Expozine

It seems that whenever you enter into a new field or indulge in a new form of creative expression, you soon find yourself in the midst of an overwhelming crowd of others doing much the same thing, putting to a severe test any sense of originality or impact that may have excited you in the first place. Expozine was no exception. Once we spread out our wares amid more than two hundred tables of other small and self-publishers, zine- and trinket-venders, the vast majority of them just from the area of Montreal, it soon became obvious that it would be a serious challenge not only to sell a copy or two but give our freebees away. Like nearly everyone, we brought at least three times as much stock as we actually needed, for the sake of display and just in case of some wildly improbable, dream-like demand. With a techno back beat pounding from overhead speakers, and the crushing throng of browsers, it soon became obvious that what would catch people's eye was the eye-catching, the novel, the cute, what would bring on exclamations of "That's Neat!" I think the guy who packed away the best sales on the floor was a maker of not books but leather belts: I'm sure he sold at least a half a dozen of them. So much was on hand it was hard to focus on anything, let alone read, absorb, assess.

And yet, this blaring marché was unpretentious and fun, the direct relationship between makers and buyers refreshing. A number of the venders had such marvelously eccentric wares that it restored, in a strange way, my faith in humanity. It was amusing to see what kinds of people noticed our table at all, and what elements in the crammed, enormous smörgåsbord caused them to notice us. My Guatemala & Other Poems -- it looks like it was printed yesterday although it's nearly 13 years old -- caught the eye of one sensitive-looking young fella (he turned out to write poetry himself), who leafed through it, put it down, but came back an hour later in a rush to buy it, exclaiming it had made his day (and for sure, he made mine.) One young woman really took to Nina's book, claiming she loved its title and austere, graphic-free presentation -- refreshing, she felt, in the context of so much eye-popping stuff. (I think she was as unusual in this regard as the book itself.) We were happy to cut both these people half-price deals because it seemed sure they would read them. I traded Francisco's book with Ann Diamond for her collection Terrorist Letters, but also bought My Cold War from her -- the context for these transactions was already created by some lengthy dialogue on this blog, and it was really enjoyable shooting the breeze with her in person once again. The owner of Véhicule, a major small press publisher, came to our table and bought Nina's book after I purchased David Solway's Reaching for Clear. It was fun chatting for the first time with him -- he recognized me and I him from other literary events in town -- and it turns out he knew Nina and was delighted we had pushed her to finally publish. Small world, of course, that of Anglo literary publishing in Montreal. The place soon became packed to the point that the multitudes had difficulty making their way, and ten minutes before closing time, there was scarcely a sign that things were coming to an end. At the end of the day, we made back our costs and then some, and came away with a real sense of success. Too bad I forgot to bring my camera to do a little photo-journalism. That'll have to wait till next year, when we're likely to rent a table for two days.

Reposted from Monday: Sky of Ink Press (our chapbook press) has rented a table at Expozine, Montreal's annual small press/comic/zine fair. We'll be there on Saturday, Nov. 24 between 12 and 6pm (it also continues on Sunday, but we won't be there that day). The fair is located at Eglise Saint-Enfant Jesus near Laurier and St-Laurent. For sale will be Nina Bruck's Still Light at Five O'clock, as well as my book, CD, Undressing the Night, etc.. We'll have cards to give away, too. So if you want to come by, chat, etc...

The future of the book: so, will your tomes be Kindling?

Very interesting reading from this week's Newsweek:

The handheld device can also hold several shelves' worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. Also, the Kindle allows you to search within the book for a phrase or name.

Some of those features have been available on previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. As a result, says Bezos, "This isn't a device, it's a service."

Read more here.

HOW THE END OF THE COLD WAR LEAD TO CUTBACKS NOT ONLY IN MISSILES, BUT THE ARTS

Tomorrow I'll be attending the Symposium on the Role of Arts and Culture in Canadian Public Diplomacy, held here in Montreal. The League of Poets asked me to represent them there, because, well, I am the Quebec rep on its National Council and live in Montreal. I actually imagined this affair might be drab as dishwater -- and it may well be -- but a research paper sent to me as preparatory reading, by Rachael Maxwell with the rather straightforward title, The Place of Arts and Culture in Canadian Foreign Policy, surprised me by being quite engrossing, and made me privy to the astounding bit of information that I'm going to share with you now.

