Don Gutteridge, who is currently Professor Emeritus at Western and was our Nov. 2016 featured poet, and who has over 20 volumes of poetry to his credit, sent me a letter last week as follows:
“Stan: When I read your biography about your upbringing in Alberta, your years in the flower shop, and your lifelong battle with shyness (and its torture), I was moved to write a little poem about your defiance and persistence and the role that poetry played.”
DEFY
For Stan Burfield
For more than a dozen years
you were surrounded by blooms
in your shop, a long way
from Alberta’s unlyrical
land, and when you tried
your hand at verse, were
your first poems for poppies
and their roaring red, sonnets
for sunflowers a-burst
in lavish light, lyrics
for larkspur and their passionate
purple, or pentameters
for peonies and their kissing cousins?
Did you let them speak
for you, go soaring through the
petrified petal of your fear?
For poetry is both bliss
and consolation, a way of speaking
to the world that subsumes
both shy and defy.
--Don Gutteridge
And only one day earlier, Don had sent me this message:
“Stan: I went onto your facebook page and saw that beautiful poem there. Gorgeous imagery and wonderful pace. … Anyway, poetry begets poetry. I sat right down and penned the attached poem, inspired by yours. I am looking forward to hearing you read on the YouTube video of your performance.”
MY TURN
Whenever I think of death,
I take a deep breath
and congratulate myself
on being alive, ever
since that day
long ago when I wished
my way out of the womb and uttered
my first articulate cry
and wondered how many
had come before me
in humanity’s slow bloom
all the way back to the
great apes and their generous
genes and the dinosaurs who groomed
the ancient foliage of the Earth
and finally the fish-churned
sea where something
grew anew, a birth
with no antecedent,
a blip in God’s thought,
and here I am against
the odds still living,
waiting patiently for my turn.
--Don Gutteridge
This is the poem Mr. Gutteridge had read:
CONCERNING OUR GLORIOUS FUTURE
.
As I lift the spoon
from this morning’s coffee
I feel the same long pull of time
that my father did
my mother
that their parents did
and theirs
a chain rattling down
into the well so far
I cannot imagine.
And up, out of that darkness
into this present,
all of it--
the slow ages of our reptilian forebears,
our fearful hominid ancestors,
the entire charging ascent of Man--
comes to a juddering halt
at this drop of coffee
falling
from this
spoon.
We are stranded here
immovable
at the endpoint
of time, banging
our heads
on the ceiling.
--Stan Burfield
Suffice it to say, I feel honoured. Thanks, Don!
Don has a new book of poetry out, Sands of Canatara, of which he is donating 19 copies to London Open Mic. If any of you who received one of his books from his feature reading would like one of these, gratis, email me and you can pick it up Wednesday. The remaining copies will be given away first-come first-served.
BIO: Don Gutteridge is the author of more than fifty books, including poetry, fiction and scholarly works in educational theory and practice. In 1972 he won the President’s Medal at The University of Western Ontario for his poem "Death At Quebec". Among his best-known poems are the mythic tetralogy: Riel: A Poem For Voices, Coppermine: The Quest For North, Borderlands, and Tecumseh. Gutteridge is best known across Canada for his historical fiction. He has also recently produced a series of mystery novels, The Marc Edwards Mysteries.
Don Gutteridge was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1937, and was raised in the nearby village of Point Edward, Ontario. His high schooling took place in Sarnia and Chatham, Ontario. He attended the University of Western Ontario (UWO), where he graduated with a BA Honours in English in 1960. Gutteridge then taught high school English for seven years before joining the Faculty of Education at UWO in 1969. He is currently Professor Emeritus. He lives in London, Ontario with his wife Anne. He has two children, John and Kate, and six grandchildren.
Read our interview with Don Gutteridge, and three poems.
Read our interview with Stan Burfield, and three poems.
THE EVENT
WHERE: Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: June 7th, 2017. Poetry begins at 7 pm. Come anytime before that and place your order.
THE FEATURED POET: Stan Burfield opens the event at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, 15 open mic poets will read until 9:30 at the latest, with an intermission at about 8:00. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Sign up on the reader`s list, which is on the book table at the back. It's first come, first served.
COVER: Pay What You Can (in jar on back table, or use Donate Button on website Donate Page). Donations are our only source of income to cover expenses.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates at the event receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by The Ontario Poetry Society.
