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.

 

 

 

Kate Rogers : Kaddish For My Mother, by Marsha Barber

Kaddish For My Mother, Marsha Barber
Borealis Press, 2022

 

 

 

 

Marsha Barber’s compelling new poetry collection, Kaddish For My Mother, can help us grieve as well as celebrate life. “Kaddish” is appropriate in the title for Barber’s collection in a couple of ways: it refers to the ancient Jewish mourner’s prayer[1], but also means sanctification in Aramaic, the ancient language of many peoples of the Middle East.[2] In a recent interview with CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter, Barber stated that she chooses poetry not only because she loves “language and imagery”, but most especially because she “wants to communicate.” Her poems are brief, often highly visual moments of recognition, or discovery. It should be no surprise that Barber made documentaries for many years. Barber is a long-time journalist and professor of journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University (the former Ryerson University), so why poetry? Over her four collections Barber has confirmed for herself that “Poetry is an extraordinary way of connecting with the deepest part of ourselves.” She told The Next Chapter host Shelagh Rogers that “grief, loss and family are universal”. Barber hopes that readers will relate to her poems and that they will “feel comforted and recognised.”

The subject matter of Marsha Barber’s poems is often “what’s closest to the bone.”  Kaddish For My Mother begins with the back story of the shocking collapse of her parents’ marriage and re-marriage to another couple when she was a child. It also hints at Barber’s eventual expulsion from her reconfigured family at age 16 and the power of her ensuing rage. Growing up with such loss, so young, has sharpened Barber’s awareness as well as intensified her sensitivity and depth of feeling. The strongest poems in the collection frame its narrative and can be found in the first, fourth and fifth sections, “Empty Nest,” “Are We There Yet,” and “Kaddish for My Mother.” The last two sections are the most powerful in their description of Barber’s reconciliation with her mother, along with the challenge of facing her mother’s dementia and her own aging. The final poems about losing her mother are very moving. Touching poems about her children and some striking poems about navigating the wider world can also be found in the collection.

In the poem, “Punch,” the narrator recalls a childhood moment of realization that the violence in a traditional “Punch and Judy” show is not entertaining. The poem hints that it could even be familiar. More than anything she wants to go home with her parents who shortly after, begin talking about divorce. In “The Bell” the narrator’s father asks her “to ring the antique bell / on the mantlepiece / to warn him / whenever he was mean // so that way / maybe my mother wouldn’t leave him.” Even at age eight the speaker understood that “it was the only way / to save their marriage.” She rang the bell when her father called her mother, “The Brain of Britain” and told her mother, “not to be / so damn stupid.” In the end, the little girl cannot change the situation: “my mother met another man, / someone who didn’t require / a bell.”

In “Forgiving Your Stepdad” Barber effectively employs second person to convey the lasting impact and surprising benefit of conflict with her stepdad—his “yelling,” his “open palm”—
when she is fifteen. After an argument with her stepdad the narrator escaped to the park swings until a man sat beside her, asked if she had a boyfriend and pulled his penis out. Then the narrator “took [her] stepdad’s gifts: / fury, hate / and screamed at the bald man / to fuck off // while he froze there” … dick exposed, shrivelled, pink and white / like a deflated balloon.”

In “You, Sleeping” a poem about the gift of her own children, Barber could be addressing either her son or daughter. She recalls them recently born, smelling “like soap,” / …  “skin warm and plump,” and decades later, still watching them sleep, observing a “kaleidoscope of you.”  For Barber “each version” of her growing children has “moulded” her into their mother, “created a better version” of her.

A number of striking poems appear in section II, “Wide Wide World.” The epigram to the poem “100 Seconds to Midnight,” which is about the advancing Doomsday Clock, reminds us “how close our planet is to complete annihilation”.  “The hands… / rub against /the dark hour.”  This poem and several others in this section, reveal Barber’s deep pessimism about the state of the world. As usual, she is skillful in her evocation of the negative feelings which can overwhelm any of us.  The poem continues, “Absence pools in puddles, / footsteps echo / in abandoned streets.” “Beyond the alley / someone cries herself to sleep.” The narrator realizes the person weeping might be her.

