JEFF SEFFINGA

PHILOSOPHER DOG

Morning to morning, the old dog said,
that is the way the days all grow
together. Hard knowledge will not sliver
the channels of time. The rain will rain
and snow will snow, each to its season.
Rivers will wander off to the seas and
trees reach into the skies to twist
tatters of sun around ribbons of wind.
All cycles turn, each with its own
texture warped in the passage of days;
each day a separate fibre that may
be remembered, but long after passage, lost.
That is the way that a life is shaped:
morning to morning, the old dog said.

Jeff Seffinga

ELLEN S. JAFFE

For Jack Layton: State Funeral and Celebration, August 27, 2011

Dream no little dreams (Indigenous prayer, spoken at the funeral)

The bagpipes play their strange sad lament –
TV lets us see everything without being there:
Olivia Chow’s strained face, baby Beatrice,
the silent surging crowd.

This morning I cleaned my kitchen cupboards,
touched up the orange paint (Colorado Dawn) –
death does this, makes us clean, straighten, see, listen, and touch –
loved ones, flowers, household clutter.

Rise Up – Amazing Grace – Hallelujah –
O Canada, how can we lose this man, who gave a voice to the voiceless,
home to the homeless, a song of hope to people in need –
not a saint, but a very human being.

I regret I did not know you, met you
only once – an NDP meeting – shook your hand,
saw your smile. The political is personal,
the personal political – you knew this by heart.

Now you go from the ordinary world – bike paths,
jam sessions, elections – into the mystic...
Into The Mystic, where we can’t yet follow.
All our love goes with you – love is all
we need to keep your dreams alive.

Ellen S. Jaffe

ELLEN B. RYAN

The Road Now

Retiring from paid work
I stop to see where I am

follow the echoes
of projects heralded
for grit and wit

touch the ribbed weave
of disciplines colourful
in their crossing

sniff the ricochet
of novel thoughts
tearing through
tough peels
of assumptions

taste the chocolate cherry joy
of collaborations where
three minds surpass
possibility

What road now

worth the pilgrimage

Ellen B. Ryan
Tower Poetry, 58(1), 2009

ELLEN B. RYAN

Ellen B. Ryan is Professor Emeritus at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
She focuses her psychological research on communication and aging, especially
fostering personhood in dementia through communication. She has created the Writing
Down Our Years Series of publications to highlight the many ways in which writing
life stories can benefit older adults and those with whom they share their stories and
poems. She is co-author with Karen Bannister of Ability Speaks: Communicating with
a Person with Disability (2009). She is co-editor of the anthology Celebrating Poets
Over 70 (2010) and Writing as a Spiritual Practice (2011). Ryan belongs to Tower
Poetry Society and publishes poems occasionally. She serves as host for the website:
www.writingdownouryears.ca.

STAN WHITE

EDITOR'S NOTE:  The September 22, 2011 evening with poet Stan White was very well attended.  Bryan Prince Bookseller's  was well filled by an appreciative audience.



Jigsaw with Pieces Missing

I prefer a lone star on
a clear night where the
dark comes in slowly,

sprinkling the fields
with dusk, and Sirius,
with the fishes in the

pool, twinkles like a
pickerel's eye and day
hands off its petulance. This

evening, it happened while
I read your poem; the
failing light turned all the

page to words as though
a breakthrough might
reveal the heart of it—would

set us clear, would set us
free from all attachments, and
lost in the revealing dark I

stood beneath the willows
—still one bright star pointing
a bewildering direction.

SJW. 30 August 2000
12 noon.

ELLEN S. JAFFE

THE SUMMER THE CAT

The summer before the cat died,
she clumped up and down the stairs,
an old woman with arthritis,
and gave long, longing looks
into the garden. We took her outside,
let her brush against iris and daffodil,
snooze on the unmowed grass, let her dream
of chasing birds again, and climbing trees.
Then she woke up startled, needing to be loved.
We gave her cheesecake for her birthday,
chicken hearts, and vitamins.
All that summer, we remembered her as a kitten,
the colour of freestone peaches.
We didn’t know she’d live with us for years,
familiar and strange.

Next summer Peaches was dying,
though for months

STAN WHITE

Editor's Note:  Stan White will be reading from his work at Brian Prince Bookstore on September 22nd, at 7:30. He also will be projecting images as he reads his poem. All welcome.


