Tag: 08.08.00

“Is there something churlish about Canadians that we balk at the idea of an official poet laureate? Are we too modest, too embarrassed? We certainly need an advocate for poetry. Poetry is the least honoured and the most respected of our art forms. A poet laureate would bring poetry to the people, giving us, as John Newlove said, ‘the pride, the grand poem / of our land, of the earth itself’.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

• WHAT A DREADFUL IDEA: “Poets are already considered to be on the very bottom of the arts ladder, frantically vying with the likes of documentary filmmakers, performance artists and other degenerates. And Canadian poetry, in the main, is horrible, consisting primarily of nuanced references to woodchippers, and surprisingly vulgar accounts of childbirth. To crown a laureate then would be something like appointing a pantomime artist to remember the dead for us each November – a poignantly awful idea.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

Thomas Keneally, author of “Schindler’s List,” seems to be fascinated with suffering and adversity; he has written about the Holocaust, the famine in 19th-century Ireland and British convicts being deported to Australia. His most recent subject of focus has been the struggling African county Eritrea. “‘Novelists,’ he says, ‘write about fraternity and love across borders, race and culture and about characters who have everything against them “because the best stories are there.'” – Sydney Morning Herald