Tag Archives: Anthology

De Santis Co-Edits Seventh Italian Canadian Anthology

“It was my first day of school in Canada and I didn’t understand a word of English. I was feeling lost and lonely. But when Morena spoke to me in Italian, her words were like rays of sunlight illuminating the darkness.” –Delia De Santis*

 Italian Canadian writer Delia De Santis values the immigrant’s voice. Read one of her stories and you’ll hear authentic dialogue: the banter between neighbours, the fragmented sentences of broken English, the chatter of women at a social gathering.  It’s a skill that comes easy to her like cooking and serving Italian frittata for a guest or working behind the scenes at a local Books and Biscotti event.

Delia De Santis co-edited People Places Passages - Longbridge Books 2018 Image 1

Delia De Santis is a Bright’s Grove editor/short fiction writer known nationally for her work with the Association of Italian Canadian Writers.

Her gift for describing the struggles, joys, and cadences of this culturally-rich group is the basil that seasons her storytelling. As she wrote in one of her stories,

“Oh. So now I am not even Italian anymore,” he laughs. “What kind of talk is that? You were friends with my mother…you don’t think she was Italian? Didn’t she speak and cook Italian? Didn’t she do everything Italian? If you ask me, there was no woman around more Italian than my mother…”**

As a co-editor, De Santis also encourages other Italian Canadian writers to share their unique voices and ensures them that their written creations will be heard nationally and internationally. Her latest project People, Places, Passages: An Anthology of Canadian Writing represents her seventh anthology. Recently released by Longbridge Books, this book was edited with Giulia De Gasperi, and Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni.

According to its back cover, the anthology features short stories, poems, memoirs, and excerpts of plays and novels in English, French, Italian, and a variety of Italian dialects. Its 98 contributors are established and prize-winning authors as well as emerging writers. The volume is the most comprehensive collection yet of Italian-Canadian writing, and a milestone in the history of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers (AICW). The writings in this anthology take readers on a journey through myriad worlds and themes: Canada and Italy, past and present, immigration, language, memory, friendship, love, fear, mystery, tears and laughter – an essential volume for students and scholars of Italian Canadiana.”

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Three City Tour for new Memory and Loss Poetry Anthology

“Now dignity wears a tattered dress, /white, then gray, /smothered in a coffin. /Her memory erodes to dust.” –I. B. Iskov

Friday was Remembrance Day, a time to reflect on the past and all the veterans who fought for our country’s freedom. For those living with memory loss, remembering anything becomes a new and frustrating battle.

Toronto poet I. B. Iskov knows what it’s like to deal with a relative who struggles with a fading memory and broken thought.

“When my mom was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s, she was in her early 80’s,” wrote Iskov in her foreword for Memory and Loss: A Canadian Anthology of Poetry. “Over time, when I called her, she would simply complain, “I can’t remember! I can’t remember!” Even now, in her advanced condition, she sometimes echoes this same anguish.”

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Memory and Loss:  A Canadian Anthology of Poetry was edited and compiled by I. B. (Bunny)  Iskov and published by Ink Bottle Press. It features approximately 125 poems by 67 poets.

Because of her experience with her mother, Iskov was pleased to be asked to edit this new Alzheimer’s and dementia themed “fundraising” project. The Canada-wide call for submissions resulted in a 164-page anthology that features approximately 125 poems by 67 Canadian poets.

“I am grateful to all the contributors, who have sent poems about their mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends who were afflicted with Dementia and/or Alzheimer’s,” wrote editor/compiler Iskov in her foreword. “Some of these poems made me cry. Others touched me deeply. I know you will experience these emotions, too, when you read the poems inside.”

The idea for the book originated from PoeTrain organizer David C. Brydges. He had heard that Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Company had purchased and restored the 1924 Pacific rail car built by Canadian National Railway and used by King George VI and the Queen Mother in the first Canadian tour by a reigning British monarch in 1939. In 2012, it was used to raise funds and awareness for the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Could the PoeTrainers get involved in a future project?

Because his two grandmothers suffered from dementia, Brydges (with his creative mind) got the train rolling, if you pardon the cliché. He partnered with Ink Bottle Press to publish a ‘fundraising” book and The Ontario Poetry Society to assist with promotions.

“The original plan was to use the restored rail car for the venue book launch in Ottawa,” said Brydges, “but there were too many obstacles. So, plan B was to have the launch in the private rail car in its siding near the Mother Parkers manufacturing plant in Ajax.”

Toronto poet Kate Marshall Flaherty came aboard to assist with the organization of launch events in three different cities: Ajax, Toronto, and Ottawa. She secured Ottawa musicians Anne Hurley and Jim Videto who will perform at all the venues plus she will co-host with Brydges. Editor Iskov and several other anthology contributors will be in attendance to read. (If you are a contributor and would like to read, please let Brydges, Iskov or Flaherty know.)

