The last line that author Lorna Goodison read aloud from her book, From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People,went something like this: "My mother dipped her finger in sugar and ran it around my mouth when I was born to give me the gift of words." The Jamaican born poet, who now lives part-time in Halfmoon Bay, struck a chord with the audience by giving an account of her childhood told lyrically and from the heart. She described how the birth of this memoir had been difficult for a writer who was more comfortable with poetry. Her son's response had been, "Good book, Mom. Drop another one."
Goodison's talk was typical of the 26th annual Festival of the Written Arts (FOWA) held last weekend in Sechelt. This year's line-up of authors proved once again how powerful is the gift of words.
The best presentations in the 21-event festival were the ones that could make the audience both laugh and cry. Larger than life, performance poet Shane Koyczan achieved that handily. The sleeper hit of the festival, Koyczan rapped out his poetry and soon had the audience in hysterical laughter with a tale of a kid at camp making a useless present and shy love poems that managed to be both gentle and coarse at the same time. They included work from his next book about bullying, entitled Stick Boy. Within minutes, Koyczan switched the mood to an account of his last moments with his dying mother that drew both tears and a standing ovation.
Ottawa writer Elizabeth Hay, in conversation with former CBC broadcaster Hal Wake, described to a packed Rockwood Pavilion audience how she had made the transition from radio journalist to novelist. It was not easy to learn to be a better narrator, but Hay has proved her ability in her Giller Prize-winning novel Late Nights on Air set in a small radio station in Yellowknife and largely drawn from her own experiences.
"Write about the long light, the long seduction, the long journey," she told the crowd, and set novice writers rushing home to their computers with stars in their eyes. Lawyer and author William Deverell drew lots of laughter, as did novelist and musician Paul Quarrington. Both he and Dave Bidini included songs in their readings. Playwright and novelist John MacLachlan Gray also included a self-penned tune. Gray's latest book, Not Quite Dead, is a bizarre blend of two stories: Charles Dickens' escapades in America and the rumour that Edgar Allan Poe faked his own death. Gray repeatedly told the crowd, "I'm not making this up." When asked the inevitable question: where did he get his ideas from, he responded that he steals them -from true stories. However, no one was laughing when former Macleans magazine writer Chris Wood gave a clear, concise summary of the state of water on the planet as discussed in his book Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America. Canada is getting wetter, he explained, while the U.S. is getting dryer. In fact, of 24 eco-systems on earth studied by an under-reported U.N. committee, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 15 of the world's ecosystems are losing ground faster than they are renewing themselves. Wood's solution to the forthcoming water crisis lies in the marketplace of small communities like our own, and he challenged the public to stop giving water away for free. He does not blame the U.S. or corporate industry for the problem.
"The problem is us," he said, and he pointed to the power of markets as natural economic systems that will teach us the true monetary value of water.
Journalist and political commentator Chantal Hebert drew a full house on Saturday evening to deliver the show-stopper Bruce Hutchison Lecture using material from her first book, French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date with Quebec. Her ability to accurately assess the Canadian political scene and her insights into the next federal election earned her an ovation from a responsive audience.
