Nellie McClung in 1992, Vancouver

We ate at, was it Hurley's Restaurant in Vancouver, in 1992? Another time we visited Nellie's home that she named Casa Contenta, and another time we met her at the residence where Peter Norris, her husband, lived. One day I'll find the photographs I took at Casa Contenta. Richard Olafson edited and published her last book, come dance with me in Ireland, selected poems (Ekstasis Editions, 2011). 

Stephen Morrissey, Carolyn Zonailo, and Nellie McClung

Nellie and Carolyn, Vancouver, summer 1992

Carolyn Zonailo and Nellie, Vancouver, fall 1991

Nellie McClung, fall 1991

Meeting Nellie at the Vancouver Art Gallery, July 1993

Nellie McClung's visual art

Some poets are also visual artists, bill bissett comes to mind and he is the foremost Canadian poet who is also a visual artist. Ken Norris's Vishyun (Ekstasis Editions, 2023) featured cover art by bill bissett. Nellie McClung was a poet and also a visual artist. Despite mental illness Nellie embraced life with imagination and love, she had a sophisticated sense of humour, was both highly intelligent and really funny in conversation, and her satirical poems are more humour than satire. I first met Nellie in 1991 and later visited her home, which she named Casa Contenta, in the late 1990s; she stored her paintings in a room by the front door and my wife and I both bought paintings from her. Nellie's grandmother was the famous Nellie McClung, feminist and author; her brother was Judge John McClung. Nellie died in 2009.

Come Dance With me in Ireland (Ekstasis Editions, 2011), Nellie McClung's
selected poems edited and published by Richard Olafson. Introduction
by Carolyn Zonailo

"Sailboats in  Kitsilano", by Nellie McClung. This is the painting (on left) that I bought 

from Nellie and that I used on the cover of my selected poems, she gave us the smaller 

painting on the right and I hung them together, as pictured. 

Here is Nellie McClung's painting on the cover of my recent book,

Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems (Ekstasis Editions), 2023.

"Red Cat and Dandelions" by Nellie McClung, from a series of cat paintings. Undated, probably 1980s.

"Aspen's Quiver" by Nellie McClung, around 1994. A different title
is on the back, but it is difficult to read. Aspen refers to Aspen, Colorado, 
"home of the Pawnees". 

Reverse of previous painting. 

                                                       

Two portraits by Nellie McClung. 

                 

A typical phone call from Nellie, her message left on the answering machine: "Carolyn, answer the phone, answer the phone, answer the god damn phone; I have plans and I want you and Stephen involved with them. We'll fly to New York and see David Letterman, be on his show, discuss Marilyn Monroe, then we'll fly to London and visit the prime minister at his home, we'll discuss anti-vivisection and get him onboard for working towards a better world. Carolyn, Carolyn, answer the god damn phone." We weren't the saints that Richard Olafson was regarding Nellie McClung's phone calls, he talked with her everyday. 

Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems

 

I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems, published by Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, BC. Thank you to all who helped bring this book to publication, including Richard Olafson, the publisher of Ekstasis Editions, my wife Carolyn Zonailo, and thank you, Nellie McClung, whose painting "Sailboats off Kitsilano" is the cover image. The poems in this book were published between 1971 and 2021, and best represent what I have tried to do in poetry.

A "lost" poem by Nellie McClung on bill bissett

"Sailboats at Kitsilano" by Nellie McClung

This painting by Nellie McClung has hung in our home for many years. Not only was Nellie a terrific poet, but she was also a visual artist of some accomplisment. She was a real poet, a real artist. The real thing.

Nellie McClung in 1991

Here's CZ and Nellie McClung in the fall, 1991, Vancouver. Nellie dropped in with a friend from Quebec's Eastern Townships.

CZ and Nellie.

Nellie.

Herbert Read on art

"Sailboats off Kitsilano" by Nellie McClung

Nellie McClung at the Art Gallery of Vancouver, 1993

Herbert Read writes:

Tolstoy's famous definition of the process of art is expressed in these words: 'To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movement, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words so to transmit that feeling that others experience the same feeling -- this is the activity of art.

'Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.'

Herbert Read, The Meaning of Art, Pelican Books, London, 1950, pages 185 - 186.

Sailboats at Kitsilano

Years ago, I bought a painting from Nellie McClung, who was not only a wonderful poet but also a talented visual artist. My spirits are always lifted when I see her painting, "Sailboats at Kitsilano," in a room in our home. One afternoon in the mid- or late- 1990s we visited Nellie at her home. In one room, it was the first room on the right as you entered her east end Vancouver home, she had some large paintings leaning against a wall and we looked through these. I decided to buy "Sailboats at Kitsilano"; since she had lost some money to an unscrupulous acquaintance we agreed that I would pay her on the installment plan and I enjoyed our correspondence over the next six months. The painting was unsigned so Nellie signed it with her forefinger using paint from a can of house paint. A few weeks ago, all these years later, sitting at the beach looking out at the sailboats, there was Nellie's painting. 

"Sailboats at Kitsilano" by Nellie McClung

You can read Nellie's chapbook, Charles Tupper and Me (2004) that we published for her at http://coraclepress.com/chapbooks/mcclung/charles_tupper_and_me.html.

Kitsilano Showboat at Kitsilano Beach