Ten Green Bottles,

One was found on Calvary half-filled
with vinegar
another, came from Socrates
the dregs of hemlock
a third, with love-note, ship, and genie
owned by Sinbad,
the fourth, a small vial “Drink Me” left by Alice;
a fifth, keeps remnants of a Life’s Elixir;
and a sixth, the wine from
Days of Wine and Roses;
seven, a Brangaene potion
love-charmed Tristan und Isolda mad;
an eighth, found hidden ’neath a tapestry within
Lucretia’s house;
the ninth, holds Hyde and Jekyll’s formulae;
and the tenth and last, was used
to fill the Holy Grail

all left hanging on the wall.

SJW. 11 March 2001. 10:30 a.m.

ED WOODS

Ghost


a ghost approaches
from barren lands
slow as a Humidex wave
of oppressive pressure
to wreak havoc
upon strength
and stability


an opaque figure
somewhat familiar
hovers close to my view


in fixated stare
I listen
it whispers of change


a change must occur
soon
or it will return

Hamilton Insane Asylum - written by Wilma Seville

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Hamilton Insane Asylum

Hand written letter  from Ministry of Jails and Asylums
Dated March 17, 1876

 Psychiatric Care of Yesterday

Imagine yourself living 144 years ago, confused, not thinking “straight” and people looking at you as if you are “different”.  Your mood swings like a pendulum, sometimes so excitable, sometimes so depressed that you cannot even lift yourself out of bed.   There is nothing that you can do to save yourself from this seesaw of life.

Alternatively, picture yourself coming to foreign shores (Canada) trying to adjust to a new language, new culture, and not always welcomed by those who lived there.

Alcohol was easily accessible. A person wishing to “fit in”, may have thought that this would be the way to find comradeship and acceptance.

There were many reasons that people were unable to cope; alcoholism, family problems, mental health issues and the lack of support through social systems.

In order to meet this need, in 1867 petitions were presented by the Congregation Union of Canada to establish a place of detention for the drunkards of the Province.

According to statistics, one in every 397 people in Ontario were deemed to be of unsound mind and needing proper treatment.  Many people classed as insane were kept in Ontario jails.  As alcoholism was a major problem in those years, members of parliament were pushing for an Asylum.

A site was chosen in 1873, and construction on the Main Building (Barton Building) was begun in l874.  It was in the vicinity of Hamilton, Ontario. It consequently became known as the Hamilton Asylum.  .  The Main Building, now demolished, opened on March 1^st, 1876, as the Ontario Asylum for the Insane.

Patients were often sent there from other hospitals, such as Queen Street Mental Health in Toronto.  The inhabitants were required to work in the fields to grow the fruits and vegetables for the hospital, at Hickory Farm to feed the animals which would later becomes their food, to wash the clothing of hospital patients and staff and to do the housekeeping . They also worked at making furniture and one can see examples of their work in the museum. Massive chairs, solid oak, wide arms, were so heavy that any patient in a violent state, would have a hard time to pick it up and hurl it. A very practical solution.

Many of these people were abandoned by their families and the hospital became their home and normal way of life. The patients and the nurses basically did all the manual work of running the hospital. Doctors and nurses worked shifts of 12 hours and also lived in the hospital.

Occupational Therapists taught the patients to work with their hands making baskets, doing rug hooking, working with wood, making felt animals and other practical items. 

Work done by the patients, taught by Occupational Therapists on staff

In the early years, the focus of the psychiatric hospital was on the care of patients.  The thrust towards  rehabilitation came later.  Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) was introduced in North American after 1945 as a treatment for schizophrenia. ECT is still used today for extreme cases of the disease and as a last resort.

Early  E.C.T. machine

Tragedy struck five times at the Asylum.due to fire.  In the early days, a horse drawn fire engine staffed by volunteers was used. To learn more about these fires, please visit the Museum.

It was a favourite pass time on the weekends, for Hamiltonians to trudge up the hill and gape at the "lunatics" who lived in the hospital. According to my guide Mary Ann, the residents of the hospital used to put on quite a show  - in a sense, laughing at them!


Not only treatment and work went on here over the years, but also sports such as ice skating and curling, both for patients and staff.  The teams played against other Hamilton leagues. There were also dances. from time to time, and entertainers came in from the community some times.


