the measure of a man
are in his acts
of generosity, kindness,
and compassion--no other
measure exists, not accolades,
not wealth, not achievements;
only in what kindness
a man or woman
shows fellow humans,
animals, and the natural
world do we measure
the value and meaning
of a person's life.
Christmas at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church on West Broadway Avenue.
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| Tom Konyves, at his AM Productions in Vancouver, 1992 |
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| Tom Konyves and Stephen Morrissey, at a poetry reading in Vancouver, 1991 |
A couple of clothespins later
another creak
the cat looks up
in heat: a sunbather looks down
in between the leafy branches
where the sparrow turns and spies its mate.
And it's these sparrows
who repeat all our thoughts
in their infernal dialogues
their gossip not meant for us
watching rainbuckets mirror
the stately Versailles.
Published in Bite, volume 1, number 4;
Vancouver, 1988.
.JPG) |
| From the Champlain Bridge, 2011 |
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| John Donne, 1572 - 1631 |
 |
| Average Canadians regretting what the country has become |
Canada today is not what it used to be; we know that all is not well. Justin Trudeau seems to think everything is great, but just look around you and what do you see? In every city and town there are encampments of homeless people on roadsides and in city parks; food banks can't keep up with the number of people visiting them, even the employed visit food banks; average people can no longer afford to buy a home, some cannot afford to rent an apartment; the country is not united, Quebec inches closer to independence and Alberta has its own complaints about the federal government; hospitals are collapsing, we don’t have enough doctors or nurses; Justin has spent us into the highest national debt in our history, it’s in the hundreds of billions of dollars; immigration is at an all-time high (500K immigrants per year in 2021, 2022, and 2023) at a time when Canadian citizens can’t afford groceries or a place to live, many don’t have family doctors, and even the immigrants are leaving; what is going on? This is not the Canada in which I grew up, it is not even the Canada of 2014, the year before Justin was first elected.
My family have always been Liberals and we've had several Members of Parliament in the family, all Liberals, and elected in Northumberland Riding, in New Brunswick; there was John Vereker Morrissy and his son Charles Morrissy, both were prominent local politicians in Newcastle (now Miramichi) who moved up to the Federal level. We were always supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada, and we were always social liberals, as are most Canadians. We were never conservatives; I listened to the liberal CBC, I voted Liberal, I loved Canada. That has ended since Justin Trudeau came to office.
When Justin was elected prime minister things began to deteriorate; it began in 2015 around the time when the CBC's woke bias became more apparent. But it turned out that Trudeau is a man with no moral compass for whom appearance is more important than intelligence, culture, or tradition; he has no culture, no traditions, no great intelligence and little education.This has been shown on many occasions; he's clever, he’s verbally clever, and he has money and influence behind him, he knows how to exploit a situation for his own benefit.
The state of Canada is not good; the old Canada is gone, and we're stuck with the mess that Justin has inflicted on the country. He is working to destroy our sense of being Canadians and our national unity, he doesn't believe in Canada, he doesn’t like Canada, he wants to throw out the old Canada, his allegiance is to diversity, gender, and wokeness, not to the needs and concerns of average Canadians. His aim is to replace traditions, our culture, our belief in who we are and our future, all for unproved politically correct ideas that will inevitably fail. Personally, I am doubtful we will ever recover from these years of Justin Trudeau; so far, he has worked to destroy the country. Is it any wonder that he is one of the least popular prime ministers in Canada’s history? The only “sunny ways” Justin has left are in his imagination.
Today, heavy wet snow that sticks to the snow shovel, it takes some of us two shifts to get rid of this snow; begin at 7:30, take a rest, finish later this morning; but milder weather is forecast for later this week. It’s a monochromatic world out there, gone the flowers of summer, gone the garden of 2023.
Photographs taken on 4 December 2023.
It was -6 C and felt like -12 when I took these photographs on November 24, it wasn't even winter, it was a first taste of winter but without snow. As you get older you wonder if you can take another winter; it will be like this, and colder, all of December, January, February, March, and the first days of April. Too much, too long, too cold.
