THE FLAME

Leonard Cohen. THE FLAME: Poems & Selections from Notebooks. M&S, 2018.

A great way to end the year and the decade. While listening to another gift: Thanks for the Dance. 

He concludes with "thank you" to the troubled young man who taught him the chords. 

He ends with "a mandate from God / to enter the dark". 

I shall remember his "no longer inclined / to speak the truth // speak truth to power? / rather / speak truth / to the powerless."

And his "I Pray for Courage" p. 87.

THE WOUNDED HEALER

Henri J.M. Nouwen. The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society. Doubleday, 1972/2010. 

Interesting examples of counselling the sick and dying. The examples stress the importance of repeating what you hear and also the importance of listening for the feelings what may lie beneath the silences or even beneath the words. Also many examples of making bad assumptions, failing to connect with the underlying humanity of the person needing comfort. 

I like the Carl Rogers quote: p. 79. Artists and poets who express what is unique to them = what is most likely to resonate with others. 

ISLANDS OF DECOLONIAL LOVE

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. ISLANDS of DECOLONIAL LOVE. Arp, 2015.

Found this at a library booksale, possibly Abbotsford. Incredible work. I will read it again. I will seek out the audio on line. 

A GREENING of IMAGINATIONS

Herbert O'Driscoll. A GREENING of IMAGINATIONS: WALKING the SONGLINES of HOLY SCRIPTURE. 2019.

Found this in Munro's Book Store after visiting Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, BC. I have previously enjoyed this Victoria writer's earlier publication about his growing up in Ireland. I may even have written him a fan letter. I must re-read that; I think it is shelved in my sacred texts bookshelf. 

This one is also very interesting. A re-telling of New Testament stories as if from the eyes, the voices of witnesses. A few imagined letters. Seems to be inspired, in-spirited, by actually living there and walking the roads. 

I would suggest that the title is too heavy for the book which simply asks readers to feel, to imagine how it felt to be there, to have been a witness. And to recognize that the same presence is felt, the same feelings experienced today. 

I do love the cover.

77 FRAGMENTS OF A FAMILIAR RUIN

Thomas King. 77 FRAGMENTS OF A FAMILIAR RUIN: Poems. Harper Collins, 2019.

A Christmas gift. I absolutely love it. 

THE BRUTAL TELLING

Louise Penny. The BRUTAL TELLING. 2009.

One of the earlier Inspector Gamache mysteries. #4, borrowed from Anna, after her 3-box set. The title reference is to Emily Carr, her explanation of her estrangement from her father. The clue that leads Gamache to the Queen Charlottes. Another truly enjoyable read although the ending surprises me.

EAST of EDEN

John Steinbeck. EAST of EDEN. 1952.

Our Hawthorne Book Club second 600-page novel in two months. I first read this fifty years ago. I'm older now. I still love it. Family dysfunction. Culture failure. Children who just grow up on their own. Lee the only real nurturer in the bunch. Maybe Samuel Hamilton too. 

Watched the James Dean film which only tells the short final section, and makes important changes which decrease the story. For example, Cal borrows $$$ from Kate, not from Lee. 

Definitely in interesting study of a psychopathic female, and of the origins of youth trauma. 

HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST

Ibram X. Kendi. HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST. One World, 2019. + the workbook. 

I ordered these from Amazon and wanted to read them before finishing a draft of My TRC Quilt. It is very interesting. He uses memoir as a way in to define and discuss racism, along with growing up Black in America. The main message I took away is that it is not enough to just not be racist. It is necessary to actively oppose and confront racism in self and others. He also reveals the way class,stereotypes, and classism complicate the issue of racism in America.

However, as a useful tool to apply to the issues in Canada, not so much. The other message, equal respect for all, is pretty basic, but it does not help with the situation here where Indigenous peoples have a prior claim. Black Americans and other Americans are all immigrants, and Kendi does not address the question of indigenous Americans. Still, he is young and he is inspiring. 

CORDILLERA

Norbert Ruebsaat. CORDILLERA. Pulp, 1979.

I wish I had known about this book before I took a course with this writer at UCFV more than 20 years ago. I love the importance of geology to the culture, the characters, the poems. 

THE BLIND ASSASSIN

Margaret Atwood. The BLIND ASSASSIN. Seal, 2000.

Hawthorne Book Club selection for November, 2019.I thought I had read this before but it seems not. Maybe I just remember scenes from a truncated television movie. I loved the mystery of this study of Canada, Ontario, from early twentieth-century to the 1990s. The narrator, an older woman, looking back at her life, the losses--her mother in childbirth, her father to PTSD after WWI and his unhappy demise during the depression, her arranged marriage to a titan of industry, her troubled sister, her missing former lover. What is the secret underlying the family dysfunction?