To be a nurse in those days meant quite a different thing than it does today.  For an example, nurses had to carry lamps or lanterns when attending their patients as the rooms were unlit.  Nurses and attendants had their rooms on the wards in the early part of the century.  Before the 1920's, straw ticks (mattresses) were in use.  To make the beds, one had to reach into the straw to fluff it up.  Mice could sometimes be found nesting in the straw.  Nurses also were responsible for cleaning the wards.  Wooden floors had to be swept, waxed and polished with heavy block brushes pushed by the patients.  A Sunday job was to polish brass door plates, handles and doorknobs.  Nurses also washed windows and took garbage (wet and dry) daily to the garbage room in the basement. Nurses served all the meals from large aluminum pots.  They also were responsible for counting the cutlery after each meal to make certain it all was accounted for.  No one left the dining room until this was done! To prepare a sterile tray involved collecting the required equipment and placing it in a large oval bed bath tub.  It was then covered with water and boiled for twenty minutes on the gas stoves in the ward kitchen.  This information on nursing practice at that time was gleaned from Mary Ann
McNamara, Graduate of HPH Nursing School and Museum Volunteer.

Major sedatives used in the 1900's for treatment were heroin and morphine.

As a point of interest, Dr. J. Wallace, Superintendent of the Hamilton Insane Asylum assessed the mental state of Louis Riel and judged him to be sane. As a result, he was tried and hung.

There is so much history in this museum that it is worthwhile to make an appointment to come to Hamilton to see the different artifacts and methods of treatment.

The current collection housed in the Museum was originally started by a Maintenance Man working at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Mr. Joe Kinsella.  Due to his interest in preserving the past, many items of note are to be found in the Museum.  It is an indispensable resource as an educational tool in the teaching community.  It preserves the history of psychiatric care and treatment in Southwest Ontario, with emphasis on capturing the events and essence of early life at the Ontario Asylum for the Insane.

The hours of operation are Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m,., by appointment only.  To schedule a tour, please contact Volunteer Resources at             905-522-1155 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            905-522-1155      end_of_the_skype_highlighting      , Extension 35561.

This article has touched only on a small part of the history of this venerable old hospital

JAMES DEAHL

A Backyard Poem

     For my lover on her 83^rd birthday

Summer lengthens.  There has been no storm

for two weeks.  Every day’s bright as the

wonder shining in a child’s eyes.

I now see I’ve always desired you.

Even before I knew you, even

before I was born, you were the one,

that flawless woman I was made to love.

We were raised under different stars,

in different countries; you under a king,

me under a president.  But

every move I’ve made, every journey

taken these sixty-four years, brought me

closer until you could reach out your hand

and quicken my heart to devotion.

Squirrels leap from boxelder to maple

never losing their footing when

branches bend almost to the ground, then

snap back a breathless instant later.

We could pretend we have many years

of joy ahead, but we need no pretence

when we have longer than forever.

Copyright©2011James Deahl

                                                                                    James Deahl

                                                                                    237 Prospect Street South

                                                                                    Hamilton, Ontario

                                                                                    Canada L8M 2Z6

                                                                                    jedeahl@gmail.com

           

ANDREAS GRIPP

On Your Beauty

And when the starling's song
was heard
along the trail we walked,
it failed to draw my mind
away from your
melodic voice;

and when you wondered
if you had such beauty,
I said that yours was always there
just like the things we take for granted:

the inch of sticking snow
on naked trees;
a prism bending light
and splitting colour;
that unexpected violet
poking through
the thawing ground;
the wonderment of sound
the time a harp
is strummed on stage –

and your tenderness
of touch,
your slender arc
of hips,
your fluttered blink of eyes
and ease of laughter –

these, yes these,
forever more so
than the bids
of birds and man.

©2009 Andreas Gripp

ANDREAS GRIPP

Andreas Gripp is the author of 13 books of poetry, including
Perennial: Poems Selected & New Volume 2 (Harmonia Press, 2011)
and 11 chapbooks including Under the Evergreens (Harmonia Press, 2011).
He lives in London, Ontario.

Poetry by Andreas Gripp has been published in a number
of literary magazines and anthologies, including
Ascent Aspirations, Literary Review of Canada, Carousel,
Van Gogh's Ear, Canadian Zen Haiku, Arborealis:
A Canadian Anthology of Poetry (Vol. 1 & 2)
and Goodbye Billie Jean: The Meaning of Michael Jackson.
He has read at various literary events in Ontario, including
The Art Bar series in Toronto, The I.V. Lounge series in Toronto,
LitLive in Hamilton, The Poetry Cafe in Oakville,
The Poetry London series in London, and The Sasquatch
and Dusty Owl Series in Ottawa. He has shared the stage
with a number of award-winning poets including Molly Peacock,
Anne Compton, Suzanne Buffam, Olive Senior, Penn Kemp and
John B. Lee among others.

