Colleen Thibaudeau Reaney has died. She passed away Feb. 6. You may not know the name. Some say she was the most under-appreciated poet. Her son says she was London’s greatest poet. But the fact is that poets all across this country knew this gentle and funny and sensitive writer from London, Ontario. And they got letters from her. They got cards, and broadsheets, and sometimes she might telephone … And if you haven’t heard of Colleen, then you should go and find her books. Colleen was a poet, a storyteller, a mother to writers everywhere. She worried about others and sent remedies through the mail. She also dispatched poems and Christmas cards. And she readily welcomed you to her house on Huron Street in London, Ont. I first went there in 1967 or 1968 after a reading I done with a number of other poets. We were all just starting out as writers. Young, brash and arrogant we all were, and we figured we knew everything about the world. Then we stepped into this colourful house one summer night for some wine and cheese. Colleen was effusive, engaging, the living, breathing “real” poet. The words she spoke were exciting, different, tinged with an edge that told me this woman wasn’t someone who scratched out the occasional line, but was someone whose life was lived with that deep lyrical impulse. That’s also when I met her husband, James Reaney, one of Canada’s greatest playwrights and greatest poets. I didn’t realize then I would get to know both of them much better. James and I worked on a play together, and we collaborated on other projects, and in the midst of all this, Colleen once came down to stay with us at this one-room schoolhouse we owned near Coatsworth. She had an amazing presence in our lives. Always encouraging. Always insightful. She talked a hundred miles an hour, the stories brimming with bizarre characters, down-to-earth details that sometimes would baffle and confound, but always entertained. She was a gem. She was a poet right to her fingertips.

What follows here is her son’s blog. It says it all:

BY JAMES REANEY, LONDON FREE PRESS

Once again, I have sad but not tragic news about our family. My beloved mother, Colleen Thibaudeau Reaney, died this morning at University Hospital. Mom was 86 & recovering from a stroke.

Her last hours were peaceful & quiet with a beautiful morning unfolding behind her. Thanks to everyone for their love & support. Mom knew you were there for her.

Mom would never agree when I called her “London’s greatest poet” — but she never told me to stop repeating the phrase. She had said to stopstopstop about some other details of her life, such as her gallant charge up to Irving Layton. The Montreal sage had sneered at academic poets (ie. my late father) just once too often at some reading in the 1960s. If that story of poet v. poet vs. poet isn’t quite true, it should be.

My sister in Vancouver remembered mom as the great one while we shared the news this morning. We thought of mom’s many greatnesses . . .poet, story-writer, soulmate, sister, daughter, in-law, community leader, NDP lifetime member, Acadian exile, wit, raconteur, letter-writer & much more.

Mom was/is London’s greatest poet (my dad always said so, too) & I am grateful to so many of her champions like Jean McKay, Stan Dragland, Richard Stingle & Peggy Roffey for helping me see her greatness.

Toward the end of her life, mom came to resemble both her parents . . . her scholarly, reserved & distinguished Markdale father Stewart and her dynamic, distinguished and extroverted Belfast mother Alice. She was born on Stewart’s birthday (Dec. 29) & he always said she was his best birthday present. (My parents were also married on Dec. 29, 1951.) Her mother was a brilliant bridge player & Elgin County’s most ferocious Liberal. Mom inherited neither passion. Mom & her mother argued about politics over the decades, CCF-NDP vs. Liberal, without truce or either asking for quarter . . . until they found a common foe, Brian Mulroney. Mom & grandma were delighted to discover they both detested the PM. They would still disagree . . . about which of the two worthies detested Mulroney more. Alice & Colleen, we miss you both!

The shock will have to wear off a bit more before I can recall Mom in truer detail. She was remarkably generous . . . here’s an anecdote from 2007 I complete forgot until this morning when our friend Mr. Google showed me how Mom’s generosity made her instantly identifiable, even if she were only being misidentified to her amusement as “an elderly lady.”

Mom, goodbye.

