I'm delighted to hear that one of Canada's foremost 'people's poetry' activists, co-founder of the Canadian Poetry Association (CPA) and perhaps the nation's greatest Al Purdy champion, Chris Faiers, has started a "Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens" blog. Activist with the heart of Eastern poet, unstinting supporter and practitioner of a poetry close to where the heart lives, Chris is someone I seem to have known for a very long time (primarily through email, his Al Purdy A-frame campaign and numerous other notices of special interest to local poetry communities) though never meeting him in person yet.
If I'm asked what I'd like to replace the abysmal 'mainstream' Canadian poetry with, it's this: a people's poetry in the tradition of Katherine L. Gordon, Andreas Gripp, Al Purdy, Wayne Ray, Jeff Seffinga, Milt Acorn, James Deahl and Ted Plantos. A community rather than a bureaucracy; a network of friends, supporters & artists with loyalties to a national literature (though many hail from different parts of the world). In the time Chris has been active in Canada several significant literary events (like Purdyfest) have appeared, poetry publications & associations like the CPA continue to flourish, & anthologies (such as the recent Crossing Lines -Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era, Seraphim Editions, 2008) occasionally appear on the literary landscape.
And with a growing number of people's poets going online perhaps it's also time to think of creating our own true Canadian poetics & form a real alternative to the elitist CanLit establishment that's had a free ride for too long, & usually at taxpayers' expense. Let the poetry & discussions begin!
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