January 27, 2010 Goh Poh Seng

This week on a special edition of Wax Poetic we celebrate the life of local dramatist, novelist and poet, Goh Poh Seng, with an interview and reading of his works by his sons, Kagan and Kajin Goh.

Goh Poh Seng was born in Malaya in 1936. He received his medical degree from University College Dublin, and practised medicine in Singapore for twenty-five years. In his time living in Singapore, Dr Goh held many honorary positions including the Chairman of the National Theatre Trust Board between 1967 and 1972. He was committed to the development of Art and cultural policies of post-independent Singapore, as well as the development of cultural institutions such as the Singapore National Symphony, the Chinese Orchestra and the Singapore Dance Company.^[1]

Goh's first novel, If We Dream Too Long won the National Book Development Council of Singapore's Fiction Award in 1976 and has been translated into Russian and Tagalog. His other books include The Immolation, Dance of Moths, Eyewitness, Lines from Batu FerringhiBird With One Wing. His most recent works are his Collections of Poems, As Though the Gods Love Us and The Girl from Ermita. His work also appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies around the world. Goh lived in Canada to which he emigrated in 1986. He died on 10 January 2010 in Vancouver. 

From Wikipedia

Photos

Left. At home in Singapore – circa 1970s

Right: With Professor Dennis Enright, poet and Professor of English at the University of Singapore - Early 1960s

Passages: Gerry Gilbert 1936 - 2009

Tuesday, April 7, 1936 - Friday, June 19, 2009
Gerry, poet, moved into the past tense Friday in Vancouver after a lifetime dedicated to writing, photography and art. He will be greatly missed by his son Jeremy in Toronto and daughter Tamsin Bragg (Ritchie) in Saltspring Island, and by his grandchildren Cassandra and Drew Storey in Saltspring, and Matilda in Toronto.
Gerry was pre-deceased by his daughter Lara, sister Linda, and parents Ralph and Betty, all of Vancouver.
Gerry, once called the "Jude the Obscure of the Vancouver poetry scene," published many books of poetry and prose, including "Moby Jane," "Grounds" and "Azure Blues" and was for many years host of "radiofreerainforest" on Co-op radio.
He published "BC Monthly," a writing journal, and had numerous photographic and audio-visual exhibitions. Through BC Monthly and radiofreerainforest, he was the most active of all the poets in the Vancouver poetry community in promoting and supporting the work of other poets from all the many groups and schools in the city. He lived for the last 40 years in and around Vancouver's Downtown East Side, subsisting on his writing. His family would like to extend their gratitude to Marlene Swidzinsky and James Campbell, Jamie and Carol Reid, and the staff of St. Paul's Hospital palliative ward. Gerry's ashes will be spread over the waters by Jericho Beach, to join his family there who preceded him.

There will also be a gathering in Vancouver - A Memorial Celebration - for Gerry Gilbert at 2:00pm on Saturday, August 15 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews - on Pacific Avenue between Davie and Drake. Tasmin Gilbert Bragg and Jeremy Gilbert warmly invite you to attend. For further information: dadababy@shaw.ca

Passages: Robin Blaser (1925- 2009)

May 18, 1925 - May 7, 2009

Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California in 1944. There he met Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, becoming a key figure in the so-called San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s and early 1960s. He moved to Canada in 1966, joining the faculty of Simon Fraser University; he held the position of Professor Emeritus. He lived in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia.

In June 1995, for Blaser's 70th birthday, a conference was held in Vancouver to pay tribute to his contribution to Canadian poetry. The conference, known as the "Recovery of the Public World" (a phrase borrowed from Hannah Arendt), was attended by poets from around the world, including Canadian poets Michael Ondaatje, Steve McCaffery, Phyllis Webb, George Bowering, Fred Wah, and Daphne Marlatt; and poets who reside in the United States, including Michael Palmer and Norma Cole (who was born in Canada, subsequently migrating to San Francisco).

Read the full Wikipedia article here>>>

Passages: Billy Little October 14, 1943 - January 1, 2009

I've just received this email from fellow poet Jamie Reid which I felt compelled to share with you.

Our dear comrade and brother poet, Billy Little, slipped away from this life at about 5 AM on New Years Day. It almost seems to me as if he were imitating one of his idols, dada hero Tristan Tzara, who died on Christmas Day in 1963. For several days he had been telling his friends that each day might be his last, but he hung on and continued to breathe one day after another for several days, until finally he lost the ability to speak and passed away. Billy spent his last days on his beloved Hornby Island, surrounded by his friends.

He had been resigned to this final result since hearing from his doctors last January that the abdominal cancer through which he had endured several rounds of chemotherapy and surgery would finally take his life in a matter of months rather than years. He lived the months that were left to him with great courage and good humour, sometimes in tears, he told me once, that he should have to leave the world, the life and the people that he loved with such passion and devotion. The people at his bedside near the end, his son Matt Little, Gordon Payne and his caregiver, Colleen Work, confirmed that through his last hours, though he could not speak, he was clearly smiling.

Billy’s son, Matt, will be inviting friends to the Hornby Island ball park on Sunday, January 4. In commemoration of Billy’s life-long devoted attachment to books and ideas, Matt will be handing out items from Billy’s book collection.

Further notice of an expanded memorial event will be posted later.

Typically, Billy left his life with a jest, a protest, leaving behind his own obituary:

obituary

after decades of passion, dedication to world peace and justice, powerful frindships, recognition, being loved undeservedly by extraordinary women, a close and powerful relationship with a strong, handsome, capable, thoughtful son Matt, a never ending stream of amusing ideas, affections shared with a wide range of creative men and women, a long residence in the paradisical landscape of hornby island, sucess after sucess in the book trade, fabulous meals, unmeasurable inebriation, dancing beyond exhaustion, satori after satori,
billy little regrets he's unable to schmooze today.
in lieu of flowers please send a humongous donation to the war resisters league.

I'd like my tombstone to read:

billy little
poet
hydro is too expensive


but I'd like my mortal remains to be set adrift on a flaming raft off chrome island