This is about as topical as a poem can get, and about as Canadian as a Canadian poem can get. You can hear Laurence Hutchman (and co-feature Penn Kemp) read at our special National Poetry Month event on April 16th at the Landon Library. 

Waiting for Spring

What is it about it about waiting for spring
as you look at disbelief at the white pages of the calendar
long past the vernal equinox
You’ve been waiting for a long time
looking out into the backyard 
as if it were the frozen form of Pangaea
trying to reshape itself in time-lapse photography.

Yes, you’ve been waiting for the signs for some time now:
that subtle bright change in the afternoon sky in late January,
that moment when you sit in the Escort and feel that momentary
warmth (the first you sensed since late October)
And you fee the belief in a minor meteorological prophecy. 
and feel the assurance of the wavering rays of the sunlight,
but then comes the deep freeze of February, 
and there is the thin hope of the slow lengthening evenings,
count them –two minutes per day, 
but you’re a long way from day light saving’s time.

And then, suddenly in spite of the frozen air,
you see water on the street, 
and the first since God knows when
but you’re grateful….and then you have the pavement
becoming a tabula rasa, white and so dry,
surely spring must come now or soon,
but then the days of blizzards and shovels and sweat…

And then, the change, the thermometer surprisingly climbs
above zero and those glacial snow banks start to slowly melt
and you watch for patterns, the unexpected emergence of
grass, and the slow widening, 
(ever slow diminishing of the snow)
Why don’t you live on the sunny side of the street?

The snow begins to undergo alterations as it moves into old age,
and you see the crystals begin to form, 
and little prisms appear,
and every object now has an identity, an indentention.
The trees have no snow,
and the roofs are finally bare.

And nature becomes lyrical--
the water runs gurgling under little snow glaciers
which have begun to turn brown like tawny animals
(remember on the way home from school when you used to
break them off—sometimes ten feet at a time. 
You were an icebreaker,
(remember when the coming of spring used to be fun.)

But you can see the discontent of winter still in the air
as neighbours go outside and can’t believe that CNN is wrong again,
and the neighbours still scraping of the morning frost
totally frosted off, and like more like refugees.
Some try to fight it.
You seem them out there with the pick axes and choppers
hacking away at their personal glaciers 
as if it were a private personal affront,
and they stand like desperate Shakespearian actors
looking at the enigmatic spring skies
giving their Shakespearean soliloquies
Where art thou now, O Spring?

And you wait and listen for the birds.

©Laurence Hutchman

We need someone to do videos of our poets while they’re reading at the London Open Mic events. Would you like to volunteer?

You wouldn’t need a Hollywood-quality camera. Although something better than a cell phone would be nice. The main thing is it should have reasonably good sound quality. The viewers will be listening as much as watching, if not more. You would also need a small, cheap tripod, one you can set on a table. Point the camera at the poet, push the button and let it go. After the event, the video would go to YouTube. 

Easy stuff, and fun to do. And if you take this on, you don’t have to feel trapped into doing it every single month. If we miss one here and there, so be it. Videos are just an add-on feature to the open mic. 

But a good one. Videos can make up for a lot of the problems caused when poems are presented orally at a reading. They allow people to go over a poem more than once to help them appreciate it, which they could do if reading it in a book. And they give people the opportunity to watch once again a particular poem that they loved when they heard it at the reading. 

This would be a volunteer position, but of course it wouldn’t hurt a resume. There are side benefits as well, like possibly meeting some interesting people, getting more involved in the local poetry scene, and, if you would like, joining our organizing committee (not a very difficult job), and having your own blog on our well-read website. 

Anyone interested in doing this can contact Stan at burfield@live.com

(Jacob Scheier was London Open Mic's featured poet on March 5th. '14.)

