Colombo-Plus

Neologisms

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“Not that Whitman needs monuments but Canada needs Whitman!” So wrote Flora MacDonald Denison in March of 1916. The ebullient feminist who made this statement was then the owner of the “wilderness estate” of Bon Echo with its inscribed rock that dedicated the site to the “democratic ideals” of the great American poet Walt Whitman. Bon Echo is now one of Ontario’s most beautiful and popular provincial parks. Flora’s statement serves as the epitaph of Walt Whitman’s Canada.

This newly published trade paperback – 234 pages long with dozens of black-and-white illustrations and Charles Pachter’s full-colour cover painting – traces the influence of Whitman, Whitmanism, transcendentalism, theosophy, and cultural nationalism on at least three generations of Canadian artists and writers. It also describes Whitman’s visit to central and eastern Canada in the summer of 1880 which was arranged by his colleague Richard Maurice Bucke.

The compilers of this book are Cyril Greenland and John Robert Colombo. ISBN 978-1-55246-893-7. Price: $30.00. (Order through the publisher, The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.)

End of Greatness

Here is a collection of all the poems that were written during the year 2009 by Toronto author and anthologist John Robert Colombo. Is there another poet anywhere in the world who is issuing a volume of verse a year … and has been doing so for the last dozen years?

End of Greatness offers the reader 160 or so poems on a great range of subjects, with tributes to Louis Dudek, Phyllis Gotlieb, Fletcher Markle, Treasa O’Driscoll, Carl Sagan, et al. The collection concludes with the latest installment of the poet’s ongoing dream diary. In one of the poems in this collection the poet writes as follows: “We do not need to be asleep to have dreams. / We do not need to be awake to have nightmares.” Toronto: Colombo & Company. ISBN 10-894540-57-3. Trade paperback. vii + 141 pages. $30.00. Four-colour cover with a superb design by Bill Andersen.

Concurrent Life Sentences

Over 110 vivid and expressive poems, a good many of them autobiographical in nature, are included in Concurrent Life Sentences. They were composed by Ruth Colombo and they are certain to surprise the reader with their wit and willingness to talk about lives, loves, and loathings.

The collection is a revision of the QuasiBook Edition that appeared in 1999. The poet’s aim is expressed in a line in “Ode to the Person” … “to become well and truly my own person!” The headings of the book’s sections give a good idea of the psychological territory covered by the poet: Epigraphs, Preface, Acknowledgements, Life Sentence, Preliminaries, Parental Family, Mother, Ruth’s Family, Reflections on the Family, Love, Holocaust, Religion, Truth and Lies, Language and Education, Meditations. Toronto: Colombo & Company. ISBN 10-1-894540-56-5. Trade paperback. viii + 286 pages. $30.00. Four-colour cover with an intriguing design by Bill Andersen.

Click photo to enlarge.

Here I am admiring the first copy of my latest book. The photograph of me as well as of the book’s front and back covers were taken by the book’s designer, Bill Andersen. He took the pictures on December 9, 2009, and I think he did a great job! His design incorporates a wonderful watercolour on paper bas-relief that was executed by the artist Richard E. Prince who titled it “The Tempest: Prospero’s Observatory.” The book itself is called Indifferences and it consists of some 2,000 aphorisms. It is another publication of Colombo & Company, and it is available from the publisher or through special order at any better bookstore.

I call this video “Halloween Madness.” It is very brief — it takes one second to activate and it lasts about ten seconds — but it is very effective. It was created as a lark by my designer friend Bill Andersen. Thanks, Bill!