The evening of Wednesday, October 4, 2006, was one of those early fall nights when the foliage is half-way through its quiet transformation and the moon shines in the sky like an ivory lamp, lighting the cityscape and the harvest fields. While a vigorous breeze rustled the leaves and tossed charcoal clouds across the sky, the John Newlove Poetry Award was presented at the Ottawa International Writers Festival, Fall Edition. This annual award, launched in the fall of 2004, commemorates an exceptional poet and Ottawa resident, John Newlove, who died in 2003.

During the event, the four poets who received honourable mention in the competition read their works and, of course, the 2006 winner was announced. Also, Bywords launched “Welcome to Beautiful San Ria,” the chapbook (winners of the Newlove Award have the opportunity to publish a chapbook through Bywords) from Melissa Upfold, the 2005 winner of the Newlove Award.

Bywords editor Amanda Earl introduced the first performer of the evening, Andrea Simms-Karp of The Vanity Press. Simms-Karp’s appealing voice and songwriting skills were in evidence when she performed “I Believe What the Radio Tells Me,” and “Running Shoes” (the latter piece complemented by her red running shoes). But, then, pyrotechnics erupted when Simms-Karp sang “Move On” which, according to my source (thanks, Mike), features a three-fingered rolling pick, sometimes called “The Tennessee Claw” whereby the right-hand thumb and little finger form a bridge across the strings at the sound hole, leaving the three middle fingers positioned to pick the strings separately and consecutively in a rolling rhythm. Although I could see saw that Simms-Karp was playing the guitar, I could have sworn that she was playing the banjo.

Following the musical introduction, Melissa Upfold read several poems by John Newlove, including the gothic “By the Church Wall,” replete with croaking frogs and lustful, demonic incubi and succubi. And, the equally spooky “Black Night Window” witnesses nature’s demise during the Season of Death: “the moon dead . . . the wind dying in the trees.” These two selections from Newlove’s body of work were suitably in tune with the weather outside and reminded us of the imminence of Samhain the most magically potent time of the year.

Upfold then read from her chapbook, named for an alternative universe (that is, alternative to Sarnia -- that city of hotels, motels and casinos) that is replete with lush vegetation and clean water. In the post-nuclear prophecy that is “cantara beach,” the speaker, alternately curious and cautious, “can barely see the outline of what remains . . . . I’m letting the water in, one drop at a time,” while “Pupae” exhibits a concern with that most intoxicating combination – sex and religion: “O Holy Trinity . . .  permanent as to the eleventh hour / its intimate wooden tables / left a skeleton of dirty ash.”

After Upfold thanked the audience and Bywords, the first of the four poets to receive honourable mention, Dusty Owl editor Kathryn Hunt, read “Landlocked” a reflective poem written for her Newfoundland-born grandfather: “Old sailors never die / they just go out with the tide,” followed by the mysterious and compelling “One More Vanished” (Bywords.ca, July 2006), wherein fragmented images evoke memories of a missing friend:

became a cupped cigarette against an out-of-the-way

wall

the taste of day-old sweetness

, a breeze upstream from Montreal

Next, Ottawa poet rob mclennan, equally celebrated for his writing and his humour, had the audience chortling when he recounted following a piece of advice to “go into poetry, [because] there’s money to be made,” when what was meant was “go into pottery.” Becoming serious, mclennan read his honourably mentioned poem, the eponymous “Meredith Quatermain’s ‘I Canadian dream of English,’ variation three” a pastiche of extraordinary images brought together by the urban/nature binary: “a sorry dream; the hills lugging the engine / with white walls and diamond.”

Then, “look into” (Bywords.ca, August 2006), written by Ottawan Heather McLeod, provides a glimpse into the abyss facing the “parachutist at the whistling doorway.” The trepidation evoked by the somber descriptions of “black water reflects shattered moon / crows on a wire,” is justifiable, given that a “necklace of teeth / crackerjack prize” adorns the final line.

The final poem to receive honourable mention, Rona Shaffran’s poignant “Burnt Forest” (Bywords.ca, August 2006) merges reality with potential. The speaker witnesses “kisses dry / and quick,” which are compared to “black burned trees,” while a full kiss on the lips is judged to be as luxurious as the “lush green fields.” Then, Shaffran’s second offering, “Moving Together,” which subverts space and time (“the bed is a clock and we are its hands / moving in time, through time, outside of time”), provided a delightful interlude.

Finally, the moment arrived to reveal the winner of the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award: Ottawa native Roland Prévost. Before reading his winning poem, Prévost paid homage to John Newlove by reading the atmospheric “Poem with Ravens” a piece that showcases Watson Lake -- town of pines, snow and log cabins, and Gateway to the Yukon.

The speaker in Prévost’s winning poem, “at the pizzeria: 100% real juice,” reminded me of a cranky old wiseacre trying to engage with an increasingly incomprehensible world:

screw the fili-greed

micro sculpted

virile evanescent

puzzling wonders –

OK?!

The judge for this year’s Newland Award, Canadian poet Erin Moure, suggests that the winning poem “plays in language in a kind of delight.” And, I think that this gleeful aspect, this love of language, characterizes “at the pizzeria: 100% real juice.” Prévost’s mastery of vocabulary was also evident during his second reading, “Of Grime, Life,” from which the following is taken: “lethal, skeletal, love and war nerve . . . discard woolens . . . pale cracked Rembrandts of spoon . . . homeliness, drizzling now, rebuked ghost . . .” As the third recipient of the Newlove Award, Prévost follows in the venerable footsteps of the great Ottawa poets while ensuring that the genre continues to evolve.

I could have sat in the audience for another few hours, listening to more superb poetry, but the evening was officially over. So, I buttoned my jacket, took my leave, and headed out into the moonlight.

 

 

Catharine Carroll

October 30, 2006

Feast of St. Maximus