Hi all - I will be facilitating a 6 week workshop on writing just poetry about grief beginning May 7 - contact me here or griefwriting@gmail.com to register or if you have any questions. Details below. Please share. Thank you!
Writing Poetry About Grief:
A 6 week workshop on writing poetry about grief with Jacob Scheier. We will read and discuss contemporary elegies (poems of mourning) and craft our own.The workshop is intended for aspiring writers and professional writers — essentially anyone would is interested in giving their experiences of grief and loss poetic expression. Participants will learn about the nature of the elegiac form, as well as how to utilize literary devices and techniques to make our experiences of grief and loss speak to others. Grief, in this context, is not limited to death, but any kind of loss, including, but not restricted to: divorce and separation, the loss of a part of someone or oneself through illness or loss of a wider scale (e.g. ecological loss).
The cost of this workshop is $150/per participant. Materials provided.
Time and Place: Wednesdays, May 7-June 11, 6:30-9 pm. 25 Maitland Street, Toronto (1 block south of Wellesley St. and 1 block east of Yonge St).
About me:
I won a 2008 Governor General's Award for poetry for my first book, More to Keep us Warm (ECW Press). My follow up collection, Letter from Brooklyn (ECW Press), was published last spring. I am also a volunteer peer-facilitator of support groups with Bereaved Families of Ontario since 2008 and I have been facilitating workshops on writing about grief for over three years. I have facilitated these workshops through Ryerson’s School of Continuing Education, at the Centre of Social Innovation, at the Bereavement Ontario Network’s Annual Conference and on the Walpole Island First Nations Reserve.
To register or for further information, please contact me at griefwriting@gmail.com or call 416-949-6003.

Jacob Scheier's interview and batch of poems leading up to his Mar. 5th feature appearance at London Open Mic

After more than a season and a half of London Open Mic Poetry Night events, over half of the local poets who satisfy our original criteria -- having had at least one book of poetry published --have read as featured poets. 

The following list (in alphabetical order) includes most of the remaining poets who fit that category. Most will read during Seasons 3 and 4. Only two have yet been booked into actual event dates for Season 3. 


Madeline Bassnett
Julie Berry
Patricia Black
Don Gutteridge - National Poetry Month, Season 3, April 2015
Martin Hayter
David Hickey
Debbie Okun Hill
Penn Kemp - National Poetry Month, Season 2, April 2014
John B. Lee
Monika Lee - June 4th, 2014 (2nd season ender)
Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy
Roy MacDonald - Oct. 1st, 2015 (kicking off 3rd season)
Dorothy Neilsen
Erik Martinez Richards
Peggy Roffey

If I’m missing anyone, please tell me. 

Obviously there are not enough poets in this list to feature for more than two seasons. Assuming we will be enjoying an existence beyond that, and there seems to be no reason why we won’t, then we have a problem. 

I knew from the beginning this would have to be solved somehow, at some point, and so by December of Season 2 I began to loosen up the criteria for featuring, letting the occasional poet from elsewhere read, the first being UWO’s then Writer-in-Residence NourbeSe Philip Soon I had a few more poets from outside the area booked in, all for seemingly good reasons.  However, it is becoming obvious that this is threatening to erode away our ideal of supporting and promoting the local community. So in future this will only happen if it’s not possible to get a local poet to feature for an event. 

Where will local features come from when all the poets on the above list have read? 

Some will feature a second time, especially if they have a new book out. Frank Davey will be the first to do this early in Season 3. Anyone who publishes a new book and wants to re-feature, just ask. 

We will be widening our local area somewhat. The list above includes the first two from this enlarged region: John B. Lee of Brantford and Debbie Okun Hill from Sarnia. Others will follow.

Also we will begin featuring poets who don’t have any books published, some of whom are very good. As the number of poets has increased and the number of publishers of poetry books has decreased recently, many of our best poets have given up on publication, or are paying for it themselves. We haven’t decided yet how to select which of these poets to feature. 

Occasionally we will feature something different than a single poet. For instance, in February we had four senior UWO English students with something written for the occasion. If anyone has a good idea for a special feature, something locally oriented, there’s no harm in asking. 

Stan
burfield@live.com