Blaine Marchand : on Frank M. Tierney (1930-2024)

 

 

 

Frank M. Tierney, one of the founders of Ottawa’s Borealis Press and Tecumseh Press, has passed away. The other founder, Glenn Clever, passed away in 2005. Both were professor of English at the University of Ottawa. And both wanted to publish the creative output of local and national, emerging and established poets.

Founded in 1972, the mandate of Borealis Press was to encourage new Canadian writers whose talent demonstrated the potential for significant growth. Ottawa poets, who benefitted thanks to the two professors, were Terry Ann Carter, Cyril Dabydeen, Gordon Gilhuly, Susan McMaster, Carol Shields, Michel Thérin and myself. They also published, among others, Canadian poets Sharon Berg, Fred Cogswell, Giorgio Di Cicco, As well, they ensured that works by established early Canadian writers such as Archibald Lampman, Isabella Valancy Crawford, and E.J. Pratt, remained in circulation. In recent years the press expanded to feature works by aboriginal writers. Through their Tecumseh Press, studies on earlier Canadian poets - Lampman, Sangster, Scott, Roberts, Campbell, Carman were offered to the public. The two also founded The Journal of Canadian Poetry.

The Ottawa poetry community, indeed the Canadian poetry community, owes a debt of gratitude to Frank Tierney.

Terry Ann Carter remembers:

I loved working with Frank Tierney. He was such a gentleman and always interested in my family life ...as well as the poetry. I found out about Borealis Press through Henry Imbleau. He was the husband of Margaret Imbleau, the head of English at the St. Paul's High School where we both worked. The book that I had published with Borealis was Transplanted, released in 2006. It detailed my husband's kidney transplant and my own navigation of this time. With two boys in high school and a full-time job I was surrounded by deadlines, sports schedules, homework assignments, special diets and doctors' appointments. Gary Geddes provided a lovely blurb for the book: "There's much to admire in Transplanted, not least of which is a consistent sense of measure and intelligence at work".

Cyril Dabydeen recounts:

Frank Tierney was a dear human being, and a real friend to writers—especially to one like myself with a minority background trying to make a name for myself in Canadian letters. He published one of my first books of poetry in his Borealis Press poetry series, This Planet Earth (1980), and later, Uncharted Heart (2008). This Planet Earth is part of my provenance, I figure, in Canadian literature because I still feel closest to those poems having my natural, unaffected  style. When he was Chair of the Dept. of English at UOttawa, I would meet up with him a few times, and I was especially delighted when he invited me to read in his class--welcoming me cheerfully when I became Ottawa’s Poet Laureate in 1984. Frank also published some really good poets, like Italian-Canadian Pier Georgio De Ciccco (with whom I read a couple of times in the Maritimes and in Toronto). More importantly, he was an unaffected person, full of warmth and cheer, and with a particular brand of wisdom. I do miss him!  He is a key part of Ottawa literature, and Canadian literature--as a whole…

Susan McMaster reminisces:

Frank Tierney loved imaginative leaps—and he was man of great and generous heart. One day I was musing about the many artists, including my mother and his friend Betty Page, who had made works inspired by my poems. "What about a book that paired the two media?", he asked, to my dumbfounded delight. No quibbles, no questions. He was there at every step, including negotiating with a difficult artist, and assuring perfect printing, launch and distribution.

My book, Lizard Love, never made either of us any money, but I treasure the book—and above all treasure Frank's friendship and support and the heart of a poet that led him to take on such a risky project. He was special.

Michel Therien recollects:

I met Frank at a pivotal moment in my career as a writer. In 2005, Frank generously accepted to publish The Wilderness Within, my second collection of poetry. This book travelled with me in North and South America, Europe, Africa and helped me establish my recognition as an international poet. Through the years, I always thought of Frank as a beacon of hope and kindness with a keen sense of humour and genuine care for others. He was a gentle soul who gave me a sense of poetical involvement in our global society and I am and will always be thankful to him for this heritage.

