Convivium

Bloom on the Beach was its usual enchanting self in Toronto, the customary clear, dry, sunny, breezy day. Falling on a Saturday did not seem be bring out more than the usual 50 or so regulars with several new faces. Perhaps the early start, 8:30am, keeps away some. Others may find anything connected with James [...]

For many years now, I have celebrated Bloomsday with Mary Durkan in Toronto. Mary is the genius behind the wonderful events that take place each June 16. In fact, in 2005, Mary led a Classical Pursuits trip to Ireland to celebrate Bloomsday and several samples of the vast Irish literary genius. I am trying to [...]

“It’s in the nature of things that whole worlds disappear,” writes the poet Robert Hass in the foreword to Jimmye Hillman’s insightful memoir Hogs, Mules and Yellow Dogs: Growing Up on a Mississippi Subsistence Farm . “Their vanishings, more often than not, go unrecorded or pass into myth, just as they slip from the memory of [...]

Here was the headline in the book review section of the  Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper that caused me to stop and take notice. “Vincent Lam’s first novel, about Vietnam, has makings of a masterpiece.” Vincent Lam is an emergency  physician Toronto who also writes – very well.  His first book Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures won [...]

On of the things that strikes me over and over on our Classical Pursuits trips is the confirmation that however we may appear to differ across the ages, oceans and culture, in all essential ways, we are one human family. Maybe Shylock said it as well as any, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if [...]

I discovered a poem,  ”How Much of That is Left in Me?” some years ago and was immediately drawn to it and continue to be. I did not know the poet Jack Gilbert, even though I think he is widely celebrated. Today I found another of Gilbert’s poem, written in his 80s. I love the way [...]

Ah, Key West. Much more than a winter getaway destination, Key West combines a free-spirited ambiance with magnificent coral reefs, a unique historic legacy with an enduring creative sensibility — especially literary. For three-quarters of a century, Key West has been a haven and an inspiration for some of America’s most influential writers. While the [...]

I am sharing, with his permission, a thoughtful piece by friend, Larry French. Add your thoughts about whether or not nothin’s plenty for you. “Nothing,”  in terms of poetic diction, lacks lustre.  It is bereft of imagined content. A toneless first syllable, ending in the insipid fricative“th,” lifted slightly by the more resonant second, provides little lyric [...]

Last Saturday, Nigel Beale a bibliophile from Ottawa, was in Toronto. We spent a pleasant afternoon browsing used bookstores in my neighbourhood. Over lunch, we naturally talked about what we are reading. Nigel ignited as he told me about Bloom, a slim volume of poetry by a young Canadian,  Michael Lista, that had sent him [...]

A true confession: When I am intent on something, I can be more dogged than any canine wth a bone. One of the books we will be discussing in India this coming February/March (Confounded & Bewitched: The Strange Rise of Modern India) is a  personal favouite, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. I learned the extraordinary Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta recently completed shooting  a film of [...]