Nova Scotian Poetry

April is National Poetry Month in Canada, a time set aside to celebrate poets and their craft through events, and to expand awareness of poetry’s vital role in Canadian culture. Enjoy this selection of poetry from award-winning Nova Scotia authors!

Live From the Afrikan Resistance! by El Jones

El Jones is Halifax’s 2013-2015 Poet Laureate, a resident spoken word artist who advocates for literacy and reflects our community through heartfelt, passionate poetry about her experience as an African-Canadian woman.

“The first collection of spoken word poetry by Halifax’s fifth Poet Laureate, El Jones. These poems speak of community and struggle. They are grounded in the political culture of African Nova Scotia and inherit the styles and substances of hip-hop, dub and calypso’s political commentary. They engage historical themes and figures and analyze contemporary issues—racism, environmental racism, poverty and violence—as well as confront the realities of life as a Black woman. The voice is urgent, uncompromising and passionate in its advocacy and demands. One of Canada’s most controversial spoken word artists, El Jones writes to educate, to move communities to action and to demonstrate the possibilities of resistance and empowerment. Gathered from seven years of performances, these poems represent the tradition of the prophetic voice in Black Nova Scotia.” —publisher

How to Be Alone by Tanya Davis, with illustrations by Andrea Dorfman

Written by Halifax’s 2011-2012 Poet Laureate, this book is an illustrated version of the poem “How to Be Alone,” which made a splash as a viral video with its wise tips for embracing life by being alone without being lonely.

“Since its debut on YouTube, Tanya Davis’s beautiful and perceptive poem ‘How to Be Alone,’ visually realized by artist and filmmaker Andrea Dorfman, has become an international sensation. In this edition of How to Be Alone, they have adapted the poem and its compelling illustrations for the page in a beautiful, meditative volume—a keepsake to treasure and to share. From a solitary walk in the woods to sitting unaccompanied on a city park bench to eating a meal and even dancing alone, How to Be Alone reveals the possibilities and joys waiting to be discovered when we engage in activities on our own. As she soothes the disquietude that accompanies the fear of aloneness, and celebrates the power of solitude to change how we see ourselves and the world, Tanya reveals how, removed from the noise and distractions of other lives, we can find acceptance and grace within. For those who have never been by themselves or those who embrace being on their own, How to Be Alone encourages us to recognize and embrace the possibilities of being alone—and reminds us of a universe of joy, peace, and discovery waiting to unfold.” —publisher

Masstown by Chad Norman

Chad Norman’s poems have appeared in magazines across the world, and he currently has 15 books of poetry, most recently Masstown, about a farming community in Colchester County. At the Halifax Central Library, he recently read from his work-in-progress Simona, which celebrates the Colchester County SPCA and the furry feline they allowed his family to rescue.

“Masstown is a small farming community in Colchester County, near the Cobequid Bay in Nova Scotia. Set in the past, this is a collection of poetry that accentuates the struggles of life on a family-run dairy farm for owners Bert and Gladys, grandparents of the author. Not only do Bert and Gladys run the farm, they’re also parents striving to find the balance between running a farm and raising a family.” —publisher

Traverse by George Elliott Clarke

Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, George Elliott Clarke has spent much of his career writing about the black communities of Nova Scotia and is now Toronto’s Poet Laureate. This book was written in a one-day (!) poetry marathon when he traveled back to Halifax.

“From Toronto’s poet laureate (2012–15) comes a new book that is a tour de force in confessional verse. This autobiographical sequence in 980 lines contains 70 stanzas of “skeletal sonnets” composed, astonishingly, in one day and one evening. Traverse is a web of intersecting, crisscrossing impulses, a great burst of imaginative energy and aesthetic reflection that celebrates a 30-year period of Clarke’s writing poetry.” —publisher

Cottonopolis by Rachel Lebowitz

Rachel Lebowitz has lived on the east and west coasts of Canada and has now settled in Halifax, where she supports literacy in the libraries. This well-researched poem combines genres to depict the complex history of the cotton industry.

