My Granddaughters Are Combing Out Their Long Hair

my granddaughters are combing out their long hair sitting at night
on the rocks in Venezuela       they have watched their babes
falling like white birds from the last of the treetop cradles
they have buried them in their hearts where they will never forget
to keep on singing them the old songs

brought down to earth they use twigs, flint scrapers acadian
their laughter underground makes the thyme flower in darkness

my granddaughters are thin as fishbones & hornfooted but they are
always beautiful under the stars: like little asian paperthings
they seem to open outward into their own waterbowl

mornings they waken to Light’s chink ricocheting
off an old Black’s Harbour sardinecan.

Reduce them the last evangelines make them part of the stars.

my granddaughters are coming out by night combing their burr
coloured hair by the rocks and streamtrickle in Venzuela
they are burnt out as falling stars but they laugh
and keep on singing them the old songs.

Colleen Thibaudeau, 1977

Colleen Thibaudeau, Summer 1977 in London, Ontario

“In the spirit of Gutenberg, printing copies of the Bible for lay people to read, and of William Blake, infernally printing his own illustrated poems, Reaney hand-set Alphabet and printed it with a motorized Chandler & Price vertical platen press.”

We know James Reaney would appreciate this honour, and his deepest wish was that others would be inspired to write and publish their stories.

“Two years later (printing lessons, typesetting, waiting for t’s to come from Toronto, balancing trays of type on buses rolling in blizzards) here it is.” — James Reaney, July 1960, from the Editorial to Alphabet, Issue No. 1.

"The Poet's Typewriter" by James Reaney, 1997

It was a windy day, but you all held on bravely. Many thanks to Carolyn Doyle, Supervisor of the Landon Branch Library, and  Christine Walde of Poetry London for organizing the event, and to Glenn and Peggy Curnoe for their photos. (Poetry London also has photos on their Facebook page.)

April 14, 2012: "Balloon" by Colleen Thibaudeau, 1925-2012

April 14, 2012: Celebrating National Poetry Month. Jean McKay was on hand to play her fiddle.

April 4, 2012: Elizabeth Reaney celebrates her grandmother's poem

"Balloon" by Colleen Thibuadeau in London, Ontario.
Photo by Chrsitine Walde, 2012

Colleen knew about the plan to put her poem on a billboard earlier this year before she passed away and was thrilled to think that her poem would be writ large for all to see. Thank you so much!

“Balloon” is a concrete poem and was first published in 1965 in Colleen’s book Lozenges: Poems in the Shapes of Things by James Reaney’s Alphabet Press. For this month only, the London Public Library has free postcards of “Balloon.”

Colleen Thibaudeau Reaney, 1925-2012
Photo by Diane Thompson, 1997

Jay Macpherson, 1931-2012

Jay Macpherson will long be remembered for her kindness and intelligence, and her brilliant poetry. Here are two poems by Jay Macpherson that James Reaney published in the first issue of Alphabet in September 1960.

The Love-Song of Jenny Lear

Come along, my old king of the sea,
Don’t look so pathetic at me:
We’re off for a walk
And a horrid long talk
By the beautiful banks of the sea.

I’m not Arnold’s Margaret, the pearl
That gleamed and was lost in a whirl,
Who simpered in churches
And left him on porches,
But more of a hell of a girl.

Poor old fish, you’re no walker at all,
Can’t you spank up that elderly crawl?
I’ll teach you to hurdle,
Led on by my girdle,
With whalebone, elastic and all.

We’ll romp by the seashore, and when
You’ve enough, shut your eyes and count ten.
I’ll crunch down your bones,
Guts marrow and stones,
Then raise you up dancing again.

Love-Song II of Jenny Lear

Were I a Shakespearean daughter,
Safe restored through fire and water,
You the party in the crown
—Someone get the curtain down.