In July 2010, Kate helped form her local roller derby league and laced up her first pair of roller skates. Since then, she’s spent all her free time practicing, playing, watching, researching, and generally devoting her life to the sport of women’s flat track roller derby. You can find her writing in publications across Canada as well as the U.S., including filling Station, Room, Rampike, Carousel, Windsor ReView, Off the Coast, and forthcoming in The Antigonish Review.

What you will see here is a sample of what she has written about Roller derby. This piece should appear in a book somewhere down the road. The book is tentatively called Talking Derby: Stories from a Life on Eight Wheels. It is Kate Hargreaves’ love letter to the sport of roller derby.

A skater with an emerging league, Kate a.k.a. Pain Eyre takes readers behind the scenes, both on and off the track, into the fast-growing sport of roller derby. Her vignettes incorporate derby’s unique terminology and culture, as well as a glimpse into the very real athleticism of its players. Talking Derby thrusts smelly gear under the readers’ noses and proudly displays its bruises. 

Enjoy. And the photo here is one that I captured of Kate outside the offices of The Windsor Review …

Excerpt from Talking Derby: Stories from a Life on Eight Wheels

Nov. 29th, 2011

Ibuprofin. Water gulp. I toss my water bottle into my gear bag side pocket, zip, and throw the strap over one shoulder. Slam the front door and sidestep down three porch steps. Right leg limp. My skates have been stinking up the closet for over a week and it’s been two since the initial pull. Fingers and toes crossed, my hip flexor flexes tonight as it should. What better way to find out than three hours of travel tryouts? But, I’m going to take it easy. Sure you are. Whisk’ya Sourz rolls her eyes from the driver’s seat. Seriously, I’m going to take it easy. No point in injuring myself further. My name and number are already drying on my red shirt for next week’s Santas versus Elves scrimmage, and I refuse to stay on the bench.

But…Whisk’ya raises one eyebrow. But…there’s a contest: first skater to 32 laps in 5 minutes. On the line: a free team t-shirt at next week’s Derby World Cup. I’m going to take it easy, but with a competition to raise the stakes, I know I won’t be able to skate my 25 laps and be content. 25 in 5, the much-groaned-about roller derby staple: 25 standard track laps in five minutes or less. On basic skills testing, full points for speed and endurance are only awarded to those who hit 25, and breaking through is a big turning point for a lot of skaters. Some of the top American leagues like Gotham and Oly are rumoured to demand 35 in 5 minimum for their travel teams: a solid seven laps a minute. Unlikely on our ice rink of a concrete floor. 32, though, is a distinct possibility. My last attempt maxed out at 31.5, and with a free Team Canada shirt on the line, why not try? Whisk’ya reminds me that there are several reasons why not, including a not fully recovered muscle pull, an impending holiday scrimmage, and the risk of limping my way through the Christmas break. But a challenge is a challenge.

Whisk’ya presses the buzzer and the heavy wood door swings open. Drop Dead Alice steps out from behind, sporting a paper number 8 taped to the front and back of her helmet. She points at the stack of numbered papers starting at 15 on a table next to the door. Travel team only takes 14 skaters from tonight’s tryout, so we’ve already hit the maximum with more people emerging from the nippy outdoors by the minute. I swipe number 16 and dump my bag by the wall, drop down to the floor for a good stretch to gauge the state of my hip. Tight, but not too bad. No limp, a slight tug. 32 laps? Maybe.

Number 14. We hockey stop. We pack skate. Number 15. We plow. We jump. We block. We recycle. Number 16. We run through all the advanced drills the coaches and reffing staff can recall as they stand, whistles between their teeth, clipboards in hand, calling us to demonstrate our abilities one by one. And then, the last water break before 25 in 5. Five skaters at a time, spread out across the track, one person counting laps for each. I’m assigned the second shift so I grab my water, try to guzzle as much as possible before my five minute sprint-a-thon. Pain, can you count for Paulapalooza? I sit down and hurdler stretch on the inside of the track facing out towards Paula. In between sips of water as she passes by I scream 5 laps, awesome! Great pace! Keep it up! and Push it, push it! Only a minute left! Finish strong!  As the thirty seconds-to-go mark arrives, I stand and start to loosen my muscles. Go go go! Counters scream One more lap, you can do it! The five-minute whistle blows and the skaters finally relax; some take a knee and slide to the ground as the coaches yell for them to skate it off slowly, don’t let your muscles seize up! I’m ordered to the track, and…Damn! I sprint over to the coach I’msorryIgottapeedoIhavetimeI’llberightback! I dash to the bathroom, pulling off my wrist guards, and toss them outside the door as I skate onto the damp tile. As I’m washing my hands, I hear my derby name called out from the warehouse, PAIN! PAIN! I stumble down the bathroom step. Ears burning, I strap on my wrist guards, rush to the track—the whistle goes and I’m off running on my toe-stops.