Help support this worthwhile cause. Mark these dates on your calendar and share the posters widely:

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Thursday, November 17 in Ajax: 2 to 4 p.m. at Pacific Rail Car (Mother Parkers Tea and Coffee), 144 Mills Road. Paul Higgins Jr. the present co-owner (since his father died of Alzheimer’s) will attend the Ajax launch to tell his story about his father’s disease and how they acquired this historic train car. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

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Friday, November 18 in Toronto: Dinner/socializing from 7 to 8 p.m.; Show time at 8 p.m. at The HOTHOUSE Restaurant and Bar, 35 Church Street. Confirmed readers to date: David C. Brydges, Ann Elizabeth Carson, Margaret Code, Fran Figge, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Debbie Okun Hill, I. B. Iskov, Donna Langevin, Honey Novick, Kamal Parmar, Charles Taylor, and Ed Woods. Admission is free.

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Saturday, November 19 in Ottawa: Dinner/socializing from 7 to 8 p.m.; Show time at 8 p.m. at pressed, 750 Gladstone Avenue. Featured Ottawa poets Janice Falls, Glenn Kletke, Blaine Marchand and Susan McMaster plus PoeTrainers David C. Brydges, Fran Figge, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Debbie Okun Hill and Bunny Iskov.

Anthology contributors in alphabetical order are: Josephine Bolechala, Wendy Bourke, Ronnie R. Brown, David C. Brydges, April Bulmer, Fern G.Z. Carr, Ann Elizabeth Carson, Sarah Charles, Margaret Code, Marie McGrath Davis, Hans R. Devos, Theresa Donnelly, Janice Falls, Fran Figge, Kate Marshall Flaherty, the late yaqoob ghaznavi, Mary Grace Guevara, Leona Harris, Debbie Okun Hill, Nancy Holmes, Laurence Hutchman, Keith Inman, Susan Ioannou, I.B. Iskov, Terrance James, Jessie Lee Jennings, Judith Johanson, Jean Kallmeyer, Glenn Kletke, Donna Langevin, Doug Langille, Ruth Latta, John B. Lee, Bernice Lever, Norma West Linder, Mary Lipton, Jockie Loomer-Kruger, Carol L. MacKay, Wendy Jean MacLean, Carol Malyon, Blaine Marchand, Sheila Martindale, Susan McMaster, Gerry Mooney, kjmunro, Gail M. Murray, Honey Novick, Diane Attwell Palfrey, Kamal Parmar, Lou Ponstingl, Margo Prentice, Frances Roberts Reilly, Ellen B. Ryan, K. V. Skene, Michael Stacey, Marie Elyse St. George, J. J. Steinfeld, Joan Sutcliffe, Lynn Tait, Charles Taylor, Roger N. Tulk, Carolyne Van Der Meer, Wendy Visser, Laurelyn Whitt, Susan Wismer, Jan Wood, and Ed Woods.

Proceeds from the sale of Memory and Loss will be directed to the Alzheimer Society of Ontario. The goal is to raise at least $1000 for research, programs, and services.

Still not convinced! Below is a sample of one of the poems, courtesy of I. B. Iskov:

Memory and Loss

   For my Mother

By I. B. Iskov

She watches the light fade

while the front door of her mind

rehearses opening and closing.

 

 

Dead people resurface,

tenacious on empty days,

retreat into shine.

 

 

With a certain touch,

murmurs emerge like static.

The response is immediate.

 

 

Voices illuminate corners

where her mind wafts

what it cannot draft.

 

 

Now dignity wears a tattered dress,

white, then gray,

smothered in a coffin.

 

Her memory erodes to dust.

 

 

John B. Lee, poet laureate for the city of Brantford and Norfolk County, shared this poem from the book:

 

Paperwhite Sijo**  

By John B. Lee

 

The paperwhites are blooming for Christmas with a honeysweet

fragrance permeating the room

my elderly mother receives them with a bland and meaningless

smile gifting her face

the dying memory of that vanishing perfume goes into the

darkness like a second darkness not yet there

 

 

Flaherty also gave permission to share a link to her work “Far Away”, a video poem produced by a two-man film crew (musicians Mark Korven and Tony Duggan-Smith) and posted on YouTube. Watch her heart-warming video poem here. A print copy of this same poem appears in the Memory and Loss anthology.

 

Additional information about The Ontario Poetry Society can be found here.

Additional information about Ink Bottle Press can be found here.

*epigraph is from the poem “Memory and Loss” by I. B. Iskov published in Memory and Loss: A Canadian Anthology of Poetry (Ink Bottle Press, 2016), page 49 Copyright © I. B. Iskov 2016 used with permission from the author.

**The poem” Paperwhite Sijo” by John B. Lee is published in Memory and Loss: A Canadian Anthology of Poetry (Ink Bottle Press, 2016), page 138 Copyright © John B. Lee 2016 used with permission from the author.