I first heard of Richard and his work somewhere around 1994-5 through Joe Blades [see my obituary for Joe here, who also died this year], back when Richard (originally from Saint John, New Brunswick) was still living in Halifax. Richard was writing poetry and plays, and making small films, if my recollections are correct. Or was he in Toronto by then, having relocated from Halifax? I know I caught his work in the anthologies Plush, ed. Michael Holmes and Lynn Crosbie (Coach House Press, 1995) and The Last Word, ed. Michael Holmes (Insomniac Press, 1995). It was around that time that I began to visit Toronto a couple of times a year, hanging out with Michael O’Connor (publisher of Insomniac) and Michael Holmes, among others, and Richard was just around. He was a couple of years my elder, and he seemed to be everywhere. I saw him at readings, social gatherings and on the street; I saw his work in journals and anthologies, and heard him read. We spoke of his poetry manuscript-in-progress, the book that became his full-length debut, a selection of dazzling scarves (ECW Press, 1996). I might have been the only one who preferred his prior title, “the sand that is everywhere,” and I even tried to use the title myself, given he wasn’t. I couldn’t quite manage to write anything that properly fit (perhaps he had the same issue; perhaps this was the issue all along). My poem for Richard, utilizing his title, appeared in my own first ECW title a couple of years later.
Richard had such great titles. I included his poem “HOW TO SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME ALONE AND STILL WRITE CONVINCINGLY ABOUT SEX” in an issue of STANZAS (#8, May 1996) alongside “The Big Fuck,” by Judith Fitzgerald [see my obituary for her here], a gesture that seemed ridiculously appropriate, and even perfect. How could I ever have been so lucky? I included some of his work in an issue of Missing Jacket (#5, April 1997). I published his poem “the seven good reasons why The Boys In The Band could be a musical or, I am the dollar in the dolorosa” asn an above/ground press broadside (#44, 1997), most likely timed for some event I knew I would see him at. See what I mean? His titles were magnificent. Not long after that, I published his single-poem chapbook 14 Reasons Not To Eat Potato Chips On Church Street (April, 1999), composed as a list poem, and as a love poem (with snarky comments and critiques) for Toronto’s Gay Village. As the poem reads:
3. If you have to drop by The 519, the tight-faced lesbian at
the front counter will remind you, correctly, that queer youth of colour are
being physically and verbally absued in Third World sport shoe factories owned
by the parent company of Frito Lay.
How could you?
4. And what are you gonna do with the bag? It can’t be recycled (see #3).
He would mail me items occasionally, and randomly. Small notes, occasionally on print-outs of images not fit for all audience. All sent mischievously, and with a positive note and a great deal of love. The piece Alana Wilcox posted yesterday over at Coach House reminded me of such.
And
of course I can’t find my copy of his second poetry collection, Invisible to
Predators (ECW Press, 1999), to verify how much or how little of that material
might have appeared there. I really don’t know. If not, that would presume that
these pieces never made it into print beyond these small bits of ephemera. During
this same period (most likely in 1997, possibly as a tour for his poetry debut),
he read for my reading series, The Factory Reading Series at Gallery 101, when
the series was still called “poetry 101,” and held in the gallery space above
Wallacks, at Bank and Lisgar Streets. He was reading with British Columbia poet Joe Rosenblatt, who had returned to town to read from a volume of selected
poems and visual art that had been refused by the original printer (a whole other
story), thus missing the event that had already passed by, the opening of Rosenblatt’s
gallery show at the Carleton University Gallery. I think the week that fit into
their schedule was one that had held a number of other literary events, which
meant our audience was but two people. Rosenblatt didn’t seem to expect much (the empty liquor bottle underneath his chair after he had left provided some answers to Joe's casual indifference to the small crowd), thanks
to the printer of the book, and Richard just seemed amused by it. Richard read
first, and one of the audience, most likely not prepared for Richard’s openly
gay content, walked out during his reading. Richard seemed delighted by this,
and said after that he was going to tell people that “half of his audience
walked out” at the Ottawa launch. And in hindsight, Richard's response to this one lone audience member underscores the realities of his approach to life and to art, having come out as a gay man during a period of time that wasn't necessarily safe or welcoming; and the fact that he was an openly, and seemingly comfortable, gay man exploring some of this content in his work, makes it that much more remarkable. He wasn't the first, not even of his generation, to be writing out gay themes and issues, but from the time I first became aware of him, he was consistently producing work, writing and publishing and exploring, in a way that might have provided him enormous difficulty, or even harm. Simply by being himself; his own delightful, funny and scathingly-witty self.
9. Drop one chip, just one, and you’re increasing the typhus-carrying microbe population by about 2 billion. Thanks a lot.
10. One publically-consumed bag of chips is
sexually counter equal to: one flattering new haircut, 3 subtle yet penetrating
colognes, any favourite, loose-fitting flannel shirt, plus a whole week’s
worth of consciously sucking in your stomach at 30 seccond intervals. Double the
ratios for Ketchup flavour.
Math never lies.
I remember having conversations about him about adoption, as he too was adopted. I had always been interested, and been looking; he was less interested, and published a lengthy article on Parent Finders as being useless and a big scam, basically. The title of a 2018 opinion piece he wrote for The Globe and Mail offered much of what his thoughts on the matter seemed to be: “As a person who was adopted, I'm not lost, I’m lucky.” In March 2014, Richard was in Ottawa (for an arts jury, we think; most likely with the Canada Council) and came over to visit. We spent an evening—Christine, Richard and myself (with four month old Rose)—in our sunroom, talking about everything and anything, and drinking wine. We talked for hours, as though there hadn't been years since I'd seen him. Why didn’t we take any photographs while he was here? He took a cab here, and we hung out for hours in the sunroom, before he wandered off again in another cab. He was charming and witty and delightful, and I most likely loaded him down with chapbooks.
He was warm, generous, energetic, cranky and enthusiastic. He was a champion for those who needed it, and very much attentive to the kinds of assistance he could provide to younger writers. He even wrote on above/ground press's 25th anniversary, when no one else would. How would he have felt about trending on Twitter, I wonder? I know he would have absolutely hated that the original notification from the Fredericton police was his driver's licence photo (both photographs here of Richard were provided by Richard himself, earlier this year). And oh, that wicked wit. I liked him very much and I will miss him a great deal.
And now I’ve been more than two hours seeking out his Invisible to Predators on my bookshelves. Unsuccessfully, I might add, although I did find my copy of his third poetry book, ruined stars (2004), a book that writes about, among other subjects, trauma, visual art, pop culture and queer identity, including this, from a collaboration with the painter William Forrestall, “Conversations with Will”:
(I don’t know about you)
But
I’m tired of running around,
spending my days
absorbing, absorbing, absorbing
being smart and unhappy at the same time
It’s too much, it makes
my hair gray it keeps me up at night it makes me eat
more than I want to
it drowns out the me in
things
simple things, the stink
of an apple the weight of a full mug
the heartlessness of the
cold air when I walk
home or –
Yes, that Me, that conceit is just Desire
Sure, but who doesn’t
want the world?
3 comments:
I so much appreciate this history of Richard’s literary life. Thank you. David G. Hallman
Thanks for posting information on R.M. Vaughn. He was such an amazing person. It is such a sad thing that he has died.
Miigwetch, rob. My condolences to you and to his family and friends.
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