The Alchemist’s Mind: a book of narrative prose by poets, ed. David Miller

Come on, Graciela, Jeanie Jones whimpers.

A twig snaps, a car accelerates toward the ocean.

From somewhere in the shrubbery at the edge of the parking lot the singing of the mockingbird unfolds as in a dream continuing day and night – free of fate, since no matter how much seems to happen, nothing actually does.

Period – so there – it’s over – fini – the end – come all. (Lyn Hejinian, “Lola”)

I’m fascinated by the choices editor David Miller made to construct his new anthology, The Alchemist’s Mind: a book of narrative prose by poets (East Sussex, UK: Reality Street, 2012), including the work of twenty-eight writers from North America and the United Kingdom. His list includes Guy Birchard, Paul Buck, Vahni Capildeo, Johan de Wit, Lawrence Fixel, Giles Goodland, Barbara Guest, Paul Haines, Lee Harwood, Lyn Hejinian, Fanny Howe, Robert Lax, John Levy, Tom Lowenstein, Daphne Marlatt, Brian Marley, Bernadette Mayer, David Miller, bpNichol, Will Petersen, Kristin Prevallet, David Rattray, Ian Robinson, Robert Sheppard, Keith Waldrop, Rosmarie Waldrop, Stephen Watts and M J Weller. As Miller writes in the introduction, “This anthology is intended to highlight the contribution made by poets to narrative prose writing since 1970, emphasising the variety, scope and singularity involved, and signaling that a great deal of the most interesting, unconventional and impressive work in this field, in the UK and North America, has been written by poets.” He goes on to write:

Narrative prose in the UK and North America is, for the most part, not even haunted by the presumed ghosts of “classic” modernism (e.g. James Joyce, William Faulkner, Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, Franz Kafka, Hermann Broch, Andrei Bely, Miguel de Unamuno), let alone informed by an awareness of the living example of those writers, and most certainly doesn’t attempt to go beyond modernism. It’s more as if modernism never existed… except perhaps as something to teach in the academy. Language is mainly seen as a transparent medium, and literature (following on from this) is a largely direct transference of happenings, ideas, emotions, etc, from one mind (the author’s) to another (the reader’s), only complicated by questions of manner, ingenuity, decoration or embellishment, and order (mostly considered in a fairly rudimentary way, if sometimes “tricky” at the same time). Mimesis hangs behind all this like a moth-eaten curtain, and Aristotle’s well-made plot (with its beginning/middle/end) largely reigns supreme, even if a little chronological reshuffling may be indulged in, together with certain other ways of complicating the basic schema. “Character” follows the certainties of conventional psychology, for the most part. We are what we know we are, however terrible that may sometimes be (as with the fictional – and cinematic – obsession with serial killers, for example), and however mistaken we may sometimes be about one another.

I’m fascinated by the selection, although frustrated by the lack of biographical information on any of the authors. If the work is so compelling, why not let the reader know what else these writers might have to offer, or even what continent they might be from? Of the authors listed here, there are three (to my knowledge) that are Canadian – the obvious bpNichol and Daphne Marlatt, as well as the late Toronto writer Paul Haines (who had a posthumous collection, Secret Carnival Workers, a few years back, co-edited by his daughter, Emily Haines of Metric). I’m intrigued at what other Canadian writers or writing he might have considered, and if he went through any of the Coach House Press anthology series “The Story So Far” to help with his choices? The bpNichol selection comes from his Selected Organs: Part of an Autobiography (Black Moss Press, 1988), which is apparently forthcoming in a new edition, and one of the finer pieces (if not the most fun) in the anthology:

Probably there are all sorts of stories. Probably my mouth figures in all sorts of stories when I was little but I don’t remember any of them. I don’t remember any stories about my mouth but I remember it was there. I remember it was there and I talked and sang and ate and used it all the time. I don’t remember anything about it but the mouth remembers. The mouth remembers what the brain can’t quite wrap its tongue around and that’s what my life’s become. My life’s become my mouth’s remembering, telling stories with the brain’s tongue. (bpNichol, “The Mouth”)

This really is a fantastic anthology, and part of the pleasure from going through such a volume is not only in discovering works, but the possibility for re-discovery, moving through a range of the familiar and the unfamiliar, including some writing that could very easily have been otherwise overlooked. For anyone interested in the idea of “poet’s prose” (something I discussed recently through reviews of new works by Roger Farr and Lisa Robertson), it seems important to work through a collection of what has already been produced, to help understand just where it is we should possibly go next.