“Cottonopolis is a sequence of prose and found poems about the Industrial Revolution, in particular the links between the cotton industry in Lancashire, slavery in the Americas and the colonization of India. From the Irish slums of Manchester to the forts of the Slave Coast to the ruins of Dhaka, India; from Civil War battlefields to Lancashire factory floors, from slave ship sailors to machine-breakers to child labourers, these poems tell the stories of the industrial age.” —publisher

And I Alone Escaped To Tell You by Sylvia D. Hamilton

Sylvia D. Hamilton is an author, artist, and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on the history of African Nova Scotians and women through in-depth firsthand research and storytelling. As part of the celebration of African Heritage Month, she read from this moving collection of poetry at the Halifax Central Library in February.

“The settlement of African peoples in Nova Scotia is a richly layered story encompassing many waves of settlement and diverse circumstances—from captives to ‘freedom runners’ who sailed north from the United States with hopes of establishing a new life. The poems in And I Alone Escaped to Tell You endeavour to give these historical events a human voice, blending documentary material, memory, experience and imagination to evoke the lives of these early Black Nova Scotians and of the generations that followed. This collection is a moving meditation on the place of African-descended people in the Canadian story and on the threads connecting all of us to the African diaspora.” —publisher

Staff Pick - Mad Girl's Love Song by Andrew Wilson

Pulitzer Prize winning poet and novelist Sylvia Plath will long remain on our bookshelves. remembered for her contemplative and confessional poetry and for the tragic circumstances of her death. On the sad 50th anniversary of her death Andrew Wilson added a new work to the large body devoted to Plath's life with Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and life before Ted. The subtitle is significant as reflections on her life have tended to be focused on Plath's and Hughes' relationship and attempts made to assign culpability in her suicide. Wilson writes about her childhood and university years, leading up to a brief description of her meeting with Ted and her death as an afterword.

Sylvia Plath is portrayed as a troubled and driven young woman. She was deeply affected by her father's slow, and in hindsight, perhaps unnecessary death. Her relationship with her mother was close but difficult. Her mother was intensely involved in her life and shared in her successes. Plath was a gifted student and absolutely driven to succeed. Her publishing career began early and this academically inclined student had her stories and poems published while still a teenager. Plath was an intense person in all aspects of her life and the sexual hypocrisy of 1950s America and its restrictive dating rules weighed heavily on her. As the title indicates, much of the book was devoted to her romantic relationships with particular emphasis on her especially close affair with Richard Sassoon.

Considerable time is spent as well exploring Plath's mental and emotional health. She put tremendous pressure on herself academically and forged intense friendships and love affairs which friends and lovers sometimes found to be very demanding, and they could be quite distressed by her sudden anger over small incidents. She may have made several suicide attempts - one an effort to drown herself as did Virginia Woolf, and a second, much more serious attempt in 1953 which was to lead to hospitalization and a brutal course of electroconvulsive therapy.

Plath's poetic legacy has inspired generations of readers and writers alike and, unfortunately perhaps, her tragic personal life sometimes overwhelms her contribution of her writing. Wilson has attempted, in this biography, to draw a portrait of Plath which is separate from her marriage to Ted Hughes. A most moody and reflective biography.

Wilson's biography is unusual in that Ted Hughes plays a very small role indeed. For more information on Hughes and his marriage to Plath try Her Husband: Hughes and Plath: portrait of a marriage by Diane Middlebrook.

There is a Plath anecdote that says she once spent days hanging around the Chelsea hotel hoping for a meeting with Dylan Thomas, a poet she greatly admired. For more about his equally short and tragic life consider Dylan Thomas: a new life by Andrew Lycett.



My last suggestion for a similar read is Savage Beauty: the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford which relates the life of an early twentieth century poet. " Millay began writing as a girl, and her brilliant, original, and fearless early poems won her prizes and wealthy patrons who sent her to Vassar, where she conducted a great swirl of love affairs with young women and older men. Once established in Greenwich Village, the indefatigably lascivious Millay wrote daring yet lyric collections that sold in the tens of thousands at the height of the Depression. Milford is both meticulous and dynamic in her assessment of Millay's trailblazing work and complicated, controversial life right up to its sad and dramatic end." Booklist

In Memoriam - Seamus Heaney 1939 -2013

Irish poetry superstar Seamus Heaney (M) has passed away at the age of 74. A national treasure of the Irish Literary scene since the mid sixties, Heaney ranks right up there with William Butler Yeats as Ireland's iconic poet.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, only the third Irishman to do so, after Yeats and Samuel Beckett. He was also the recipient of the Golden Wreath of Poetry, T. S. Eliot Prize and won the Whitbread Prize twice, in1996 and 1999. Most recently, he was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry in 2012.