At the minute-mark, I’ve only hit six and a half laps and I’m bound to slow down. My quads are already howling at me and side-stepping inside! to pass a slower skater tugs at my hip. Almighty Dollar is counting my laps in a low voice, but as I hit 10 and then 15 well before three minutes, he starts to push me onward. Go, go, you can hit 32! I pass the 25 marker, thighs smoldering, chest heaving. Gulping air in hungry mouthfuls, I can barely force out inside! as I screech up behind other skaters. Crossing over with choppy strides, I’m bent too far over at the waist. Bad form. With 30 seconds to go, I’m at 29 laps, and desperate to push out a few more. I try to pick up the pace but my legs resist. The ten second countdown starts and I finish lap 31, heading toward Dollar, my marker for 32, when he blows the whistle. 31 and three quarters, goddammit! I can hear Victor Won in his microphone announcing that we are waiting on the final verdict on my laps. I was probably two seconds away. Two. damn. seconds.

I coast to the centre of the track, hands on knees and spin the cap off my water. The last drips slide off the plastic. Shit. Screeeee! A whistle catches me on my way to refill as Dollar waves me over to the jammer line. An impromptu race. Winner takes shirt. Three minutes recovery and then a two-lap sprint. Against a ref. Can’t I just admit defeat by quads and concrete floor? No shirt, no race? Cut off one sleeve for the missing quarter lap? Standing on toe-stoppers, a blister burns along the edge of my big toe. Two short whistle blasts. Animosity Al jumps off the line early. Yields advantage. I swing past onto the inside and hug the apex. My boots lean hard on loose trucks. Blister pressing against damp leather, I stagger down the straightaway and cross the line with Al steps behind. A free shirt from a false start. Panting, I grab for my empty bottle and drift toward the fountain for some water. A whistle shrieks. Time for scrimmage! I turn, tighten one knee pad, adjust my helmet, and head for the bench. Someone tosses me the jammer panty. Shaking out heavy legs, I stretch my arms behind my back. Bend one knee and pull my right leg up to my chest. Hip twinges. Toe burns. Water sloshes in my belly. 5 black shirts on the track! Tryouts aren’t over yet.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/in-other-words/

Samantha Wauthier

I thought I would share this excerpt of yet another book she has written.  It is one about all the farm animals on her family’s farm near Essex, Ontario. This is the first of these stories to be published, on-line of course. Sam’s lyrical portrayal is from the point of view of these little creatures, all penned in the first person. Fascinating. Maybe reminiscent of Orwell’s famous satire, Animal Farm.? Not exactly, but there are some very profound underlying statements being made. Listen carefully. She has given me permission to use this piece. Please welcome Sam Wauthier.

Bandit

 By Sam Wauthier

I was a fluke. It is as simple as that, I was a mixed breed or a mutt as the humans would say. My father was a yellow Lab and my mother was a shepherd. I in my own defense believe that I got the best traits of both breeds in the simplest terms I could be called a blond shepherd. My glossy coat was the color of faded wheat and my eyes were a deep sorrel brown. I have had many owners, all of which I was loyal too. And yet each and every one of them with the exception of the last passed me onto the next without a second glance. I wish not to discuss my early life if anything I wish to forget it.