Physical Description of Sexual Intercourse

The explorer travels over the beloved body, but nowhere does he find an end or edge.

When Columbus set foot on the Bahamas, the two worlds which God had cast asunder were reunited and began to become alike.

The moon unusually large and near. At times, the sea rises into the light and become incomprehensible.

The contract is definite when the man steps into the woman’s shoe. As long as the foot still hovers above the shoe, his body may still turn on its own axis, which takes about twenty-four hours.

What does my body want? (Rosmarie Waldrop, “A Form of Memory [abridged]”)

fwd: CWILA seeks applications for Critic-in-Residence

Critic-in-Residence

CWILA seeks to support a female Canadian writer (poet, novelist, storyteller, scholar) as its resident critic for a calendar year. The aim of the residency is to foster vital criticism that promotes public awareness of women’s literary and critical presence in Canadian letters. Specifically, the critic-in-residence will work on critical essays and/or book reviews and submit them to one or more Canadian review venues (print or web). This work will also be archived by CWILA and will become available through its website following publication elsewhere, copyright permitting. If time allows, the critic-in-residence is encouraged to support a climate of critical responsiveness in Canadian letters through a collaborative or community-based project of her choice. The residency is virtual, so the writer will be free to work from home. The deadline for submission of the essay or reviews to CWILA will be December 31st of the year of the residency. At this time, the writer should also provide documentation that the pieces have been submitted to other publications.

Criteria: Applications should include a letter of intent describing the project or projects the applicant wishes to undertake, the venue or venues to which they plan to submit, a one-page CV, and a short sample of critical work.

We encourage applications from genderqueer writers, indigenous writers, as well as other women and/or genderqueer writers of colour.

Stipend: $2,000

Applications: Applications can be sent to info@cwila.com and must be received by November 1, 2012.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sonia Saikaley

Sonia Saikaley was born and raised in Ottawa. She grew up in a traditional Lebanese household and much of her writing is influenced by her rich Middle Eastern heritage. She has taught English in Japan. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Still Point Arts Quarterly, Things Japanese: A Collection of Short Stories, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, and the anthology Lavandería - A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Word. She is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers and the University of Ottawa. Her first book, The Lebanese Dishwasher (Quattro Books, 2012), was co-winner of the 2012 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest. Her poetry collection Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter (TSAR Publications) will be published in the fall 2012.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book The Lebanese Dishwasher was launched in April and that was an exhilarating time for me. I have been writing for several years and I’ve received my fair amount of rejection letters, so it is quite sweet that my first book was released in the month I turned 40. Perseverance and hard work do pay off…eventually! With this first book publication, I feel that I can be taken seriously as a writer. I am very fortunate to have found a publisher in Quattro Books. They were willing to give a new voice a chance and I am grateful to them and I am also grateful to TSAR Publications who will be publishing my poetry collection Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter in the fall 2012.

My novella is quite a change from my other work. It’s written from a male perspective whereas most of my other pieces are written in a female voice. It wasn’t easy at first to enter the voice and consciousness of my Lebanese dishwasher but somehow I managed to do it. As well, the first draft of the novella was completed in three weeks. I woke up at 4 am to write before heading to my day job and raced back home to continue writing in the evenings. It was an ambitious project and a complete change from my usual work. At times, I thought I was crazy to think I could complete a novella in three weeks. When I had seen Quattro’s call for submissions to their Ken Klonsky Novella Contest, the deadline landed during a time that was impossible for me to meet due to other circumstances in my life. I knew that if I wanted to enter this contest, I would have to complete the manuscript in three weeks. I hadn’t expected to win, only thought of the whole thing as a good writing exercise and voila – here we are talking about my first book! Sometimes life can be unpredictable and there are moments when we can get so discouraged but then something wonderful happens and you realize that you can fulfill your goals and dreams by not giving up and by encountering people who want to help you move forward.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

My parents were both born and raised in Kfarmishki, a small mountain village in Lebanon. They were children of hardworking farmers but had left Lebanon to pursue other opportunities in the new world. Ironically, my parents had only been introduced to each other when they arrived in Ottawa. Although illiterate, they managed to build a good life for themselves and their family in Canada. Sadly, my parents could never read a book to me and when I would receive a book as a present from neighbours or friends, I treasured it and took good care of it, sounding out each word until I became a better reader. Fortunately, my three older sisters were willing to read to me, or if you ask them, were forced to give into their whiny baby sister. Poetry came to me first because it was shorter and easier for me and I enjoyed writing it as a way to entertain my friends and classmates. I also loved the immediacy of it. My earliest poems were often written about others as a joke or gift to them. Rhyming and all! Fortunately, my style has evolved from the early childhood poems and nowadays my poems are more political than personal and they rarely rhyme!  