Jay Macpherson, 1960

"Six Toronto Poets", Folkways Records, 1958

Jay Macpherson won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1957 for her book The Boatman. She can be heard reading her poem “The Boatman” on “Six Toronto Poets,” a recording made in 1958 on Folkways Records. (James Reaney also reads his work on this album, along with Margaret Avison, W.W. Eustace Ross, Raymond Souster, and Anne Wilkinson.)

Here is part of James Reaney’s appreciation of Jay Macpherson’s The Boatman from Canadian Literature No. 3, Winter 1960:

Perhaps the best way to conclude what should be said in praise of The
Boatman is that it shows you how to get from “here to there”. If “here”
is this world and “there” the world of Eternity, then this book of poems
shows the reader all the necessary steps of the way. These are steps that
I am sure an increasingly great number of readers and writers in Canada
are going to find very exciting to take.

(Excerpted from James Reaney, “The Third Eye: Jay Macpherson’s The Boatman“, published in Canadian Literature, Issue No. 3, pages 24-24, Winter 1960, page 34.)

We especially liked young Daniel Bedrossian as Seth Jr. and Teddy Perdikoulias as Ebenezer Jr., and Lise Maher as Mrs. Jarvis and Allison Angelo as Atahentsic were wonderful in Act II. We loved Todd Delaney as Major John Graves Simcoe and Robert Longo as Colonel “Mad Anthony” Wayne.

Thank you, Larry Beckwith, for conducting and directing the orchestra and singers so well. And thank you, Guillermo Silva-Marin, General Director of Toronto Operetta Theatre, for making the premiere of John Beckwith and James Reaney’s work possible. We wish you every success in the future.

John Beckwith, composer, and his son Larry Beckwith, Conductor and Chorus Director at Taptoo!, February 25, 2012.

The Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto, February 25, 2012

James Reaney and John Beckwith developed Taptoo! in 1994, when it had a workshop reading at Historic Fort York. Before this professional production (February 24-26, 2012), there were two presentations of Taptoo! by the students of McGill University (1999) and by the opera division of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music (2003).

In his new memoir, Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer,  John Beckwith recalls his life as a composer, including his collaborations with James Reaney. The book is available from Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

James Reaney and John Beckwith, Summer 2003, in London, Ontario. Photo by Colleen Reaney.

Colleen’s poems and short stories have appeared in magazines and journals since 1945. Here is a poem Colleen wrote in 1984 in her book The Martha Landscapes.

The Star Over the House Quilt (Last night I dreamed…)

Last night I dreamed about you all under the Star Over the House Quilt;
I remember mother making it: the little squares of jonquil window lit
The doors, shutters often green. Your block has still the hollyhock (french knots)
Mine has the lilac (front yard), looking hard the lilacs still are blooming there,
The real ones down — time and town development don’t affect the quilt.

Each of us, house body, and the star, the star-filled head;
Each of us bedded down lifetime dreams the star-filled town
Waking goes walking the houses of our own making, talking the blocks away.
I might move into you taking on hollyhock            but it’s not
Me really just the dreaming of the star-filled head.

The Star Over the House Quilt she made it extra size;
Her eyes puzzled out each stitch; she declared her fingers to be all pricked
And she licked the blood from roofs, sidewalks, from the small yards
With the ever-blooming trees pointing to the stars
Of the Star Over the House Quilt.

Sheila and Colleen in St. Thomas, Ontario, 1942

Colleen Thibaudeau and James Reaney, 1950

James Reaney and Colleen Thibaudeau near Stratford, Ontario, 1982.

Update March 3, 2012:  In tribute to Colleen Thibaudeau and her work, the London Public Library, Brick Books, and Poetry London have commissioned a billboard with her poem “Balloon”. The billboard will go up sometime in the week of March 26, and there will be a a “Balloon” billboard launch on Saturday April 14 at 3:00 pm. The library is also printing postcards of “Balloon” to hand out during April, which is National Poetry Month.