I do feel it necessary to start with the family that my life ended with. One night a strange and unfamiliar man entered my domain, his scent was odd. He was a tall male human with dark hair and pale skin. His voice was hoarse and cracked as he spoke careful words with my master. They exchanged words for quite some time, every now and then they would stop talking just long enough to reach out and touch me. The male human reached out, his hand was rather large but surprisingly gentle. I watched with great intent as he nodded to my master. I did not know this at the moment but it was suddenly made clear that I was for sale and my master was the seller. What had I ever done to him that had made him want to rid his world of my presence?

My new master and hopefully my last brought me home to live with him and his beloved family. The dark of the sky created a hue of shadows and cloud. The whole of the house smelt of new and in my own words inexperienced scents. The house was rather clean and the children were sleeping on the couch. A young female and two males slept soundly. I wished to smell them to remember their scent and so I padded closer to them.  The wet of my black nose touched the warmth of the little girls arm; she appeared so fragile and tiny. Her hair fell about her in tangles, I watched as her careful eyes fluttered open to meet my own.  Her drowsy blue eyes snapped alert, she spoke with much excitement within the tone of her voice.

“What is his name?”

The tall man who was now my master patted me on the top of the head as he responded to the young girl’s question.

“Bandit.”

Maybe a year after my coming to my new home I realized that they loved me, the children, the mother and the father. They were not like my past owners for they cared deeply for my health and well being. They were kind to me and fed me well, I followed the children almost everywhere they went. Human children were such active creatures and I was their protector. I loved them so deeply, sometimes in the dead of the night I would sneak out of the back room where I slept and walked swiftly up the narrow wooden steps of the house to the second floor to where the young children slept. Sometimes I would jump up on the soft of their beds and curl up beside them.

One day Chemo, the Rottweiler that lived just down the street, took things too far. I do realize that his master beat him without due cause and I do feel sympathy for him but it gave him no right to hurt my master’s daughter. I was in the back yard with the oldest boy of the children, George was his name.  The grass in the back yard was long, the simplest shade of dark green. I loved the summer time, for the boy and I would spend hours playing frisbee. The boy would throw it and I would run and catch it, this of course not only kept me active but also was a form of entertainment. I watched as the sun cascaded upon the boy’s dark brown hair to shadow his face. Suddenly I heard it… a scream, the little girl was in danger. Without watching what the boy was doing I bound around the house. Her screams became more desperate, the scent of her fear tingled my flared nostrils. I rounded the corner to see Chemo attacking her. His jagged teeth were exposed; the hair on his back rose. I bolted forward and leaped atop the horrid dog. In an act of bewilderment he quickly got to his feet to assess who I was and how to take me down. I watched for the slightest moment as realization hit him, he recognized me but it was no matter. He was angry and not able to control his rage. I took a few steps closer to the little girl; I glanced down at her to see if she was okay. It was apparent from the blood that stained her little pink sun dress that she had been bitten.  In the few moments I had taken to look over the girl Chemo came at me; I could feel the impact of his jaws against the soft of my flesh. Without realizing what I was doing, I thrashed back at him; no fear glazed my eyes as I protected the young girl. I waited for him to surge forward so not to allow any such amount of space between me and my young master. I sank my pearly fangs into the back of his neck just below his shoulder blade; this ferocious creature brought his weight down upon me and cried out not at my fangs. I released him then so to make sure my master was okay, I heard her whimper which tugged at my senses. I faced Chemo then just in time to assess his charge; which was directed towards the female. His wildly spun sorrel eyes seemed to plead for help as they strained against the pulsing red veins violating his vision. I Surged forward and thrust my widened and sharp jaws to clamp about the soft of his exposed throat. I added a mass amount of pressure which forced my to taste the metallic tang of the oozing fluid from his throat. I applied a slightly tighter amount of pressure which seized his whimpering; I listened to his horrid attempt to breathe. If one was to listen closer it would be possible to feel the rush of inhalation over my jaws. I felt the tension slip from his form and I retracted away from him then; a hoarse growl still stained my throat. The unexpected brawl was over and in response I stood strong next to the little girl and watched as Chemo limped wearily down the cracked road.  I vowed silently to myself that no living creature would ever hurt her or any of my family again.