In an overview of the history of public diplomacy, Maxwell says that the Cold War set the stage for "what was arguably the largest and most ambitious public diplomacy program ever put forth". (Public diplomacy can be defined as cultural and academic exchanges between nations and more broadly, the promotion of cultural and national values so as to create a favourable image of one's own country abroad.) I quote from her paper:

It was, for all intents and purposes, a propaganda program that aimed to encourage anti-Communist psychology and create allies for the cause. With the help of the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the goals were largely pursued through the dissemination of "anti-Communist culture" directed at foreign publics, and thus was a large-scale exercise in cultural diplomacy. The U.S. government sunk large amounts of funds into the CIA's campaign to "culturally" fight communism, culminating in the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) that was set up by 1950 and three years later in the creation of the United States Information Agency (USIA) that was devoted entirely to public diplomacy. The idea of the Congress and the USIA was to display art, primarily visual art, literature and music, that was directly opposed to Soviet dictates about what art should be. Art was to represent the freedom of American life, that being, the freedom of the individual as opposed to the collective ideology of Communism.

Basically, the CCF sponsored art that was banned in the Soviet Union. As an example, they put on the International Conference of Twentieth Century Music in 1954, which concentrated heavily on atonal music, for the express reason that atonal music was not allowed in the U.S.S.R. In 1959 the Congress for Cultural Freedom sponsored the Masterpieces Festival of modern art, which was to display great works that could not have been created under totalitarian regimes such as Nazism or Communism. The primary art of this exhibition and a number of other widely publicized art extravaganzas during the fifties was Abstract Expressionism. According the the CIA and American government, the art of Abstract Expressionism represented the antithesis to Communism. At the same time, the USIA facilitated numerous cultural and educational exchanges and was responsible for the allotment of Fulbright Scholarships and international radio broadcasts of the Voice of America (VOA).

American Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider notes that this was a turning point for the instrumentality of cultural diplomacy; in fact, it was the "heyday" of cultural diplomacy. America went against the Soviet Union clad with, "jazz, abstract expressionism and modern literature." Musicians like Louis Armstrong were sent on government-funded tours throughout the Soviet Union and to countries such as Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Egypt. In fact, American cultural centres during this time prospered in Islamic capitals. Schneider surmises that cultural diplomacy worked so well during the Cold War because it seemingly opened space for critical voices to be heard, in fact, "it even allowed and fostered dissent". Since [artists], actors, musicians and writers in any culture act as the national conscience, reflecting them often critically, on society" they were the most fitting ambassadors to send abroad to promote freedom, as they embodied the ideal of democratic societies, that being, freedom of speech.

Other countries were also active in cultural diplomacy programs, notably the UK, France and Germany; still, nothing compared to the potency and presence of the American program... Moreover, just as the U.S. used culture to undermine the authority of the Communist Party, so did the Soviets with their cultural achievements of the time. For example, the Soviets organized a momentous exhibition in New York in 1959 to display their cultural achievements and often sent their National Ballet on extensive touring programs around the world.

Public diplomacy experienced somewhat of a 'death' at the end of the Cold War. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the United States shut down more than 80 of its cultural centers around the world, under the rather short-sighted belief that "cultural outreach had outlived its purpose." This happened in combination with an anti-arts movement in the American Congress, which further led to cuts in American cultural programming both nationally and internationally and to the eventual elimination of the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1999. Such short sightedness failed to account for nationalist movements that would spur religious and ethnic conflict, notably in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and in general, across much of the Islamic world and many regions of the African continent, such as Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

As goes Mr. Bush, so goes Baby Bush (otherwise known as Stephen Harper.) Despite our massive national surplus, Harper's government has slashed virtually every penny for promotion of Canadian arts abroad, and made it clear through his policies, communiques and express indifference that the arts couldn't be a lower priority at home. (Margaret Atwood has a number of caustic things to say about this...) Indeed, it is to discuss and raise awareness about these concerns that this symposium is being held. On the panels I see a couple of former federal gov't ministers, namely Bill Graham, former Foreign Affairs & Defence minister, and Marcel Masse, former Communications minister. Too bad, though, that no one from the present government is on any of the panels. Did they decline to send anyone at all? If so, I may be in for a day of futile griping and bickering...