Blaine Marchand recalls:

As a young poet, one day an Ontario arts grant arrived in the mail. I had no idea where it came from. But I was happy to receive it and took it as a sign that my poems had some merit. One evening several months later, the telephone rang. “Frank Tierney here.”  His deep, mellifluous voice continued, inquiring when my manuscript would be ready. “Ready?”  “Yes, that is why we recommended you for a grant.” And so began my poetry collections being brought to light over the past 45 years. Back then in the early 70s, there was an afterglow from Canada`s centennial celebrations, Canadian publishers were springing up eager to bring Canadian poetry to national attention. Frank Tierney was one of those leaders in Canadian culture. He was a tall, dark-haired Ottawa Valley Irish man, always impeccably dressed, and with a voice that inspired confidence and caring, for a poet starting out on his journey. Thanks Frank.

 

 

 

 

Blaine Marchand's poetry and prose has appeared in magazines across Canada, the US, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, France and Ukraine. He has won several prizes and awards for his writing. He has seven books of poetry published, a chapbook, a children's novel and a work of non-fiction. He has completed a new collection, Promenade.

Active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years, he was a co-founder of the Canadian Review, Sparks magazine, the Ottawa Independent Writers and the Ottawa Valley Book Festival. He was the President of the League of Canadian Poets from 1991-1993.

 

 

 

Blaine Marchand : on Elisabeth Harvor

 

 

 

 

 

I first met Elisabeth Harvor, the Ottawa short story writer, poet, and novelist, at the annual gathering of the League of Canadian Poets in 1993. That year, she had won the League’s Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for her first book of poetry, Fortress of Chairs, published by Signal Editions, Véhicule Press. I had actually been aware of her earlier. Ottawa was a much smaller city in the 1970s and 1980s and its literary community as equally small. She lived in Ottawa South and me in the Glebe, so our paths frequently crossed though we had never spoken.

Over the years since our meeting, I learned from her what an interesting life she had, and of her incredible dedication and single-mindedness to her craft. Elizabeth was born in 1936, in New Brunswick. Her parents, Kjeld and Erica (Matthiesen), had immigrated from Denmark and were important potters in the Canadian artisanal scene. Elisabeth often said that her parents’ hand-built pottery creations were similar to her approach to writing: both begin with an image or idea of what could be fashioned, followed by the laborious work of bringing it to fruition. She knew early that she wanted to be a writer, announcing her decision to her parents at age 10.

In 1957, she married Stig Harvor, an architect, born to Norwegian parents in Finland. After a period in Europe, Elisabeth and Stig came to Ottawa and had two sons, Finn and Richard. Sadly, the marriage did not last. Her son Richard, himself a poet, died in 2013, aged 49.

Elisabeth was certainly prolific. Her first collection of short stories, Women and Children, was published by Oberon Press in 1973. Although her work brought quick recognition, she decided to pursue a creative writing degree at Concordia University, where she received her MA in 1986. But the publishing world had taken note of her work as her fiction, poetry and reviews fiction appeared in Canadian, American, Mexican and European journals.

Penguin Books Canada published her second collection of stories, If Only We Could Drive Like This Forever, in 1988. Then, HarperCollins reissued Women and Children under a new title, Our Lady of All The Distances, in 1991. And then her third short story selection, Let Me Be the One, was released in 1996 and was a finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for Fiction.

Following up on the success of her first poetry collection, Signal Editions, Véhicule Press, issued The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring, in 1997. It was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award, given by the League of Canadian Poets.

The new century brought two novels: Excessive Joy Injures the Heart, released by McClelland & Stewart in Canada, and by Harcourt in the US, in 2000. This was followed by All Times Have Been Modern, published by Viking Canada/Penguin in 2004, which was nominated for the Ottawa Book Award. And a collection of poetry, An Open Door in the Landscape, by Palimpsest Press in 2010.

Elisabeth was the recipient of many awards, including the Alden Nowlan Award for Literary Excellence in 2000, the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career in 2003, the Malahat Novella Prize in 2015 and, in the same year, second prize in Prairie Fire Magazine’s Fiction Contest.

Although she lived in many different cities in her life, Elisabeth spent a great deal of time in Ottawa and so can be considered an Ottawa writer. While in the city, she was part of a women’s fiction group that included Nadine McInnis and Sandra Nicholls among others.