I fear that with my age I may have to make some adjustments to my nature. I say this half-heartedly for do I realize that humans like to move and change. We were moving out of the city and into the country. I felt quite free as I rode in the back of the black pickup truck. The crisp wind touched my face and ruffled my long golden coat. In the country the air was clean or at least cleaner than that of the city. I tried to glance around at the fast moving vehicles and trees but even the thought of it made my stomach churn. I slumped to the surface of the trucks metallic floor. With every bump in the road my head would lightly tap the floor and bring me back to my state of awareness.  I dozed off every now and then; the rhythmic sensation of flying filled my dreams.

Not long after we had settled in at the new property I managed to break the oldest female child’s arm. I did not see her often for she really did not live with us on a daily basis as the other three children, including the youngest female, lived with me all year round. It was a humid and muddy spring day, the heavens were clear from the yesterday’s rain. The children never usually put a chain onto my collar but today I think the oldest male, George, was feeling particularly jumpy. You see it is always been in my nature to come when called on and George decided to call out my name. So in response I ran to meet him at his side, I hardly realized that I was dragging the mass of tangled chain and the oldest female with flaxen and wiry hair behind me. I do faintly remember hearing her call out, in a series of frantic shrieks, for me to stop but I do recall that I did not halt until the boy told me to.  I sat obediently at his feet, my thickly curled tail wrapped about my lower limbs and without hesitation I slumped to my stomach. The mud and filth below my heaving chest felt cool one could say it felt similar to the cool trickle of new morning dew. The kind and gentle mother of the children ran out and detached the chain from my collar. Even with the weight of the eldest girl eased away from my throat I still had to live with the constriction of air as it entered and exited my lungs.  I walked off even as I heard the moans and grunts come from the wounded female behind me. I glanced back at her, it was clear that she was in an immense amount of pain for she was covered in bits of  folded grass and her clothes were stained brown from the moist muck that I had dragged her through.

A beam of white light was all I saw before the van was upon me, I thought myself to be dead. I wondered to myself how the young children would be able to survive without me, their protector. I held on for them, the lights around me faded and I was gone. I awoke in the warmth of the house, it was dark. I strained to see with what little strength I had left; the pain was strong and my body was too achy to move. The memory of the van flooded over me, it also occurred to me that I was alive or at least half alive. How very extraordinary that I have managed to survive, it was as if my whole life was a game of chance and in a sense the luck of the draw. I gather today just was not my day to die, not my day to fade back into the depths of the earth in which I was spawned.  No matter how tragic my life was till that moment I understood not how tragic my life was to be. The truth of my considered fate was not revealed until a years pass. I have finally fallen victim to my destiny, I could not hold on much longer. I peered without feeling at the wooden ceiling of my homing structure; untended cracks lingered in the aged cedar. The scent of sawdust lingered in the depths of my fading sense of smell. A flourish of grey was all that kept me rooted to the reality of my existence. I stared longingly at the chain that lay over my brown collar before setting my face atop my forepaws. I felt all around me become abrupt darkness and this time I did not wake, I could not wake.

“Can you spare a dollar?” I dug into my pocket and found a dollar for her, and slipped it through the window. She thanked me, and moved on down the street. I continued on my way to the church, and made my way down a broken sidewalk, the entrance covered in overgrown shrubbery. The doors at the back of the church were wide open, and I walked into this massive cathedral, its walls tangled over by graffiti, massive stained-glass windows shattered, and haunting skeletal trees outside shifting with the wind. The place was cold to the bone, and I went about my business of photographing this amazing place.