ON THE EDGE: TED TALKS

The Edge is one e-magazine I look forward to receiving in my e-mail box every 2-4 weeks (regular it is in its irregularity). Featuring interviews, videotalks and brief essays by leading intellectuals, most of them scientists, this one sometimes reconnects me with the thrill of being an undergraduate and going to a lecture to have my worldview reshaped by that famous or eminent (who I likely never heard of) so-and-so. Especially this issue, which features three video talks from the TED Conference by Steven Pinker, who gives quite a thought-provoking account of the history of violence; Carolyn Porco, an astronomer who shows us the latest pictures from a probe that landed on two of the moons of Saturn; and Vilayanur Ramachandran, a brain researcher who shares some revelations about our cerebral functions resulting from studies of Capgras delusion, a strange condition where people believe their family and friends have been replaced by impostors.

It seems that every year over a thousand people attend the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference in Monterrey, California to hobnob and hear some fifty 20-minute talks by leading lights in academia, business and culture. More than 150 of these talks are available on high-res streaming videos on the TED website. So far, there's just one poet: a slam-poet named Rives. But if you need to stimulate that cortex with other sorts of contemporary mythology...

MENTAL ILLNESS STIGMA

Tonight I went with my partner to hear Margaret Trudeau speak at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. It was part of a conference on combating the stigma of mental illness. On the panel were other mental health advocates, two of them mental health professionals who themselves had gone through severe bipolar disorder or depression. Since my own partner is bipolar, this was a "must see" for both of us.

Ever since she went public with her belated diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Margaret Trudeau has been on a different sort of campaign trail, raising awareness at conferences of this sort all over the country. I had never been especially impressed with her before -- the media portrayed her as a total airhead and flake, and she provided the fodder -- but she surprised me with her engaging warmth, cogent intelligence, quick wit: besides her (still) striking good looks, I can now see how PET was quite struck with her in other ways. In an eloquent, humorous and at times impassioned speech, she spoke candidly about her life, her mistreatment at the Royal Vic (overmedication, wrong medication, medical negligence, i.e. few and improper blood tests) but also stressed that with current medications available, there was nothing shameful in being mentally ill; that the shameful thing was not accepting the diagnosis when it is obvious, and taking on the responsibility to face it and deal with it as best one can.

A number of mental health professionals were in the room, and some troubling themes revealed themselves during the presentations and question period, i.e.

• As one particularly caring psychiatrist put it (and there are a few out there), if the Prime Minister's wife had trouble getting proper treatment, what about the average Jane or Joe? God help them...
• Not only do "consumers" (mental patients and outpatients) feel stigmatized by society, but also psychiatrists and psychotherapists. The president of the CMHA, now an eminent psychiatrist, said that one of her teachers at medical school tried to discourage her from going into psychiatry, describing it as a "waste of her talent."
  
• Mental health is the most underfunded branch of medicine. Whenever there are cutbacks, mental health beds/administration get slashed first. This contributes to a mood of what one professional described as "chronic depression" in mental health administration.
  
• Because of underfunding, treatment is often rushed, uncaring and follow-up spotty or well nigh non-existent. The chronic underfunding feeds the stigma, and fear -- at times, downright terror -- on the part of patients of being recommitted to a psychiatric ward. Horror stories still abound: people stuck in padded cells for days on end for "talking back", etc. Patients after treatment are put out into society to fend for themselves without any backup or "support team" (or even adequate info. to form one), and soon bounce back into the system.
  
• Poor or non-existent communication continues to be a major obstacle. Doctors who don't return phone calls from concerned family members, who often leave family members in the dark about treatment of their loved ones, the nature of the diagnosis, etc. Doctors operate under legal restraints which can also be used for keeping the work as simple and routine as possible: they aren't allowed to involve family members without the patient's consent, but most don't even bother asking for it, although most patients would gladly give it if asked. This is partly because of the following:
  
• One psychiatrist expressed extreme frustration at the fact that while there are as many treatment modalities as there are patients -- most require a combination of medication, talk therapy, cognitive therapy, etc. -- budget limitations and directives from above force him to follow but one course of action: the prescription/maintenance of meds only.
  