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Generally, I have to think about a project before I even begin writing it. I take long walks and try to imagine characters and scenes. Sometimes the writing comes quickly (like the novella!) and other times I have to force myself to sit down and write. I rarely make notes. I just plunge right into the writing and write from my heart and ignore the inner editor. Only during the rewriting stage do I allow the inner editor to start chopping and restructuring sentences and scenes. I feel that the initial writing process must be fresh and raw. When I first began writing, I despised the revision process but now I’ve come to find it necessary and enjoyable, well, for the most part!

4 - Where does a poem or prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Ideas for poems or prose usually come to me on my long walks (there are so many wonderful paths in Ottawa and therefore no shortages of muses!). My mind often travels to foreign countries, too, like Japan where I had the wonderful opportunity through the JET Programme to spend a year in a port city called Shiogama. Lately, I have been travelling to the Middle East (unfortunately, only in my mind for now!) and I find that most of my poems and prose begin with experiences, be it my own, or those of others in the world. I believe Henry James emphasized imaginative experience and I tend to write using this method. Events in the world influence my writing too. I tend to work on a book from the very beginning rather than combining short pieces into a larger project.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

No, public readings are not part of my creative process but I do enjoy attending them. By nature, I’m shy and I tend to get nervous before a reading but I’m hoping with time, I’ll get used to them. However, I do enjoy chatting with and meeting new people at public readings.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

My writing often deals with questions of the role of women in Middle Eastern cultures and the clash between old and new worlds. I also think it’s important to give a voice to those who are sometimes silenced because of their gender or sexuality. We have a certain freedom in North America that, unfortunately, some other countries are not privileged to. I believe, as a writer, it is important to tackle questions and issues that are not always easy to write about or comfortable for readers to read but it’s the responsibility of a writer to explore uncomfortable and difficult topics and to help those who are not so fortunate to be heard. This is my personal philosophy.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

The above answer applies here.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Absolutely essential. I am fortunate to have worked with wonderful editors who have been both tough and compassionate. Luciano Iacobelli of Quattro Books was one of the best editors I had the honour and privilege of working with. His wonderful suggestions and insight helped me move forward and grow as a writer.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you’ve heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

A few years ago, as I was preparing to embark on my journey as an assistant language teacher in Japan, I attended a reading and talk by Ann-Marie MacDonald. Something she said stuck in mind - “Do what you think you can’t do”. I was quite nervous about starting fresh in a new country without the language and without the support system of friends and family but when MacDonald said, “Do what you think you can’t do” it provided the encouragement that I needed to head to Japan and her words also applied to my writing. I had doubts about my writing ability and when she shared that inspirational advice, I thought okay, maybe I can’t write a book but I can at least try, I can at least “do what I think I can’t do”. And it worked…

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

It’s very easy for me to move between genres. I love trying different things with my writing even if the final result is not always successful! Each genre has a different appeal to me. I love the immediacy of poetry and love the rhythm and metaphors. As for fiction, I like the development of a story and its characters.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I wake up very early, 4 or 5 am. I’ve always been an early bird, showing up at the schoolyard bright and early to play or chat with friends. I like the quiet of the early morning hours. I write every day. I have become more disciplined and stable with age!

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Even if I don’t feel inspired, I make a point of writing every day. The writing is not always good but I feel it’s important to sit down and write. Taking long walks helps too.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Lebanese cooking – allspice, cumin, garlic, freshly cut parsley, dried mint leaves, shish kabobs, fried kibbee balls…are you getting hungry yet??