It is what we, in Canada, must endure.
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| Hand/Grenade by Joan Thornton |
6 am
damp
in darkness
North Sea
slapping
on the rump
of
Europe
In
Montreal
not
so far
we cannot
feel
that strain
as
Real
riot-
ous im-
mediate
as
the States
whose sharp Spring
tremor
like
a
subterran-
ean
shiver
-- shifts
our centres
of
atten-
tion
NOW -far
out along
dark
borders
where
for miles
un-
easy
migrants
perch
the ragged
edges
of
a storm
Thornton, Joan. Hand Grenade. Ottawa, The Golden Dog Press, 1973
.JPG) |
| 20 January 2016, Blvd de Maisonneuve, Montreal |
I like to sit and write, I like to put words on a page and form sentences, paragraphs, statements, poems, inconsequential scribblings, or meaningful insights, body, coherence, expressions of what I think and feel, or where something is uncovered or something unfolds out of apparent nothingness, something is born to awareness or something is created where there was nothing, and slowly something meaningful is written down, slowly I uncover who I am with words, words that are ink, squiggles, scribbles, sentences, shapes, and shadows on a sheet of lined white paper, and this is done in this room where I am alone, and the room is a place of solitude, (writers must love solitude, must love the physical act of writing), and something new is created as this writing forms a single entity, and I am no longer alone, there is also this new entity, it is this writing that seems to have come out of nowhere. And that is how a poem or this paragraph are written.
Preface
—John Milton
|
T |
his selection of poems is taken from books and chapbooks I published from 1971 to 2021. When I began writing poetry my themes were the transience of life, family, grief at losing close family members, and romantic love. These many years later I am still writing about the transience of life, family, grief at losing close family members, and romantic love, but giving more emphasis to some and less to others. My experience is that where we begin as poets is where we end. What is our journey as poets? It is the great theme of literature; it is the journey to self-awareness.
1
These poems are presented here without section breaks; this is the model Ken Norris suggested to me, found in Robert Creeley's Selected Poems (1991). The text of Creeley's book has a continuity that is unbroken by titles of books and dates published, as one finds in most selected poems, and I've used the same approach in presenting the poems in this book; it is the book of poems of my life. Of course, bibliographical information is still available in both the Books Published page and the Contents page.
We learn something from every poet we read. In 1967 I read Allen Ginsberg's statement, "Scribble down your nakedness. Be prepared to stand naked because most often it is this nakedness of the soul that the reader finds most interesting"; it was an important insight for me and has influenced my writing to this day. But other poets were also important; these include William Blake; the Romantic poets; Walt Whitman; the Beats; Charles Olson; Louis Dudek; and George Johnston.
3
Poetry isn't antiseptic, it's passion for life. Poetry is love and death and tears of joy and tears of sorrow. It's messy, it's stuff we don't want to talk about, it's betrayal and jealousy, it's love and sex and tenderness and grief and regret and awe and divine inspiration; it's the shadow falling across one's life. Poetry is nothing if not passionate; passion, not the intellect, not fashion, not popularity, not what other people are doing, defines poetry.
4
We all experience darkness in our lives: some of us have descended to the underworld; some have been lost in a dark forest; and some of us have had to begin life again in middle age—we lost everything—for nothing was as we believed. But darkness can be place of creativity, of self-awareness, of meaning, and of rebirth. I found my voice in poetry when I was able to turn the darkness of my life experiences into poems; I affirmed what I had seen and I said, "thank you, darkness" and "farewell, darkness"; and that is the birth of the poet.
5
My wife, the poet Carolyn Zonailo, is always in my thoughts and heart; to her my thanks, my love, and my deepest appreciation for our over thirty years together. I want to thank Richard Olafson for his commitment to publishing—the year 2022 was Ekstasis Editions' fortieth anniversary—he has made an important contribution to our national literary life; he has helped many creative people realize their potential and their dream.
Stephen Morrissey
Montreal, Quebec
20
November 2022
Snow expected tomorrow; today, rain, 1 degree C. And here is what it’s like outside a few minutes ago.
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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.