DEBBIE OKUN HILL

Obsidian Reflections* Against black wall of your tectonic face they’ll search for matrimonial evidence two fossils, Homo sapiens fragile skeletons of love buried in your eyes two obsidian mirrors recessed above two chiseled cheeks polished lava rock deep reflections filled with past wisdom And perhaps it is the way the sun skates across your icy surface or at times, the rough edges where I grab my footing feel myself hoisted by your spirit, I know we can last forever the exhibit on display for future archeologists who will dig dirt, discover happily-ever-after preserved a diamond anniversary ring in divorce pit of broken bones and shattered dinner plates the longest and oldest married couple a rare finding in a dead sea Copyright Debbie Okun Hill *Finalist in West End Writers 2009 Writing Contest; First published in Another Trail of Comet Dust: Poems Pulled from Earth, Okun Hill's second chapbook published by Beret Days Press 2011 ISBN978-1-897497-53-1 Debbie Okun Hill Debbie Okun Hill is President of The Ontario Poetry Society, an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, and co-host of Spoken Word (an open mic event in southwestern Ontario). She has been writing poetry since the fall 2004 and recently had work published in Vallum, The Windsor Review, Other Voices, and The Binnacle. She has two self-published chapbooks with Beret Days Press and is seeking a publisher for her first full-length manuscript.

ELLEN S. JAFFE

WATER CHILDREN

Buddhist women may sometimes have special prayers and shrines for babies
who are miscarried or aborted, whom they call “water children.”

I.
Water child, I bring you
chrysanthemums, ripe pears,
coloured ribbons to tie up my prayers.
You live, still, floating in some sunless sea
out of reach
out of reach.
I call you by name, but you
are too far away
and you have not yet learned
how to hear.

II.
I am the water child.
I am a lump of sugar dissolved in a bowl of green tea,
next to these white chrysanthemums and red ribbons.
I am a small pool, with one goldfish swimming in circles.
I am a humming-bird’s tongue, double-dipped in nectar.
Do not be sad.
I am not angry at you.
See, I will kiss you there, there,
nectar-wet kisses so another child
can begin.
My kiss is a tiny moth,
a mayfly that lives only one day.
Someday, you will forget me
but not yet, not now.
I need you to water the white chrysanthemums.
I need the red ribbon connecting us, heart to heart
as it did once,
while I lay sleeping underwater
inside your skin.

III.
I will sing you a lullaby,
braid the prayer-ribbons, red and green,
around this pear.
You could be the child inside the peach-pit
who accomplishes great deeds,
kills the raging monsters causing havoc
in the kingdom of my dreams.
Timimoto, Tom Thumb, Thumbelina
my bushel of tears
my water child.

Ellen S. Jaffe. Published in CV2, Summer 1999, and in Water Children (poems), Mini Mocho
Press: Hamilton, 2002.

JULIA FRUCK - Age 13

Find Ways to Show Love

The world I live in is a beautiful place.
different types of people making the world interesting.    

These are things I love:
I love that when I’m asleep, plants are still growing.            
water surrounds me when I jump in, making me feel like a feather.
gravity holds me down, even when I jump up; I know I will come down.
people can show emotions.
we find ways to show love.

These are things I don’t like:   
I don’t like seeing hatred in some one's eyes. 
I don’t like movies that are made to create thoughts of death.
people who enjoy other people’s pain.
problems come no matter how good or nice one is.
I don’t like people who hurt other people and get away with it. 
         
The things I love I don’t want to change.
the things I hate I want to go away.
I wonder if I can change the results of my life, I believe I can.
I know I can’t control others actions but I want to try  
I know that I can’t make a difference by myself so I need others to help me.
 
I need you to think kindly before you act.
that’s what I want to happen.
I hope the whole world tries to make it work.
 
 
By Julia Katharine Fruck
Age 13

WILMA SEVILLE

This poem has a special meaning for me.  It was written after my cardiac arrest and being brought back from death to life. It was published in a Toronto newspaper.

Having had a near death experience at age 22 and then the cardiac arrest in my later years, it has made me very aware of what is really important in life.