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

All of the above. The world and its diverse cultures and people are wonderful muses.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Naguib Mahfouz’s work is amazing and I like the fact that his writing often deals with the impact of social change on ordinary people. Hanan al-Shaykh is a fascinating writer as well as Alice Walker and SusanSontag. I admire the works of Japanese writers Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami as well as Canadian writers Barbara Gowdy, MG Vassanji, Alice Munro, Frances Itani, Matthew Firth, Michael Blouin, Ann-Marie MacDonald and many others. Julia Alvarez is one of my favourite writers and her work has been important to me because she often deals with the immigrant experience too. It was so refreshing to read her book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Although I was born and raised in Ottawa, I could relate to these sisters who were struggling to find their place in the United States. Like many first generation Canadians, I often experience a split where I have one foot in my Lebanese heritage and the other in my Canadian culture. I’m surprised I haven’t split my pants yet! Seriously, it is sometimes difficult navigating between both. As a teenager and young adult, it was not always easy finding a balance between the two worlds but as I get older, it’s becoming easier to embrace both.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven’t yet done?

Travel to the Middle East. Although my writing is heavily influenced by my Lebanese heritage, I have never been to Lebanon, believe it or not, well, unless you count the time I was in my mother’s belly and my family went there for a visit! I would also like to wander the cobblestone streets of Paris, volunteer in a third world country, help build a school, teach English again.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

If I had not been a writer, I would’ve liked to have been a psychiatrist or psychologist. The human mind intrigues me and I’m interested in knowing what makes people do what they do. I think these doctors make a huge difference in the lives of their patients and what a feeling it would be to know that you truly helped make a difference to someone who is suffering loneliness, depression, anxiety, etc. How rewarding it must feel to witness a positive transformation in another human being. I guess in a way, when I enter a character’s mind, I’m trying to understand their situation and their predicament and want to help them overcome whatever tragedy might be troubling them.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing is a curious calling and I can’t explain what made me write. I just felt I had to do it. There are moments when I feel discouraged with a story or feel the story isn’t going the way I imagine it should and I want to give up, but I just can’t. I take a deep breath or two or three and start all over. I just keep at it.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Very powerful and moving book.

The Reader – heartbreaking.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am working on a novel entitled Fishing Season in Gaza. It is about a woman who is disfigured when her family feels she has brought shame to them. A tough story but one that I feel must be told.

Thank you, rob, for your generosity in promoting other writers!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Field Notes: Dear Lea Graham

I have two new poems up at Centretown Nonsense, epistolary poems composed in our new apartment last fall, for Lea Graham.

Messagio Galore Take XI (Oct. 19, St. Catharines) + Take XII (Oct. 21, Windsor)

Messagio Galore is on the road! For those unable to get to Ottawa to see any of jwcurry's Messagio Galore performances [see my report of Messagio Galore Take X here], there are some other options coming up:

Messagio Galore Take XI:
Evening of Friday, October 19, 2012
Niagara Artists Centre
354 Saint Paul Street
St. Catharines, ON

Messagio Galore Take XII:
Evening of Sunday, October 21, 2012
Common Ground Art Gallery
3277 Sandwich Street
Windsor, ON

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Elizabeth Kate Switaj

Elizabeth Kate Switaj’s first poetry collection, Magdalene & the Mermaids, was published in 2009 by Paper Kite Press. She has also published a chapbook, The Broken Sanctuary: Nature Poems, with Ypolita Press. Recent poems have appeared in Folio and Hawai’i Pacific Review. In 2011, her unpublished novel, The Broken Glass Collector was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize. She is currently the Assistant Managing Editor of Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing, a Contributing Editor to Poets’ Quarterly, and a doctoral candidate at Queen's University Belfast. www.elizabethkateswitaj.net

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Publishing a book with a small press is a bit like turning 21 in the US: it doesn’t let you do much that you weren’t already doing, but it does legitimize some things.

In the last year or so, I’ve been playing with traditional forms in a way I hadn’t before. While working on my MFA, I often used traditional forms as part of mimetic exercises, but I regarded that writing as training. What I’m doing now is adapting these forms. For example, I have been writing what I call twinnets (twitter sonnets) which have ten characters per line instead of ten syllables; this adds up to 140 characters total—more if you count line breaks as characters, which means they can’t be posted in form on Twitter. I’ve always loved a paradox.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’ve been writing poetry as long as I can remember, but I suspect that it comes down to Dr Seuss. When I was very young, before I could read, I would memorize his books and recite them with my mother, alternating lines. Though you can find a focus on language as sound in prose—the “Sirens” episode of Ulysses, for instance—it’s not as common or, typically, as evident as it is in poetry.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
My writing is a slow process that looks fast, as I tend to incubate ideas for quite a while before beginning to write them; if a perfect line comes to me during this period, I may note it down, using Evernote or a pen and whatever paper is handy, but most of the time when I start writing it is all in my head.