As already mentioned, the most powerful poems of the book can be found in the fourth and fifth sections, “Are We There Yet,” and “Kaddish for My Mother.” In their description of Barber’s reconciliation with her mother, navigation of her mother’s dementia and her own aging, the poems explore Barber’s vulnerability and reveal her courage. The poem “Loving My Mother” celebrates the almost ecstatic love between the reconciled narrator and her mother.
“My Mother tells me / I’m pretty, // and just like that, / I feel pretty. // My mother asks me / what I do again, // tells me / she’s proud. // I’ve waited decades / for those words. // My mother tells me / she loves me, // my love for her explodes / an airbag, tight / against my heart.” Yet this revelation of love is too intense, “flares like an ambush // too fierce / too much / too hard.”

In the title poem of section IV, “Are We There Yet,” roles are reversed. The narrator recalls summer days on the way to the seaside, “time passing slowly / the air itself / weighted with sand.” But the mother is the one calling the narrator to ask, “Are we there yet?” And asks the same thing again before the narrator leaves at the end of a visit. Where,  “at eighty-nine / so urgently / [ does she yearn] to be,” Barber wonders.

In “The Aging Chair” the narrator’s mother sits in her chair by the window “just as her mother / sat by her own bedroom window / in the same chair / watching people / on the street below.” The narrator’s mother informs her that she is bequeathing the same chair to her. “It waits, inevitable and soft,” …  to “unwillingly, / settle in.” We feel the narrator’s reluctant acceptance of this inheritance.

For me personally, the poems of the final section, “Kaddish for My Mother” are the most poignant and heartbreaking of the collection. In “Giving Up Her Name,” the narrator reflects on “The Sunday before / my mother died / she became lucid, the way / a stone / under clear water / becomes lucid, / the beauty of its cracks / and veins revealed.” The metaphor shows us the clarity of the poet’s understanding and connection with her mother, who tells her in that encounter that she never liked her name, “Josephine.” In an exchange which is a profound gift they say they love each other and the narrator realizes that she has begun to see her mother as her child. She remarks to her husband that that was the best visit she had had with her mother for months. The next day her mother sinks into a deep sleep from which she never awakes.

In the poem “Kaddish for My Mother” Barber evokes the power of her mother’s will, how she was someone to whom no one said “no,” who “always got precisely / what she wanted, // the most beautiful woman in any room.” There is “so little left: / some furs, a ring, vintage dresses”.

But the final poem of the book, “Clouds,” evokes the startling, visceral grief which confronts Barber as she faces her mother’s death:

“When the skull / behind your eyes / is a bowl of tears / and if one, only one / should drift / down your pale cheek // the bowl / would crack / and there’d be / no end to it. //
When your throat / is a hollow waft of air // and your chest / closes in upon itself / like a slamming door, // when your heart runs wild, / thrusting itself against bone / like a bat in a trap.”

Marsha Barber’s poetry collection, Kaddish For My Mother, is beautifully written and courageous in its honesty about complex family relationships and their long-term impact. I recommend it highly.

 

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[1] https://sharonmemorial.com/customs-and-traditions/the-mourners-kaddish/

[2] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/development-and-history-of-kaddish/?amp

 

 

 

 

Kate Rogers’ next poetry collection, The Meaning of Leaving, is forthcoming with Montreal-based publisher, Ace of Swords (AOS), in early 2024. Her poems recently appeared in SubTerrain, The Windsor Review and Looking Back at Hong Kong (Chinese University of Hong Kong). Kate's reviews have appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Goose and Ricepaper. Kate is Co-Director of Art Bar, Toronto’s oldest poetry only reading series. Learn more at: https://katerogers.ca/