Oversion’s Weblog

An evening enhanced for me by the wonder of technology. I arrived home from work at about the starting time for the event tonight, the launch of the publication of the Renku written by an adventurous group of poets last month in the vicinity of the Toronto Inukshuk… tired, monday night craggy, dreaming of the rest that forms in the mind from early morning til it can begin for real. The 45 minute or so journey west into the dark and thin rain of late October, by ttc/bicycle combo, to be entirely late anyhow… 

So I phoned Sam Kaufman, he of the cell, and was instantly volubly in the midst of the celebrating group, sheltered from the rain, loud with mirth, happy, and just about ready to begin. The phone was transferred to Marshall Hryciuk, host organizer of the event, and we discussed, and I was, incarnate as cell phone, passed back to Sam to be put on speakerphone. I took this photo of myself lying there readying myself to read:

Then I returned the phone to my ear and found first the small print version then the larger print version of my parallellarenku to read out loud into the phone to the still happy group. It was great. If there’s 3 lines in my paralellarenku I’d include in any final collected works they’d be sentimentally chosen, at best. But as part of the renku experience is echoing whats gone before, it was fun tying the threads…. and then hearing back the originals as Marshall and his grand and equal partner Karen Sohne then read the true Renku being launched. Marshall’s always believed in reading renku haiku and other poetry of brevity twice each one, and I agree, and for tonight’s event at the Troubador they did this in divine form of a duet. Marshall’s voice, which fires the heart with warmth and courage and joie de vivre and texture, Karen’s voice so elegant so made for poetry, redolent with coastal vision and century’s history of the form, so perfect in the slightly enriched cellphone to landline transfer, and the many moments at the Inukshuk real again.

Then, after Marshall read some more poetry, without really asking, they left the phone on speaker and set to jubilantly talking about everything. Having so kindly gone to this extra effort, forgiven my tardiness, they played and played, as I lay waiting to be remembered as from a dream, and listened while watching ‘funniest videos of pets and human beings’ with the sound off, periodically hearing Nick Power

and Marshall

and remembering my childhood in New Brunswick