Eyes of heaven

One of my favourite reading series celebrates the work of poets who have died. There's nothing hokey or ghoulish about this -- it's no seancey nonsense -- it's brought together every two months by a group of very-alive writers, and it's called Dead Poets Live.

I always learn about some poet I've never heard of before. This time the poet was a man named Kabir. Unbeknownst to me, he lived in the 15th century and was considered by many to be a saint. Who knew? I have to credit Kate Braid, who told us that she first discovered one of his books in a second-hand bookstore. The selections she read made me want to learn more. And learning more is what often happens at these readings. Alban Goulden presented a selection of work (and much in the way of enlightening comments) on Paul Valéry. Goulden even included some of his own translations, explaining his dissatisfaction at some he encountered.

Even though these first two presentations were engaging, the second half really kicked into high gear, as these were works by three poets nearly all of us in the audience had known -- three poets who each died too soon.

Weldon Hunter presented works by Nanaimo poet Peter Culley, whose death took all of us by surprise when we were at the Cascadia Poetry Festival in 2015. Hunter read from each book in Culley's Hammertown trilogy and told a few wonderfully personal stories about his friend, Culley.

Barbara Nickel was exactly the right person to present the work of her friend Elise Partridge. Well-loved by so many in Vancouver's writing community, like Culley, Partridge died in 2015 when she too was only 57. She wrote brave poems that cut close to the bone, with lines like these from a poem called "Ways of Going" that was dedicated to her partner, Steve:

Sad rower pushed from shore, / I'll disappear like circles summoned /by an oar's dip. 

However I burn through to the next atmosphere, / let your dear face be the last thing I see.

Closing the event was Wayde Compton, reading from work by another beloved Vancouver poet, social activist and essayist, Jamie Reid. I can hardly remember giving or attending a reading where I wouldn't see Jamie, often leaning against a wall at the back of the room. No matter the occasion, it was never 'about him'. But then, that's just the kind of guy he was.

As for the crazy photo accompanying this post, it was after the reading, and I was still feeling kind of spiritualized, I guess, by the emotions that were so evident in the room, downstairs in the Vancouver Public Library. Looking up, all those skylights in the building looked to me like eyes -- and whether they were eyes looking up, or ones looking down, I couldn't be sure. But I felt like, if there is such a place as heaven, there it was, in plain view, nearer than ever.