The first full draft usually looks quite a bit like the finished project because I tend to linger over and rewrite lines as I compose.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I work in both directions: I’ll notice short pieces beginning to cluster around a theme and then begin working deliberately on a book.

As to where individual poems begin, most of the time I don’t know. When I do know, it is usually because I’m writing in dialog with another poem: I’ll see a technique I want to try or an idea I want to respond to (let’s be honest: usually I think I can do something better, or I’m disagreeing with something) and go from there.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love giving readings, but I have rarely found them to affect my creative process one way or the other. The exception to this was during the year when I lived in Ashikaga-shi and participated in a monthly open mic in Ebisu, Tokyo. It gave me a more concrete notion of an audience than I have otherwise had; for that year, I wrote for the regulars.

Now that I think about, it’s strange that I never really thought of my MFA cohort in similar terms. I guess the formalized feedback of workshops awoke my oppositional tendencies.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
The same broad concerns that guide my critical work underly my creative work: what does the artist do with the material of the everyday? How does life become, or change, art?

In thinking about these questions, I reject easy divisions between the political and the aesthetic. I find politically ugly work to be aesthetically ugly too—which isn’t to say that all apparently politically beautiful work is aesthetically beautiful as well (though I suspect that a kind of intellectual authoritarianism or a utilitarianism that bothers me politically can be found beneath the surface of work that seems politically pleasing but otherwise ugly). Aesthetics are, after all, subjective. A work that treats women as lesser beings is both politically and aesthetically objectionable, at least to me.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
In many ways, writers are marginalized; even in the publishing industry, it seems like the best contracts go to people famous for things other than writing. But the margins are fertile, and the internet feeds that fertility, though there are still margins within margins reflected in who gets covered on what blog and how negative comments about different people’s works are treated.

Should is harder than is. I believe in, and seek, the radical possibilities of the margin, but I wouldn’t want to enforce that on other writers.

Writers should be like a chorus, and not necessarily a Greek one. It takes more than one part to make harmony.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Essential, no. Helpful, yes. Difficult depends on the editor. I did once withdraw a few poems from a journal when the editor insisted that she be given the right to publish pieces with whatever changes she saw fit, before she even gave any indication of what those changes might be; I’d name and shame, but experience suggests that she has a Google Alert set up for both her name and her journal.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
The harder you try to hide something, the more it will show.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I used to say that I wrote prose to figure things out and poetry about things I already understood. Now I think they form two prongs of exploration that feed each other.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I hate routines and mornings.

I use an alarm clock app set to play The Poetry Foundation’s Essential American Poets podcasts, and I usually hit snooze a few times before getting out of bed. Then I do 5-10 minutes of calisthenics, make breakfast, and brew a large French press of coffee. If I don’t have anywhere to go, I check my email and do some reading before getting down to writing; if I do have to be somewhere, I am almost always in a rush.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I don’t really experience this because I have so many projects in different genres going at the same time. If one stalls, I move on to another.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Coffee or a pungent sea: first home. Genmai cha or rotten ginkgo: second home.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I have written a fair amount of ekphrastic work and work that comes from close observation of nature, especially urban nature. I can’t write poetry while listening to music because the rhythms clash.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Right now, James Joyce is everything. I’m nearly finished with a doctoral thesis on his work, and I have made some very good friends through the study of his work.

