Annette Pateman’s Virtual Book Launch

May 8, 2020May 8, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

With public launches suspended during the pandemic, more authors have taken to launching their books online. Poet Annette Pateman is one of them.

On Tuesday she launched her new book, Spectrum, online from her home:

“We are in a global pandemic and we are all experiencing life at a different angle. So I focussed on enjoying the performance and bringing positive energy to it. What I enjoyed most was the sense of sharing my stories with the public.”

Annette, born and raised in London, England, now lives and writes in Thunder Bay, one of northern Ontario’s most beautiful cities.

“I moved to Thunder Bay when my husband got a job here. I have been writing for years but moving to Canada has increased my interest and dedication.

“My own background is in education as a trained science teacher. I worked in high schools for several years in the UK. I have also worked in community diversity work both here and in the UK.”

Blog Photo - Annette with Book

Annette was pleased to learn that the local library was planning to give online space to authors. She prepared the instruments – a drum, tambourine and maracas — and selected an area of her house as a backdrop. She then set up her camera.

“It was a little disconcerting to perform my poems to a camera without an audience and no-one else in the house at the time. However, I really enjoyed it. The sun was shining that day, which was uplifting, and the use of percussion instruments always anchors me in the performance of my work.”

The poems Annette read at her launch are all the more impactful because she’s an excellent performer who easily switches between a British accent and a Jamaican one, depending on the poem. (Her parents are Jamaican-born, and some of her poetry expresses her heritage.)

Her local library helped by distributing the video Live on Facebook:

And her favourite poem in Spectrum?

“My favourite poem is ‘The Letter’ on page 45. This is because it is based on the immigration story, from Jamaica to the UK, of my parents. My mother received a letter from my father, who was already living in the UK in the 1960s and she knew she was going to the UK.

“However, another woman was left behind in Jamaica. When I wrote the poem it was the voice of the woman who was left behind that came to me so I wrote it from that point of view. I didn’t know that it would become my favourite poem in the book but whenever I read it people seem to respond to it positively.

“The woman who was left behind was the mother of my older sister…..”

To buy a signed copy of Spectrum for $22 including postage, contact Annette at annettepateman@yahoo.co.uk

Spectrum is also available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-Annette-Pateman/dp/1714041549/

A Good Home, Poetry

The One and Only Cynthia Jobin

December 1, 2018December 1, 2018 Cynthia Reyes

Ever lost a blogger friend?

Someone you never met in person but whose posts touched your heart and mind?

Or perhaps that person’s writing made you sit up and say: “Wow. I wish I could write like that!”

Such a person was Cynthia Jobin. Her unique voice came through in her marvellous poetry and her responses to comments on her blog. I “heard” it in the email notes she sent me, the reviews of my books that she wrote.

But mostly, in her poems.

Blog Photo - Cynthia Jobin Photo

Modern poets usually intimidate me because half the time I don’t know what they’re trying to say — making me suspect that I must be deeply superficial.

But Cynthia wrote poetry like no-one else I’d ever read. Deep and moving, yes. But witty, surprising, and funny at times too. You felt you were sharing the joke, not on the outside looking in.

CONVERSATION WITH A CREEK

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Cynthia Jobin

I will slap your face
I said
and the water said
go right ahead.

I’ll beat you with a stick
I said
and the water said
go right ahead.

I will stomp on you
I said
and the water said
go right ahead.

I’ll cut you with my knife
I said
and the water said
go right ahead.

I will nail you in a box
I said
and the water said
go right ahead

as it glittered
in a zillion squints
of dancing glints
along its pebbly bed.

I may be daft
but that was when
I think I heard
the water laugh.

Cynthia died from cancer days after posting one final poem on December 6, 2016.

An American, Cynthia had entrusted her poems to UK poet John Looker. A new book of her poetry has been published by Bennison Books.

Blog Photo - Book cover of cynthia Jobin book Song of Paper

Amazon.com(https://amzn.to/2A8Pq3d)

Amazon UK(https://amzn.to/2NFTF9M)

In the introduction, John Looker writes about Cynthia’s “unobtrusive intellect at work”. It was one of her special gifts: she was undeniably brilliant, but not show-offy about it. Her poetry is accessible, even to me.

“The poems in this collection show that variety of theme and equally her range of tone; she would write just for fun as well as with serious intent.

“When reading a new poem from Cynthia Jobin I have always had that comfortable feeling of being in good hands: we know that the verses are going to be impeccably crafted but we can’t predict what path they will take.”

Thank you, John and Bennison Books.

Brava, Cynthia.

A Good Home, Art, Artists, Arts, Canadian life, Creative Writing, Poetry

Home Is Where The Art Is

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016 Cynthia Reyes

So — you think your dwelling is too small? Try living on a boat.

Margaret Mair and husband Richard live on their boat “Into The Blue”. Margaret also paints and writes her poetry there. And produces her blog.

Margaret's Boat

“The space is very compact, and set up for both living and sailing”, she says. “That means having to think about everything we bring on board: it must be something we need (that includes art supplies, for me) and can store securely.”

Some people have a room to create their art. Margaret has “a corner”.

Margaret's Corner on her boat

There are advantages. She and Richard have traveled widely, from Canada to the US, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.

“We can cast off our boat and move, go exploring or visiting and know that we have our own comfortable place to stay. Anyone who lives on a boat lives very close to nature. We have an intimate relationship with the weather: when the wind blows hard the boat rocks and creaks and the ropes groan; when the sun shines the water sparkles; ripples on the water gurgle against the hull of the boat.”

Margaret's Painting of Boat on Beach

Margaret’s poems and pictures often reflect her close relationship with the sea:

It calls, the sea,
To the restless boat
Uncomfortably cotched
On a sandy shore,
Longing for
Rocking waves
And cooling current
And the feel
Of wake moving
Singingly along
Her planked hull….

Acrylic on canvasboard; 20 x 16

Margaret started writing poetry as a teenager. She started painting in her forties, first learning to draw and work with colour – chalk pastels.

“I worked my way through chalk pastels to experimenting with other media until I arrived at the medium I most frequently use, acrylics.”

Margaret Mair's painting - We are Islands

“It took a friend’s introduction to SPARK in 2011 to make me think most deeply about how paintings and poetry could work together. I did not really start creating my own melding of the two until quite recently – January 2014.”

Many poems and pictures followed, as you can see on her blog.

Her pieces often evoke powerful responses.

“Everyone responds in their own way, and finds the thing or things that speak to them and their experience.

“I gave my mother a piece that hung on her wall until she died, a first iteration of my Tree of Life, much larger and more delicate. One day while I was visiting I watched a young girl stand silently in front of it for a long time, just looking. That was one of my favorite responses.”

And a few final words about home:

“I have learned that what you bring to a place is as important as the place itself. Keep it reasonably clean and relatively tidy, as cool on the hot days and as warm on the cold ones as you can (we’ve lived in some drafty places), put your favorite pictures on the wall and fill the bookshelves with your books and magazines and pieces of art, let music fill the rooms, make space to do the things that are important to you, and love the people who share it with you.”

Brava, Margaret.

All photos by Margaret Mair. Artworks copyrighted.