I hope that this poem will be a blessing to whoever reads it.

My Journey

I live alone, yet am not lonely

I cry out when in pain, my sighs are noted

my  innermost thoughts are known to You

Creator Lord, Friend and Saviour God

Each day, I choose to walk with you, My God

Your loving presence is ever close to me

When my heart is sad and I feel “down”

You send an angel, disguised as friend

My confidence rests in You, Oh God,

Your loving presence guides me always

I slip and fall, You give me strength

To pick myself up and begin again!

I have left You behind several times

To do my “own thing”, go my own way

My spirit was distressed, uneasy

Until I returned to You, Living God

My frame is getting frail, with little strength

My earthly journey is almost done

I keep on trying, with God’s loving help

To make a difference before I go

.

Copyright©2008WilmaSeville

ISSN 1496-3175 (Print)

ISSN 1496-3183 (Online)

JAMES DEAHL

A Book of Snow

 

     for Norma

 

Driving across frozen Ontario
to be with you on St. Valentine’s Day

I pass the unblemished white of farmsteads,
their great barns brimming with livestock and warmth,

and miles of buried fields awaiting spring’s touch.
The sky’s a cathedral of light, a place
where only the impossible happens.
What strength do we have before implacable
nature? Even the green thought of April
grows ever more distant, exiled by
winter’s fierce grip, by snow’s vast solitude.

Yet, every time we make love it’s like our
first time: the sudden shock of your beauty,
of pleasure beyond all expectation.
Your embrace is the song of bells in the night

or the force of an ocean at full tide.

Waking beside you after our night of love,
I want to give you the gift of my life
and February’s book of snow.

  Copyright©JamesDeahl2011

Norma West Linder and fiance James Deahl

James Deahl was born in Pittsburgh (USA) in 1945, and grew up in that city as well as in and around the Laurel Highlands region of the Appalachian Mountains.  He moved to Canada in 1970 and holds dual American/Canadian citizenship.  He is the author (or, in the case of Tu Fu, translator) of nineteen literary titles:

Opening The Stone Heart  (Aeolus House, 2010)

No Star is Lost (Lyricalmyrical, 2009)

Love Where Our Nights Are Long (Laurel Reed Books, 2008)

If Ever Two Were One  (Aeolus House, 2008

The River’s Stone Roots:  Two dozen poems by Tu Fu (Serengeti Press, 2005)

When Rivers Speak  (Unfinished Monument Press, 2001)

Blackbirds (Unfinished Monument Press, 1999

Under the Watchful Eye (Broken Jaw Press, 1995)

Tasting the Winter Grapes (Envoi Poets Publications, 1995)

Even This Land Was Born Of Light (Moonstone Press, 1993)

Heartland (Envoi Poets Publications, 1993

Geschriebene Bilder (M + N Boesche Verlag, Berlin, 1990)

A Stand Of Jackpine  (Unfinished Monument Press, 1987)

Into This Dark Earth  (Unfinished Monument Press, 1985)

Blue Ridge (Aureole Point Press, 1985)

No Cold Ash  (Sono Nis Press, 1984)

Steel Valley (Aureole Point Press, 1984)

In The Lost Horn’s Call  (Aureole Point Press, 1982)

Real Poetry (Unfinished Monument Press, 1981)

A cycle of his poems is the focus of a one-hour TV special, Under the Watchful Eye (Silver Falls Video Productions, 1993)  The audiotape of Under the Watchful Eye was released by Broken Jaw Press in September, 1995.  These have been reissued on CD and DVD by Silver Falls.

Audiotapes of him reading Opening The Stone Heart and Blackbirds have been produced in the United States (Sound Seven Studios, 1992 and 1999).

Tasting The Winter Grapes won the Award of Excellence from the Hamilton and Region Arts Council.  In 2001 Deahl was presented with the Charles Olson Award for Achievements in Poetry.  His When Rivers Speak won the Ramada Plaza Hotel Award.

In addition to his writing, he has taught creative writing and Canadian literature at the high school (Norwell District Secondary School), college (Seneca College), and university (Ryerson University) levels.  He no longer teaches, and for the past dozen years has mostly been a full-time writer/editor/translator.

James Deahl lives in Hamilton.  He is the father of Sarah, Simone, and Shona.

          Address:  237 Prospect Street South, Hamilton, Ontario L8M 2Z6.