A community that understands itself improves.
The reflexive community establishes goals. It looks into itself, the heart of its obstacles, assess and confronts them. This reflexivity clarifies for it the roles held within it; the roles of government and the judiciary; the roles of citizens; the roles of artists. In a sense that is not clinically anthropological, the reflexive community is a community. It is a unified being.
One of the best senses of this comes from the the institutions created to promote self-identification with cultural and community values. The institution of the Poet Laureate, a public figure appointed by government who in investiture agrees to provide literature for public ceremonies and promote cultural dialogue within communities, enables a defense against the erosion of culture as fundamental value in communities, demographics, provinces and states.
It is no surprise, then, that New Brunswick lacks a Poet Laureate.
The necessity of cultural institutions is linked to the necessity of identity; for too long this relationship has been overlooked by stewards of our province.
Beginning next month, naked east will begin to lobby the government of New Brunswick to establish a provincial Poet Laureate to sustain the cultural literacy and identity of our province.
We will advise that the term be no less than ten years. We will submit, among other such things, suggestions.
Send your nominees for the Poet Laureate of New Brunswick to naked.east.the@gmail.com or submit a comment below.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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John Thompson - master of the persian stanza form known as the 'ghazal,' was a sackville poet who influenced a whole generation of Canadian writers: notably Michael Ondaatje and his contemporaries. While Thompson's poems are usually not noted as being ones that deal distinctly with the new brunswick landscape and New Brunswick culture (and therefore often more overlooked within new brunswick literary circles than the works of authors like alden nowlan and david adams richards), his poems are among the best and the most internationally anthologized of Canadian poetry. Thompson's works, emerging from the burgeoning postmodern context of the 60's and 70's, should be read always by students of Canadian Lit alongside Novels such as Beautiful Losers, and the early poems of Ondaatje, Atwood, and Purdy. Thompson's lyrical voice, with so many divergent cross-cultural influences, along with his interesting and tragic biography, should make him a Canadian (and of course New Brunswickan) historical literary figure of infinite interest... and I nominate him for Naked East's New Brunswick Poet-Laureate!
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