipstickpress@shaw.ca, or by attending the launch, May 26th from 4pm to 6pm at The Roxy.

 

Launch - Disease and Desire by Kim Clark

May 26th, 4pm - 6pm at The Roxy (560 North Road, Gabriola). 

Kim Clark will be reading from and signing her new chapbook "Disease and Desire". Refreshments will be served and books available at $10 each.

About the book:

Disease and Desire is a manuscript of the body's domain and the spirit's will to fight the disease's abduction of the body, revealed through the first poem:

The Abduction
My body held poetry for ransom,
sinistral threat—
first with a little finger
[accidental pizzicato], next
my left foot.
The price was high, mind had to pay up
to make room for the lyric line.
The bootie crossed the blood-brain barrier,
[nothing to do with fair trade]
—poetic packets of plasma data
on the back of stealthy protein
hugged the perimeter,
stole through the interior
over the border—
words worth their weight
in myelin.

About Kim Clark

Disease and desire, mothering and the mundane propel Kim's ongoing journey between poetry and prose. Her debut fiction collection, Attemptations (Caitlin Press), was launched in 2011 and one of its novellas has been optioned for a 90 minute feature film. Kim’s work can be found in Body Breakdowns (Anvil Press), the Malahat Review, and e-zines and other publications in Canada and the U.S.. She lives in Cedar on Vancouver Island.

Happy birthday Robert Martens

Cover image by Chiu Ming Chiang

The author of Poltergeist (2011) has agreed to do Seven of the Proust so that we can celebrate his birthday.

Here are his down to earth answers:

1.What is your idea of happiness?

Life with a community of good people.

2.What is your favourite virtue?

Kindness. Much underrated.


3.What is your biggest weakness?

Passivity. Perhaps that's why I admire activists so much.

4.Who are your favourite poets?

As a young guy, William Blake was the man. Even a couple of years ago, my first destination in London was the Tate and the roomful of Blake etchings. I also love Allen Ginsberg, who is interesting even when his poems are slovenly. Passion is all I ask.

5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

I can't say I have any heroes or heroines at all. But I admire the good people, with all their flaws, who live for justice, peace, as they can, in little ways.

6. What do you most dislike?

Politicians who smile through their teeth.

 

 

7. What is your motto?

Make it through another day—with joy.

Disease and Desire by Kim Clark now available at Lipstick

Disease and Desire is a manuscript of the body's domain and the spirit's will to fight the disease's abduction of the body, revealed through the first poem:

The Abduction
My body held poetry for ransom,
sinistral threat—
first with a little finger
[accidental pizzicato], next
my left foot.
The price was high, mind had to pay up
to make room for the lyric line.
The bootie crossed the blood-brain barrier,
[nothing to do with fair trade]
—poetic packets of plasma data
on the back of stealthy protein
hugged the perimeter,
stole through the interior
over the border—
words worth their weight
in myelin.


Through determination, rage and the embrace of every moment, Kim Clark shows us she is not the victim of the disease, which is Multiple Sclerosis, and not the survivor, but master of the art of living regardless of the pain that interrupts her will.

This manuscript is not for the glossy catalogues of platitudes that glaze over raw emotion.  Nor is it for the museum of documented sufferings.  This is the literary vivisection of a particular life displayed without pity.  As you read each page you will laugh and cry and be thankful for getting to know Kim through her unapologetic disclosures.

About Kim Clark

Disease and desire, mothering and the mundane propel Kim's ongoing journey between poetry and prose. Her debut fiction collection, Attemptations (Caitlin Press), was launched in 2011 and one of its novellas has been optioned for a 90 minute feature film. Kim’s work can be found in Body Breakdowns (Anvil Press), the Malahat Review, and e-zines and other publications in Canada and the U.S.. She lives in Cedar on Vancouver Island.

Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1
lipstickpress@shaw.ca
www.lipstickpress.com

ISBN:  978-0-9880043-0-6

28 pages
Cover image: “Mushroom” photo © 2012 Janet Vickers
$10 per copy plus shipping
To order email lipstickpress@shaw.ca

Al Rempel has a new website



Cover design © 2010 Jayson Hencheroff

Al Rempel is the author of The Picket Fence Diaries (2010), "understories" (Caitlin Press), and another forthcoming "This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For". You can find out more about Al at: http://al-rempel.webnode.com/.

Congratulations Al on your continued success.

Happy Birthday Heidi Greco

Heidi is the author of A: the Amelia Poems which was the first book published by Lipstick Press in 2009.

Since that time Heidi has published a novella titled Shrinking Violets (Quattro 2011), has a poem in A Verse Map of Vancouver (Anvil, 2009), and has contributed to the recent anthology
Igniting the Green Fuse which came out of the Eco Poetry Workshop in Seattle.

Lipstick wishes Heidi the best most creative year ever.

Disease and Desire by Kim Clark coming soon

Watch this space for further information on publication date and how to get hold of a copy.

For further inquiry email lipstickpress@shaw.ca

Happy Birthday rob mclennan

rob in New Orleans, photo by Stephen Brockwell

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes: (BlazeVOX [books], 2012), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks, 2011), Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and kate street (Moira, 2011), and a second novel, missing persons (2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com. rob is also the author of how it is I am not married / I want to sleep in the runcible spoon (2010).

To help us celebrate his birthday I asked Rob to do Seven of the Proust Questionnaire.

Here it is:

1.What is your idea of happiness?

Happiness is the freedom to do those things I think I would like to and/or need to do. Basically, how I’m living now, I suppose (although less financial stress sure would be nice). Spending time with friends, and my daughter, occasionally. Writing full-time with my lovely. We make books, and make books happen.

2.What is your favourite virtue?

Honesty and/or loyalty.

3.What is your biggest weakness?

I sometimes feel battered around by the day-to-dayness of self-employed literary work more than I would like to. I require a thicker skin, perhaps.


4.Who are your favourite poets?

Hard to say, that. There are dozens of writers I attempt to follow regularly. Early on, writers such as Richard Brautigan, George Bowering, John Newlove, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol were very important to me.

Lists are difficult, because there is always ten times the volume of such I know I’m leaving out. Perhaps I could focus what is scattered across my desk currently? These days, I’m excited by recent work by Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Barry McKinnon, Pattie McCarthy, David McGimpsey, Rae Armantrout, Barbara Langhorst, Deborah Poe, Monty Reid, Sarah Mangold and Heather Christle.

Just today, I received Jenna Butler’s second poetry collection. I’d been looking forward to that for a while. And Marcus McCann has something new this spring, which is exciting.

Sure would be nice to see a new book out by Sylvia Legris. Or, a first trade collection by, say, Amanda Earl or Trisia Eddy.

5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Hah. Again, difficult to say. I do not like James II of England. I blame him for much, including the massacre at Glencoe and a battle in Ireland. Damn fool, him.

I’m fascinated by historical British Royals, for some reason. Queen Victoria intrigues. I’ve read many a book on Royals over the years. This is most likely something I picked up from my mother.

Simon Fraser was pretty interesting. David Thompson. The history of the exploration and mapping of the Canadian West is fascinating. Oh, and Sir Isaac Brock. He quickly took two American forts before their leaders knew the War of 1812 had even begun. Take that, invaders.

6. What do you most dislike?

Anyone too caught up in themselves.

Government hypocrisy, including the current federal leadership, who originally ran (very holier-than-thou) on a promise of honesty and transparency. Self-destructiveness re: environmental policies and reproductive issues. Every human being deserves a base level of respect, no matter who they are or what they believe.

At the same time, I would think this should be something book reviewers should also be aware of. Every book and their author deserves the same, a base level of respect. No matter what the reviewer might think of such.

I also dislike when the mailman changes his schedule. Throws off my whole day.

7. What is your motto?

Not sure I have one. But I do try to push myself pretty regularly to see what I didn’t know I could do. Life without a certain amount of risk, both as writer/creator and simply a person, doesn’t seem to have much point.

For a few years, I’ve been borrowing jwcurry’s “motto” (for lack of better terminology) about what his biggest goal as a writer/person/etc. is, and that is, to “remain interested.”

Happy Birthday Franci Louann, author of Beach Cardiology

To help us celebrate her birthday, Franci answered Seven of the Proust. Here they are, italicized, in her own words:


What is your idea of happiness?

You mean—other than a good, dark chocolate fondue? Peace of mind. I love long mornings of puttering, writing, and virtual connections. Also, poetry—its arrival, the rewriting, and sharing with friends.


What is your favourite virtue?

Honesty, I like to think. We sully ourselves if we are deceitful. (Creative thinking can keep us honest.)


What is your biggest weakness?

The ‘see-food’ diet. I regret that, often, positive thoughts that I feel in my heart don’t spring to my tongue. I may find it hard to forgive meanness. I might be passive-aggressive. (Is that so wrong?) 


Who are your favourite poets?

Dickinson and Frost. I must ‘make room for Rumi’, consider Hopkins, and many more from the past and present. Generally, I prefer contemporary minimalists—or poets who write simply, for example, Wislawa Szymborska. I just came to know of her, since she passed away.

Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Dr. Joseph Workman, the Father of Canadian Psychiatry. Albert Schweitzer. Emily Dickinson. Emily was light years ahead of her time. In her writing she used symbols—for example long dashes, upward and downward—for which we still have no equivalent. (Would slashes, forward and backward, do the same work?)

What do you most dislike?

Dishonesty. No, a lack of charity. (Oops, message to myself.)

What is your motto?

I’m an unrelenting optimist, an ‘optometrist—I look on the bright side’. I’m either an optimist or a fool. Oh dear, I feel like a Pisces—swimming in opposite directions.