The opera is based on events surrounding the founding of the town of York, Upper Canada (now Toronto), roughly from 1780-1810. Using real historical characters like Major John Graves Simcoe as well as imaginary ones, the story tells how a Quaker family, the Harples, flee America to Canada to escape mob violence:

From Scene 1:

MOB: Take off your hat
To the emblem of our state,
Our state, our state!

TWO VOICES:  (shouting) The rattlesnake!

JESSE: Friends, I will
Take off my hat
To neither king nor republic
Nor a flag, nor a …

MOB: You don’t want freedom?

JESSE: Yes. Freedom from all oppressors
Kings or — mobs like yourselves!

MOB: (shouting in unison)
Take off your hat!

(Jesse does not move. Pause, then sudden quick action as they seize him.)

MOB: Tar and feather him!
Seize that tub,
Burn that little flag there!

In a recent article about his collaboration with James Reaney, John Beckwith describes the music of Taptoo! “as the modern equivalent of a ballad opera, in which scraps of familiar songs and dances would now and then drift in to the musical score. I included about 20 such musical references — hymn tunes, popular sentimental or patriotic songs, dances, marches and, of course, historical military music.”*

Taptoo! will be led by Larry Beckwith, Conductor, and Guillermo Silva-Marin is the Stage Director. Featured performers are Robert Longo, Michael Barrett, Todd Delaney, Sarah Hicks, and Mark Petracchi.

When: February 24 and 25 at 8 pm; February 26 at 2 pm

Where: Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre, 27 Front Street East Toronto, M5E 1B4

Order your tickets here from the St. Lawrence Centre box office, or

by phone: (416) 366-7723 or 1-800-708-6754

See you there!

Old Fort York at the foot of Bathurst Street in 1793

The full libretto for James Reaney’s Taptoo! is available in Scripts: Librettos for Operas and Other Musical Works, published by Coach House Books.

*John Beckwith, “Portrait of a partnership,” Opera Canada, Fall 2011, page 32.

Mr. Wah is the fifth poet to hold this office. George Bowering (2002-2004), Pauline Michel (2004-2006), John Steffler (2006-2008), and Pierre DesRuisseaux (2009-2011) were the previous Poets Laureate.

“As a distinguished poet, editor, and teacher Fred Wah is known across Canada for his interest in a range of subjects,” said Speaker Kinsella. “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.”

“Fred Wah’s poetry is grounded in Canada’s political and social landscapes,” said Speaker Scheer. “He has done much to encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language within Canadian society.”

Fred Wah has chosen James Reaney’s poem “Granny Crack” as his first poem of the month. Wah admires Reaney’s focus on Southwestern Ontario as a site of inspiration: “He is an advocate of regional genius. When he was a professor at University of Western Ontario, his students had to know the local trees.”

Granny Crack

I was a leather skinned harridan
I wandered the county’s roads
Trading and begging and fighting
With the sun for hat and the road for shoes.

You played a pigsty Venus
When you were young, old dame,
In graveyard or behind the tavern.
The burdock girl was your name.

She talked vilely it is remembered
Was a moving and walking dictionary
Of slang and unconventional language
The detail of her insults was extraordinary.

We dozen scoundrels laid you
For a quarter each in the ditch
To each you gave the sensation
That we were the exploited bitch

You saw me freckled and spotted
My face like a killdeer’s egg
When, berry-picking kids, you ran from me
Frightened down the lane by the wood.

They saw her as an incredible crone
The spirit of neglected fence corners,
Of the curious wisdom of brambles
And weeds, of ruts, of stumps and of things despised.

I was the mother of your sun
I was the sister of your moon
My veins are your paths and roads
On my head I bear steeples and turrets
I am the darling of your god.

James Reaney, 1959

James Reaney included “Granny Crack” in his play One-man Masque, which he first performed at Hart House Theatre, Toronto, on April 5, 1960, directed by Pamela Terry. The poem first appeared in print in The Killdeer and Other Plays in 1962.