Of course, there have been improvements over the years. Advocacy organizations for the mentally ill and their families -- such as AMI Quebec -- now provide mutual support and crucial aid for patients and family members in negotiating their way through the system. (These organizations did not exist but 20 or 30 years ago.) There has been more coverage in media and growing awareness and understanding in society. The fact that three of the mental health professionals on the panel were able to freely admit in public that they themselves had had serious mental health issues represents major progress: two or three decades ago, such an admission would have meant career suicide. But, the stigma still exists, and its effects are still obviously felt. One indication of the current state of affairs is that in 2007, we still need this type of forum; another is that given the pervasiveness of depression and other psychiatric disorders in society, shouldn't Mental Health Awareness Week be expanded to a month?

I never actually spoke up during the question period (there were lots of people there with prepared notes at the mike, ready to go), but if I had been better prepared I would have pointed out how there is lots of stigma embedded in the very terminology bandied about in this field. Diagnostic labeling and colloquial slights ("psycho", "loony bin") can be bad enough, but even the common use of the word "consumer" seems deprecatory. When I think of a "consumer", I think of some moron with a shopping cart, mindlessly "addicted" to his shopping. What does that make the mental health establishment? The "supermarket"? The tycoons? (The big pharmaceuticals certainly are.) Why not privilege those whom the system is supposed to serve and call them "clients"? Language, as poets and politicians well know, is powerful: sometimes reframing the terms can bring on changes in awareness, and open the door to better attitudes and better treatment.

Feeling Rejected?

I just came across this nice post in my meanderings: The 8 Rules of Rejection. A good tonic for anyone who receives those pesky things. My only crit is that the writer even uses the word: I've pretty well struck it out of my vocabulary.

Democracy Now

For a long time now my sole broadcast news sources have been the CBC National and, for a laugh and an alternative take, Jon Stewart's Daily Show. Now I heartily welcome into the fold Democracy Now!, an internet newscast featuring (and largely created by) tireless journalist/anchor Amy Goodman. This is news that probes in depth what so many of the other American (and yes, Canadian) networks choose to slough over and ignore. Consider Amy Goodman's latest documentary video, Independent Media in a Time of War. In it she exposes with particular insight the blatant one-sidedness of American broadcasting vis-a-vis the Iraq war. Of course, Democracy Now! cannot afford to package the news as pretty entertainment. Stock footage is rough, we have few correspondents, and no "human interest" stories to lighten the mix. But Amy Goodman's show is an important corrective. For those seeking incisive reportage from a liberal-left perspective, programming like this is water to a parched throat.

Call for Submissions

The Saranac Review is accepting submissions until Feb. 15. Guidelines here. Published out of State University of New York in Plattsburgh, its editors wrote me to say that they were especially interested in the work of Canadian writers. Americans, though, are obviously also welcome. This is a fine review, one of the few contributor's copies I've enjoyed from cover to cover. Click on the label below, and you'll read more about it -- including sample poems, one by yours truly.

SPIRAL


The day my husband left
our G.P. choked on oaths un-Hippocratic.
“If pain persists,” he cried,
“throw his clothes out the window.”
I watched them fly: socks, shorts, shirts –
               every single tie.

The day my husband left
I made myself a dry martini,
missing the cool precision of his lemon peeler –
               its perfect spiral.