His first poetry collection was Eleven Poems, published for the Queen's University Festival in 1965. His first major volume was the 1967 critically acclaimed Death of a Naturalist. His most recent work is 2010's Human Chain, shortlisted for the Griffin Prize.

circa 1970 (c) Simon Garbutt

"Heaney had brought “incredible joy” to readers. He was a “truly decent man who operated so well in the world”. - Colum McCann,

"As his publisher we could not have been prouder to publish his work over nearly 50 years. He was nothing short of an inspiration to the company, and his friendship over many years is a great loss.” - Faber and Faber Publishing

"His influence ran broader than the arts. We all remember how US president Bill Clinton chose Heaney’s great phrase about when ‘hope and history rhyme’ from Heaney’s play The Cure At Troy in his speech in Londonderry, and went on to use it for the title of his book detailing his vision of the US in the 21st Century,”  - Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt

“His poetry had a universality. He came from the village of Bellaghy in Derry and his message reached out to all humanity. He was particulary moving when he wrote about family and friends." Brian Harten, Louth Local Authority Arts Officer

"Through the beauty and elegance of his writing, Seamus Heaney reminded us of the bonds which unite and our duty to uphold the dignity of all," - Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International

Novels by Poets

My last post was about poetry collections. Since then, I’ve been reading novels by poets. I started with The Yellow Birds (M) by Kevin Powers. This book had come recommended from several different people – one describing it as rich, but not complicated. I didn’t know Kevin Powers was a poet until I read the author bio. I also didn’t know the book was about war – Iraq. I can be closed-minded when it comes to war; I don’t want that as a central theme or setting. But it’s hard to avoid altogether. I found Kevin Powers’ novel somber and reflective. It depicted a reality of place and circumstance that felt genuine without being glorifying. The characters were complex, and I was particularly struck by the difficulties around intimacy; Powers skillfully portrays the struggle to relate to others (on a variety of levels) who have not shared the same experiences.

From there I moved onto Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station (M). This book follows an American poet, Adam Gordon, who travels to Spain on a scholarship. I had been planning to read this book for close to a year; the more time that went by, it seems, the more my expectations grew.

But it didn’t take long for the narrator to push me away. He is young and medicated and his introspection delves into obsession and paranoia; he does not trust others, and buries himself inside himself; it is as though he is playing a game of chess with the whole world, trying to stay ahead of every possible move. At times, it reminded me of Crime and Punishment. Characters are an integral part of an enjoyable reading experience for me; I want them to be observant and reflective, but if they spend too much time in their own head, I feel like mine is going to burst. Leaving the Atocha Station also chronicles the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, and the social and political response. And the author pays careful attention to detail and language – similar to Powers. But Lerner examines language in a more direct way. Adam Gordon speaks little Spanish, and does not want to become fluent. He prefers to live in the murk of attempted translation; to respond to questions and statements that he only partially understands. These moments traded the heaviness of self-sabotage in favour of the general wonder and frustration of language. I enjoyed these examinations, and the personification of grammatical parts. But ultimately, I preferred The Yellow Birds.

I checked Novelist for suggestions of where to go next. Every title related to The Yellow Birds revolved around the military content. I was reluctant to see the suggestions for Leaving the Atocha Station – I didn’t think I could handle another narrator like Adam Gordon. But I liked what I found. A Kim Stanley Robinson (M) book that I had read and enjoyed. A Jim Harrison (M) book – someone else I’ve been meaning to read after hearing a great interview with Eleanor Wachtel. And the one I settled on, Invisible (M) by Paul Auster. Also about a poet, the books are both character-driven and share the subject Identity (psychology). I’m devouring it. The protagonist, who also travels abroad on a scholarship, struggles to find happiness and often feels like an outcast. But he is not so self-loathing. And of course, Paul Auster is a poet too.