Many years ago, Elisabeth moved to the Wellington West neighbourhood, to a condominium just a few blocks from me. I often saw her walking in the late afternoon or evening along Wellington or the Byron Linear Park next to my home. We would chat and she would keep me up-to-date on what she had been working on that day, an idea or a character she wanted to explore in her latest chapter or her frustrations with edits that had been proposed to her work by an editor. All these underlined her consistent dedication to and pursuit of a literary career that spanned decades.

 

 

 

 

Blaine Marchand's poetry and prose has appeared in magazines across Canada, the US, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, France and Ukraine. He has won several prizes and awards for his writing. He has seven books of poetry published, a chapbook, a children's novel and a work of non-fiction. He has completed a new collection, Promenade.

Active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years, he was a co-founder of the Canadian Review, Sparks magazine, the Ottawa Independent Writers and the Ottawa Valley Book Festival. He was the President of the League of Canadian Poets from 1991-1993.

Blaine Marchand : on Catherine Ahearn, Ottawa’s (and Canada's) first municipal Poet Laureate

 

 

[ed. note: Blaine Marchand presented a draft of this piece earlier this week as part of the Ottawa Poets Laureate reading, to acknowledge Ottawa poet Catherine Ahearn, not only Ottawa’s first poet laureate in 1982, but Canada’s first municipal poet laureate. A livestream of the event was recorded and lives online here.]

 

 

 

 

Catherine Ahearn (nee Firestone) was born in 1949 in a prominent Ottawa family. She attended Rockcliffe Park Public School (1955-1962), Elmwood Private School (1962-1966), both in Ottawa, as well as McGill University in Montreal between 1966 and 1970, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in French Literature. She also spent a year studying at the University of Aix-en-Provence in France (1968-1969). Subsequently, Ahearn obtained her Master’s in Arts from the University of Ottawa in French Canadian Literature in 1971, and her doctorate from the University of Ottawa in French Literature in 1979, with her final thesis on French surrealism.

 

It was Catherine, who approached then Mayor Marion Dewar, with the idea of creating the Poet Laureate for the city. The mayor was enthusiastic about the idea, suggesting Catherine become the first to hold this position. Being completely bilingual, she was the perfect choice. And, it was the first municipal poet laureate program established in Canada, leading the way for other cities to follow suit.

 

In 1976, she published two books of poetry L’Âge de l’aube and Daydream Daughter, which was published by McClelland and Stewart, won the AJM Smith Poetry Prize from Michigan State University. L’Âge de l’aube appeared to good reviews in Paris. Between 1980 and 1987, she published four books of poetry. She also wrote a novel, a young adult book as well as film and television scripts.

 

When she became poet laureate, I interviewed her for the Ottawa Citizen. I remember that she was elegant, thoughtful, charming and witty. She moved away from Ottawa and so I lost track of her. But it seems fitting to remember her on this occasion when the Poet Laureate position is being revived thankfully through the efforts of VERSeOttawa, led by rob mclennan.

 

I will read a poem from her book Concha and Rezanov, which was published by Anthos Press, founded by Ottawa’s third poet laureate, Patrick White. The book explores the love between 16-year-old Concha Argüello in San Francisco and Senator Nikolai Rezanov, of Czar’s government, who had come to the city.

 

 

The Love of Us

And in the beginning

Was the womb
And the womb grew
And the womb became love.

And in the beginning
Was the manhood
And the manhood grew
And the manhood became love.
And in the beginning
Was the word
And the word grew
And the word became us.

The womb and the manhood
Grew into one;

And the womb and the word
Grew into love.
And the womb said:
Love creates poetry;
Absolute love creates eternity.
And the word said:

Poetry recreates love,
Absolute love recreates eternally.

 

(Concha And Reznov, by Catherine Ahearn; Anthos Books, 1987, page 76.)

 

 

 

 

Blaine Marchand's poetry and prose has appeared in magazines across Canada, the US, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, France and Ukraine. He has won several prizes and awards for his writing. He has seven books of poetry published, a chapbook, a children's novel and a work of non-fiction. He has completed a new collection, Promenade.

Active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years, he was a co-founder of the Canadian Review, Sparks magazine, the Ottawa Independent Writers and the Ottawa Valley Book Festival. He was the President of the League of Canadian Poets from 1991-1993.