--Nina Bruck, Still Light at 5:00

Glitz and Glamour

It was fun being interviewed two nights ago on the CBC about poetry for a change. CBC TV reporter Leah Hendry interviewed both Nina Bruck at her place, and then Raphael and me chez lui. It was rather extraordinary attention given to a poetry chapbook -- but then, as I've said, not everybody puts out their first publication at 84. Leah struck me right away as not only attractive, but warm, personable, and intelligent. My hunch is she'll go places.... Nina told me afterwards that she was "just adorable". Obviously Leah related well to Nina's work, even had her read 3 poems twice for the camera. There was none of the professional cool one might expect of a reporter... She put us at ease by confessing how she had upset her parents by writing dark (ie. extremely dark) poems as a teenager; this put her on "our side", as it were; we talked a bit as the cameraman set up about a young person's need to plunge headlong into that fundamental blackness, to tear away the mask of "optimism" and "good cheer" so much of straight society wears -- but also to seem serious and profound. How as one ages, one is likely to seek more buoyant, playful themes and images, as ones' own energy as well as self-importance declines. Stuff like that. As the camera rolled, she asked us about why we went to the trouble of publishing Nina (we loved her work; and here it was, practically all unpublished, literally sitting in a bank vault somewhere), what we learned from the experience (mainly, how publishing can be an integral part of the creative process; just what made up a poetic identity over the many transmutations of a long lifetime.) There were quite a lot of laughs.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, this being superficial TV, none of Nina's poems made it on air.* This was turned into the final upbeat two-minute item before sign-off, following, I understand, the trite-but-true angle, "even you can publish your first book at 84." But, the cover of the book was shown, it's name mentioned twice -- in other words, quite a piece of promotion, worth at least a few thousand bucks in advertising -- even if not directly aimed at the *buying* demographic we'd want. Generally, though, it got a lot of people thinking about the art of poetry who otherwise wouldn't -- and that's definitely got to be for the good.

Last evening's launch -- and it really was a launch, it turned out, although it was not advertised as such -- was a huge success. The place was packed, the audience attentive and appreciative, and as many as 20 books were sold.

I have yet to see the broadcast and couldn't be at the launch because I teach those evenings. Fortunately, Raphael videoed both, and will be giving me a DVD of the two tomorrow night. I'm quite sure they'll end up on his blog or on YouTube.

*Well, they had her reading one or two lines.

NINA BRUCK: STILL LIGHT AT 5:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sky of Ink Press is proud to announce the release of Still Light At Five O’clock, Nina Bruck’s first book, a selection of 21 poems that span nearly her whole lifetime.

Nina Bruck will be reading from Still Light at Five O’clock

Tues. Nov. 6, 2007
8:00 pm
at
Poetry Plus
Arts Café
201 Fairmount W.
(corner of Esplanade)
Montreal

Ms. Bruck will also be interviewed on the CBC TV News Montreal Arts Report at 6PM, either Monday the 5th or Tues. the 6th.

About the author:
Nina Bruck, born in 1923, is a poet possessed of the quickest intelligence and surest eye. Her lyrics, even at their most profound, are leavened by a playful wit and a warm, easygoing sensuality; many of her poems are pure fun. Ms Bruck’s poetry has appeared in the Canadian Forum, in the Canadian League of Poets Vintage 96 and 97 anthologies, and they’ve been read on CBC radio (Morningside Papers). In 1992, she won First Prize in Matrix Magazine's "New Voices from Quebec" Competition. She also brings her talent as a keen observer to photography. Her colour photographic series “Signs of Life” was featured in a solo exhibition at the McCord Museum in Montreal.

Sky of Ink Press was founded with the express purpose of featuring talented and unpublished poets in finely crafted chapbooks. The poetry editors are Raphael Bendahan and Brian Campbell. E-Mail: camino@primus.ca or (514)-526-3418

For more about the author, the chapbook, & a sample poem click here.

CEE BEE CEED

I never realized until recently how big the CBC looms in my life. Sometimes I feel like I'm on their payroll. This week I was busy getting a submission together for the CBC literary competition (last year I was a finalist.) This weekend I'll be doing a lengthy translation (French to English) for, let's say, a party closely connected to the CBC. It'll pay most of my rent, so in a way I am on their payroll. Last month I did an interview about Communauto car-sharing service that appeared on CBC 6:00 news; this coming Monday, my friend Raphael Bendahan and I will be interviewed by a Montreal Arts reporter in connection with Nina Bruck's book. (Nina will also be interviewed; details about the broadcast, etc. to come.) I drive to work listening to Home Run (or Radio Canada, the French CBC), drive home listening to Ideas. I watch the CBC National news almost every night. I record choice broadcasts that repeat on CBC Newsworld, transcribe parts of them and play them every so often for an advanced class of ESL students. I have a friend who teaches ESL at the CBC, who every so often calls me up with questions. I once taught ESL at the CBC. Because I donated to the Council of Canadians once, I even get junk mail from an organization called Friends of the CBC. So do I love the CBC? Not exactly -- but far more than our Federal Government does.