“Stan: When I read your biography about your upbringing in Alberta, your years in the flower shop, and your lifelong battle with shyness (and its torture), I was moved to write a little poem about your defiance and persistence and the role that poetry played.”
DEFY
For Stan Burfield
For more than a dozen years
you were surrounded by blooms
in your shop, a long way
from Alberta’s unlyrical
land, and when you tried
your hand at verse, were
your first poems for poppies
and their roaring red, sonnets
for sunflowers a-burst
in lavish light, lyrics
for larkspur and their passionate
purple, or pentameters
for peonies and their kissing cousins?
Did you let them speak
for you, go soaring through the
petrified petal of your fear?
For poetry is both bliss
and consolation, a way of speaking
to the world that subsumes
both shy and defy.
--Don Gutteridge
And only one day earlier, Don had sent me this message:
“Stan: I went onto your facebook page and saw that beautiful poem there. Gorgeous imagery and wonderful pace. … Anyway, poetry begets poetry. I sat right down and penned the attached poem, inspired by yours. I am looking forward to hearing you read on the YouTube video of your performance.”
MY TURN
Whenever I think of death,
I take a deep breath
and congratulate myself
on being alive, ever
since that day
long ago when I wished
my way out of the womb and uttered
my first articulate cry
and wondered how many
had come before me
in humanity’s slow bloom
all the way back to the
great apes and their generous
genes and the dinosaurs who groomed
the ancient foliage of the Earth
and finally the fish-churned
sea where something
grew anew, a birth
with no antecedent,
a blip in God’s thought,
and here I am against
the odds still living,
waiting patiently for my turn.
--Don Gutteridge
This is the poem Mr. Gutteridge had read:
CONCERNING OUR GLORIOUS FUTURE
.
As I lift the spoon
from this morning’s coffee
I feel the same long pull of time
that my father did
my mother
that their parents did
and theirs
a chain rattling down
into the well so far
I cannot imagine.
And up, out of that darkness
into this present,
all of it--
the slow ages of our reptilian forebears,
our fearful hominid ancestors,
the entire charging ascent of Man--
comes to a juddering halt
at this drop of coffee
falling
from this
spoon.
We are stranded here
immovable
at the endpoint
of time, banging
our heads
on the ceiling.
--Stan Burfield
Suffice it to say, I feel honoured. Thanks, Don!
Don has a new book of poetry out, Sands of Canatara, of which he is donating 19 copies to London Open Mic. If any of you who received one of his books from his feature reading would like one of these, gratis, email me and you can pick it up Wednesday. The remaining copies will be given away first-come first-served.
BIO: Don Gutteridge is the author of more than fifty books, including poetry, fiction and scholarly works in educational theory and practice. In 1972 he won the President’s Medal at The University of Western Ontario for his poem "Death At Quebec". Among his best-known poems are the mythic tetralogy: Riel: A Poem For Voices, Coppermine: The Quest For North, Borderlands, and Tecumseh. Gutteridge is best known across Canada for his historical fiction. He has also recently produced a series of mystery novels, The Marc Edwards Mysteries.
Don Gutteridge was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1937, and was raised in the nearby village of Point Edward, Ontario. His high schooling took place in Sarnia and Chatham, Ontario. He attended the University of Western Ontario (UWO), where he graduated with a BA Honours in English in 1960. Gutteridge then taught high school English for seven years before joining the Faculty of Education at UWO in 1969. He is currently Professor Emeritus. He lives in London, Ontario with his wife Anne. He has two children, John and Kate, and six grandchildren.
Read our interview with Don Gutteridge, and three poems.
Read our interview with Stan Burfield, and three poems.
THE EVENT
WHERE: Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: June 7th, 2017. Poetry begins at 7 pm. Come anytime before that and place your order.
THE FEATURED POET: Stan Burfield opens the event at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, 15 open mic poets will read until 9:30 at the latest, with an intermission at about 8:00. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Sign up on the reader`s list, which is on the book table at the back. It's first come, first served.
COVER: Pay What You Can (in jar on back table, or use Donate Button on website Donate Page). Donations are our only source of income to cover expenses.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates at the event receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by The Ontario Poetry Society.
RSS Feed