In the late 1980s, the Archdiocese of Detroit was realigning urban parishes and this one merged with another and was renamed Martrys of Uganda. I am not sure when it closed. But part of its history is that the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin got his start here. He was assigned as an assistant when he was teaching at Assumption College in Windsor. He would cross the border every week to deliver a sermon at this church. St. Agnes was newly built, as a matter of fact, it was only a year old when he started going there. Coughlin had been a priest since 1916, having been ordained at St. Basil’s in Toronto. His first assignment was teaching English at Assumption. It was Bishop Gallagher of Detroit who had heard of Coughlin’s preaching prowess. It was at St. Agnes that he developed that connection with people, and later he would move to St. Leo’s where he stayed for 18 months. Finally five years later he would wind up at Royal Oak, Michigan, 12 miles north of Detroit. By then, Coughlin was 35, and it was there in Royal Oak that he found his gift in radio. But it was at St. Agnes that this fiery priest got a taste for the pulpit and nurtured the eloquence needed to capture the imagination of his followers.Click to view slideshow.

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It was good to see Saskatchewan-born writer Fred Wah being appointed as the new parliamentary poet laureate. Wah is the fifth poet to hold that office. The first was George Bowering, whose roots, like Wah’s, are in the tradition of the American Black Mountain poets. Wah, former president of the Writers Union of Canada, won the Governor General’s Award in 1986 and teaches at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella in making the announcement said, ”As a distinguished poet, editor, and teacher Fred Wah is known across Canada for his interest in a range of subjects. Mr. Wah brings forth a collaborative approach and unique perspective to his work inspiring younger poets, students and others both nationally and internationally with his reflections on Canadian culture.”

Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer described Wah’s writing as being grounded in the country’s political and social landscapes. Wah said his work as a parliamentary poet laureate will involve an engagement of poetry as it “represents our homes and migrations, our questions of history and identity.”

I shot this photograph of the poet at the Pause Cafe in Windsor Ontario when Fred Wah was here to talk about his writing.

Check out the Globe and Mail article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/multicultural-obsession-drives-new-parliamentary-poet-laureate/article2278971/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2278971

One night, Marilyn told Miller a story that silenced him in the most tender way. The story emerged when Miller and Marilyn were casually standing together looking out over the city of New York, and apropos of nothing, she started speaking about her elderly Aunt Ana, a Christian Scientist who had been her guardian. She told Miller about how one day, her aunt suddenly took ill and died. Marilyn was in terrible shock over her aunt’s death. So much so that the next night, Marilyn made her way upstairs to her aunt’s bedroom, and climbed into her bed, and slept there. The next day, she went to the cemetery, and when she spotted some men digging Aunt Ana’s grave, and saw ladder running into it, she asked the gravediggers if she could climb down. They graciously moved aside, and Marilyn slowly made her way down to the bottom, and stretched out on the loamy earth and gazed up at the sky, with the men standing at the rim of the gravesite. She could see them leaning on their shovels and smoking, and she lay there a few moments, and felt the cold against her back. It was when the men started joking that she roused herself, and got up and climbed back out of the hole. That story has stayed with me. It was a young Marilyn, not yet the actress, not yet the sex symbol. Just a young girl saddened by her aunt’s death.

Arthur Miller wrote: “To have survived, she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was. Instead, she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller

The classes that turned up in the auditorium at Catholic Central were amazing with their questions. They wanted to know about the torpedoes. They wanted to know about Al Capone and The Purple Gang. They wanted me to tell them how I went about writing the book. This last one is an interesting question because I never considered myself an historian, though I loved history when I was studying it in high school, and later at university. My greatest love is poetry, but in the narrative form.  I am drawn to history at its best when the storytelling is so compelling. I luxuriate in tales of ordinary people, as well as those accounts of the famous in ordinary, everyday situations. I am fascinated by the sense of “place” and its importance to the decisions and behaviour of people. And when all of this comes together, that’s when the writing gets done.

At Elias Deli, my favourite morning haunt, our class met for breakfast, and we read some of the poems in these two books, and celebrated the moment of our completion of the editing. Mary Ann joined us for breakfast and read from the manuscript. Three students — Jessica Knapp, Victoria Faraci and Emily Abbott — also read selections. What a great way to begin a rainy Monday morning in Windsor. Breakfast was fabulous. This place has been host to other poetry readings and to celebrities world wide.

A word to the editors in my class: “Master editors are artists themselves. They need to be…” From Noah Lukeman.