And Emily Dickinson has influenced my writing deeply, for longer than any other writer.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I want to write a long (book-length) poem; I have two in different stages of incubation at the moment.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I’d be a photographer. Photography is my second medium now. I’d love to be an opera singer, but I don’t really have the voice for it.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
At a certain point, I decided that to move forward as an artist, I needed to choose to focus on photography or writing: I thought I could do more with words. Also, photography costs more money to practice.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Finnegan's Wake and Neds.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I don’t have a big poetry project that I’m actively working on right now—just smaller, individual poems. Outside of poetry, I’m putting the finishing touches on my thesis and revising a novel manuscript.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

St. Elmo (Gordon) Church, Glengarry

There is a framed poster in my father’s house announcing the opening of the Presbyterian Church at St. Elmo on July 20^th, 1864. The red brick and steeple stand on the hill just north of what is now the village of Maxville and as their congregation diminished as the population shifted, the church merged with St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Maxville in 1947. The church currently hosts two services a year—Communion and the Anniversary Service—down from the four a year I grew up with. This is my home church and one that still holds Sunday school rolls in the back with my father’s name next to a series of attendance stars; the same building of hardwood, musty floors my sister spends hours cleaning for services. Our September 29^th wedding is the third held at the church since 1972 and the first since 1990. The website at Archeion.ca holds a brief history of the church:

The congregation of Gordon Presbyterian Church in St. Elmo, Ontario traces its origins to c.1826 when the Presbyterian settlers in the area then known as the Indian Lands community began construction of a frame church in the 17th Concession. The first minister to conduct services in the church was the Rev. Archibald Connel, the minister in Martintown. In 1838, the Rev. Daniel Clark of Inverness, Scotland, arrived and served as missionary to the area for a year, before accepting a call as minister. In 1844, Rev. Clark and many of the families in the Indian Lands community broke away from the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland and joined the Free Presbyterian Church. Disputes over ownership of the church and manse between the two groups continued until 1860 when it was given to the group in connection with the Church of Scotland. As a result the “Free Church” Presbyterians along with the minister, Rev. Daniel Gordon (who replaced Rev. Clark in 1853), began construction of a new church on the19th Concession. This was opened in 1864. The name of this community at the 19th Concession became known as St. Elmo in the early 1880s, and the church became known as the “Gordon Church”. At the time of Church Union in 1925, the congregation of the Gordon Church, St. Elmo, voted to remain with The Presbyterian Church in Canada.

The St. Elmo Church, as well as the 395-acre farm I grew up on, exist on what is known as the “Indian Lands,” a swath that boundaries north from the Ottawa River all the way south to the St. Lawrence, stretching two miles across the border of Glengarry and Stormont Counties. These were large open spaces that would later become parts of the Province of Ontario, but were previously Mohawk lands before they were pushed south by European settlement to end up in the St. Lawrence River at St. Regis. Originally leased by the British for a 99-year term, it was formally “acquired” by the British in 1840 and parceled out as land grants. Some land went to settlers who had been living and working their plots for years and others were settled for the first time. Arriving from Scotland somewhere between 1821 and 1840 with his parents and five siblings, John McLennan received lot 3, concession 7 Roxborough as a land grant in 1845, the same land where my father has lived since he was six months old. For reasons I have yet to determine, John and his family moved next door by 1860, into a farm that was passed down the line to my great-grandfather, and was later run by my grandfather and one of his elder brothers. Upon his marriage, my grandfather John Duncan McLennan lived briefly in the log house across the road from the homestead, before returning to lot 3, concession 7 with infant Douglas in tow. My father has lived there since, in the farmhouse where my sister Kathy and I were raised.

Originally marked out in 1770, Glengarry Country originally stretched all the way north to the Ottawa River, unlike the current northern border just south of Highway 417, making it the oldest county in Ontario and (I’ve heard say) the last in the province to receive telephone service. One of the features of Glengarry is that immigration actually began before the Loyalist surge came north across the American border. When the county was originally founded on what is now considered to be settled by the largest concentration of Scottish immigration in the country, their boundaries also included also the eastern half of Stormont County and parts of Quebec. Marianne McLean, in her magnificent The People of Glengarry: Highlanders in Transition, 1745-1820 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991), writes:

Between 1773 and 1853, close to 3,500 people emigrated to Glengarry County from a few districts in the Scottish Highlands. The emigrants came principally from the districts of Lochiel, Glengarry, Knoydart, and Glenelg, in the mountainous western rim of mainland Inverness-shire. Many of the clansmen of this region had been fervent supporters of the Jacobite cause in 1745; the Camerons of Lochiel and Macdonells of Glengarry followed Prince Charles Edward to bitter defeat at Culloden. All the inhabitants of western Inverness suffered the full effect of the military suppression of the revolt and then endured the government’s efforts to “civilize” the region in the generation that followed.

