Incorporating verse

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This article was published 24/02/2024 (959 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Speaking into a microphone, Morris Bay is telling a story about the last time he saw Nathan Wiseman, a Winnipeg pediatrician he got to know in the early 2000s, when Wiseman was a regular customer at his since-closed store Beatnik Village Bookshop.

Wiseman looked like “a million bucks” the December 2023 morning they ran into one another, Bay recounts, so he was shocked to learn the respected physician died suddenly the week after their chance rendezvous, days away from his 79th birthday.

“I felt I needed to do something to show my respect, and here’s what I came up with,” Bay says, before launching into a poem that kicks off, “A life of service, a heart of gold, a man who touched so many souls, a surgeon skilled, a healer true, a friend to all, a life lived through…”

Welcome to Company of Poets, a monthly, interactive poetry-reading session Bay started in 2022, to encourage or rekindle an appreciation for sonnets and such among Winnipeg’s older set.

This afternoon, a dozen people have gathered in a second-floor space at Villa Cabrini, a 55-plus living complex in Osborne Village, where Bay and his colleague Jane Hebden are presenting original poems along with selections by other writers, including lyrics from the odd rock tune. Audience members are encouraged to participate by reciting a poem of their choosing. On this occasion, three people have taken Bay and Hebden up on their offer.

First, a woman named Jean delivers a self-penned composition titled Brent, The Blues and Memories, inspired by a backyard concert starring local guitar whiz Brent Parkin. Next, a woman named Lesley chokes up while reading a poem touching on her late mother’s passion for gardening. Seconds after a fellow named Kelvin recites a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley he studied in high school “a million years ago,” Bay asks if anybody has questions or comments about what they’ve seen and heard, thus far.

An arm shoots up in the front row. This is her initial experience with Company of Poets, a Villa Cabrini resident says, and despite not having known what to expect, she is enjoying herself immensely. That’s music to his and Hebden’s ears, Bay responds, mentioning things will only improve, once his associate’s fresh baking is brought out, in a few moments’ time.

“Not only is Jane an accomplished poet, she’s also an exceptional baker and I often feel that’s what people are really here for,” he adds, drawing guffaws.

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Somewhere, Jock Coyle, Bay’s Grade 12 English teacher, is smiling.

Bay, 65, laughs, noting his affection for poetry definitely wasn’t fostered at Grant Park High School, where Coyle routinely bellowed, in a thick, Scottish accent, “Mr. Bay, would you please stand up and read some Shakespeare for the class?”

“In my head I would go ‘no, please don’t make me, I’m too shy,’ but I guess his persistence planted a seed, the germination period of which turned out to be about 25 years,” Bay says, seated next to Hebden in a common room at Villa Cabrini, his home since 2016.

Bay, who credits a short career in broadcasting for his excellent elocution, opened his first bookstore in the mid-1990s, on Corydon Avenue. By the time he established the aforementioned Beatnik Village Bookstore, near Confusion Corner, he’d compiled one of the largest poetry sections in the city.

He shakes his head back and forth, when asked if that was based on demand. “No, it was based on stupidity, ignorance and a total lack of business acumen,” he cracks, referring to his then-horde as “beautiful dust collectors.”

Figuring he should be familiar with that which was occupying his shelves, Bay began spending his idle moments at work poring over his books of poetry, devouring everything from Emily Dickinson to Charles Bukowski. That eventually caused him to try his hand at the art form. (Give him a sec and he’ll find a copy of one of his early efforts, about a personal encounter with a homeless person in Estevan, Sask., that commences, “I thought Estevan had character, walking Main Street the other day, an old man, ponytail, limp…”)

In late 2019 Bay attended a public poetry reading held at a community hall. Never mind that he was the only person in the crowd; intrigued by what he’d witnessed, he approached the events co-ordinator at Villa Cabrini, stating he wanted to do something similar there. He received a green light, only to have his plans derailed by the pandemic.

He gave it another shot in the spring of 2022. Operating under the banner Seniors Poetry Program, the idea was to take his show on the road, so to speak, by appearing at Villa Cabrini one month, somewhere else four weeks later, and so on and so forth.

“During the buildup to that first event, I heard a lot of comments along the lines of how I was never going to get people to attend, let alone read poems themselves,” Bay says. And OK, maybe his audiences were small in the beginning, sometimes no more than five or six. Before too long, however, there was a nucleus of people who were making a point of attending every session; to take it all in, yes, but also to read poems they’d written themselves, at Bay’s urging.

Around this time last year, Bay’s radio was tuned to an early-morning program on CBC that introduced “Winnipeg poet Jane Hebden” as the next guest. While lying in bed, listening to her read a selection of her latest works, he found himself thinking, not only did she have a clear, distinctive voice, her poetry was “damn good,” too. He contacted the station that same day, seeking Hebden’s contact information. A producer connected the pair and over lunch, she accepted Bay’s invitation to sit in on a future poetry get-together.

“I went as a reader and as an observer — there was no commitment, whatsoever — but I had such a wonderful time, I was like ‘you bet,’ when Morris asked if I wanted to join him, going forward,” says Hebden, a River East Collegiate alumnus whose poems have appeared in numerous publications, including literary folk magazine Canadian Stories. (Shortly after Hebden signed on, Bay changed the name of the affair from Seniors Poetry Program to Company of Poets, “to remove the stain of the word ‘seniors.’”)

To date, Company of Poets, which also counts Chinese-born poet and writer Nuo Yang and CBC journalist Erin Brohman as regular participants, has been invited to a number of seniors’ residences in Winnipeg, as well as to personal care homes such as Deer Lodge Centre and Holy Family Home. Hebden recalls a date at the Saul & Claribel Simkin Centre. Midway through the proceedings an 89-year-old woman named Esther stood up to relay a story about going sledding as a youngster, after a poem from that day’s agenda sparked her memory.

“Her recollection was so vivid, I told her if she would be so kind, I would be delighted to write a poem about her experiences,” Hebden says, noting Company of Poets doesn’t receive a penny for its services, and everything is free of charge. “As it turned out, we were invited to her 90th birthday party a few months later, and as a gift, I read what I’d come up with, about Esther and her toboggan, which she quite enjoyed.”

Going forward, Bay is hoping to expand his roster of guest readers. For example, if the actors who portrayed Canadian poets Al Purdy and Milton Acorn in the recent Royal Manitoba Theatre Production Among Men are reading this, they’d be welcome to reprise their roles, any day of the week, he says with a wink.

Another item on his to-do list is to compile attendees’ original poems into book form. He and Hebden agree that having audience members discover their voice through poetry is what makes their endeavour worthwhile, so he would love it if they had a “cultivation of their work and feelings.”

By the way, if you’re an aspiring poet looking for a few tips, that’s not what Company of Poets is about. Hebden and Bay don’t offer constructive criticism, not that it’s been warranted in most cases.

“With a lot of the stuff I’ve heard and read, I can’t even imagine what I’d tell them to make it better, they’ve been truly amazing,” Hebden says.

“Plus, I’m not a teacher, so what business is it of mine?” Bay pipes in, calling Company of Poets the largest travelling seniors poetry program in Canada, “possibly North America.” “The last thing people in their 70s and 80s want is some guy telling them how to be a poet. The act of writing and sharing their poetry is the reward, plus it inspires others to do likewise.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca