Meeting F.R. Scott in 1971

Reading one's old diaries or journals is like meeting a stranger you used to know, that stranger is yourself when younger. Back in November 1971 I was at a reception at Thomson House, part of McGill University, for the English poet Michael Horowitz. I remember this only because I wrote about it in my journal. I met Marian Dale Scott, F.R.Scott.'s wife. She was very nice as was Frank Scott who I met later that evening. Apparently, and I don't remember this at all, Earle Birney was also there. What I can see from this diary entry is that all of these were lovely people who were kind and considerate to this kid they'd never met before. I heard Patrick Anderson read a few days before and Frank Scott said that Anderson regretted not knowing the younger poets. One thing that might interest Brian Busby is that Marian Scott said that her husband and John Glassco would walk on Crescent Avenue and talk about the past, the days of the Montreal Group of poets. Let's see, that was almost fifty years before the Thomson House reception and right now is about fifty years after the same reception. Time flies but you have to write something down or it's all forgotten. 

Poems of a Period, 1971 chapbook

For a long time I have felt that some of us poets might be better served if we made our work available, online, and free. Of course, as long as a book is in print we have an obligation to the publisher to promote the book, sell copies, and do all we can to make the book a success (that's an obligation to both publisher and to ourselves). But I have books that have been out of print for the last thirty and more years, they are on library shelves but otherwise unavailable to anyone who might be interested in the work. It seems to me that it would be practical to put the book online and give access to the book without cost. It's also possible to digitize and sell the book on Amazon, but my purpose is more to find readers than to make money through meager sales... A new paradigm exists for selling music and something similar is true of publishing poetry. So, there it is, this is my plan and I'm going to stick with it.

Here is my first chapbook, published in August 1971.