Maxville came later, invented through the rail line between Ottawa and Coteau Landing in 1881. The new village caused a small radius of hamlets to diminish, some into non-existence, including Tayside, Dominionville, Athol and St. Elmo, which is now only marked by the church building and small cemetery. My father’s maternal grandfather was once postmaster at Athol which was two miles north of St. Elmo and their farmhouse still stands, although Athol itself now no more than a roadsign at the intersection. After the church break-ins at St. Elmo during the early 1980s, the few valuables that were left in the building were removed and placed with the rest in my father’s house. The silver, a clock, this framed poster.

My father holds keys to a padlock most likely older than he is and points to a brick at the front of the church marked by the son of one of the parishioners marked and placed during the original construction. The musty smell that greets you at the door, the smell of a breath held in the building for years, perhaps decades. Every summer, opening the church to air out for upcoming services, the stale winter air pushed out into surrounding fields. Former paint-chipped ceiling suggesting colour long washed white; I remember the remnants of colour, swirling blues and light reds. I could talk of playing the church organ in my early teens, feet pumping pedals to keep the air moving, or singing once or twice in the choir, while wearing my grandfather’s robe. Since I left home at nineteen, a lawnmower engine was adapted to fit into the back of the organ and my father now rents a small generator for the sake of sound and overhead light.

Growing up, I read the novels of Ralph Connor, pen name for the Rev. Charles Gordon, son of Rev. Daniel Gordon, who spent his first decade living with his family in the St. Elmo manse. As Ralph Connor, he was one of Canada’s bestselling authors with sales of over a million copies. Some of his best-known books were composed on the area, written from his early life in the county, from The Man From Glengarry (1901), The Girl From Glengarry (1933) and, a particular favourite, Glengarry School Days (1902), which fictionalised the author’s early years, set around the church and the church hall, as well as the swimming hole at Hugh Fisher’s farm, another mile or two north. In many ways, discovering these books in the farmhouse as a pre-teen offered the possibility of writing. Even if I wasn’t aware of any contemporary writers when I lived on the farm, the fact that a writer had come from the area, writing books on the area and highly successful at that, presented the option in ways that nothing else was. Another novel of Connor’s, Torches Through the Bush (1934), fictionalized some of the story of the religious revivals and conflicts that led to the construction of the St. Elmo Church, based upon stories he had heard from his father. In Royce MacGillivray and Ewan Ross’ A History of Glengarry (Belleville ON: Mika Publishing Company, 1979), they write:

The Rev. Mr. Gordon’s congregation in the old church which we have just described was divided by the controversy, which was troubling Canadian Presbyterians at this time, between the Free Church of Scotland and the state Church of Scotland. Mr. Gordon had been a firm supporter of the Free Church since his student days. When he and his Free Church followers lost control of the old church building, they built a new brick church which has been known since the year of its opening as the Gordon Free Church, near the manse at St. Elmo. For the minister, it must have been convenient to have the manse and the church at last close to each other, but for the children it meant the end of such exhilarating rides to church as that described in the 9^th chapter of The Man from Glengarry. The work of building the church was in progress in 1863, and the opening ceremonies were held on 20 July 1864.

So much of the talk of the church is a talk of its origins, and yet so little has been said on what has happened since. A building still used and utilized, a building that still holds like an anchor on the small rise at St. Elmo, deep in the county. In the chapbook-length History of Gordon Church St. Elmo (1988), the late Rev. Wallace MacKinnon provides one of the more contemporary portraits of the church:

At present, Gordon Church Congregation consists of fifteen households and thirty-five communicant members. The financial situation is good and the congregation oversubscribes its allocation for the General Assembly, maintains in good condition the two Church buildings and the cemetery, and gives at least one bursary, and some years two, to theological students from Glengarry Presbytry, amounting to 150-300 dollars a year from the Hugh Cameron Memorial Bursary Fund. In addition, one of the members is giving an annual memorial gift of $500.00 to the Presbyterian College, Montreal, for academic awards or prizes. The church was completely redecorated in 1982. In 1987 five special services were held in Gordon Church: in June, a Communion Service; in August, a Memorial Service and an Anniversary Service observing the 150^th anniversary of the Congregational Church built in 1837 and now the Church Hall; and the 123^rd Anniversary Service for Gordon Church in September. The Maxville and District Masonic Lodge held a special service of worship in Gordon Church as part of the 100^th Anniversary of the Masonic Lodge on the last Sunday of September.