I Wish I'd Written This

Tofino, British Columbia, Canada from Pina Bausch Foundation on Vimeo.
[Thérèse Bouchard, Elisabeth Smith, Jan Janzen, Janice Lore, Richenda Pease, Joanna Streetly and Schooner the Dog]

There are always cool things going on in Tofino.  This group of wonderfully creative folk includes the local poet we are featuring today, Janice Lore, who is fourth in line in the video. Last person in line is our Poet Laureate, Joanna Streetly, who we have featured before, followed by her wonderful dog, Schooner. When I asked Janice if I might feature her and the following poems, I remembered this video and asked if we might include it, as I knew you'd love it. Now let's meet Janice, and check out her poem about the wild women of Chesterman Beach. 

Janice Lore

                             Wild Women of Chesterman Beach

                        All day the wild women
      gale over the tombolo
whipping wind around the point.
           The tide surges from either side
                    draws back    rears    
     charges in once more.

Tonight
        the crones tend the Lennard Island light:
          moan like the fog horn,

    turn the beacon to darkest fears—

     —turning—returning—   every ten seconds
    through the long night’s howl.

      Tattered garments rise up around beach fires.
           Smoke streaks along the black ghost of forest.
                A descant wails above the wild water’s thunder.

*                *                *

If I were to disappear tonight
                                     into this roiling silence,
                   you would find me

  rocked in their arms,
        crooned secrets filling my lungs
                   like seawater.

*                *                *

                                                

Sherry: Well, you can see why I love this poem! Janice Lore is a member of the Clayoquot Writers Group, and is very active in the arts community. I asked her how she enjoys being one of the wild women she writes about.

Janice: I never think of myself as one of the wild women who live here, although I aspire to be one! The wild women I have come to know here are important role models for me. They show me ways to be in the world that make sense to me, in a world that often does not seem to make sense, and I count myself fortunate to be in their company.

Where did I grow up?  I grew up on a farm just north of Calgary, Alberta, and then lived for almost 20 years in that city. In 1994 I moved to Tofino.

What place says "home" to me? The prairie I know, as one can only know a landscape one has explored since childhood. There is always the feeling of coming home when I emerge from the mountains out onto the open plains. I love the spectacular landscape of the west coast and I crave its world of green and water when I am not here. But in some ways I still feel a stranger, here in the rainforest, beside the ocean, even after 25 years.

There are other ways a place whispers “home,” though. The west coast, Tofino, is where I have found my tribe, my pack, my wild women. It is here, in this community of artists, that my artist’s heart has finally found home.

Sherry: That creative community is a large part of the magic of Tofino! Let's enjoy another of your poems, Janice, and immerse ourselves in the beat of the wild, wild waves.

The Winter Work of the Sea              

Valentine’s Day.   There is enough light now

           we don’t have to walk the beach in darkness,

                        stumbling on great coiled serpents of bull kelp.

                            Enough light   we can catch sight of

      the crepuscular crows

         their dark silent murders

swarming for the rookery on Lennard Island.

Enough light   we don’t need to splash blindly,

    can pick our way instead

           through the red rivulets that course down the beach

                                              from the cedar forest.

                    Enough light   we can discern

         the winter work of the sea,

how it hauls away the sand it delivered last summer,

          in the process

               excavating old car chassis tumbled and buried by the surf,

                    revealing nubs of posts pounded in during the war

         to prevent the enemy from landing on the beach.

Enough light to illuminate what we could not see:

         The reason for our stumbling,

                the form of the darkness passing over us,

                        the nature of what we have waded through,

                                 what has been exposed by the storms of winter.

                                 We have prayed for this returning light

                            for a whole shoreless season —

                  never certain light will come again,

         never certain we will have the courage

to face it

when it does.

                                                    *                    *                   *

Sherry: Wow. Those closing lines are so powerful! When did you begin writing poetry, Janice?

Janice: I began writing poetry as soon as I could write. I was probably composing verse before that, I don’t remember. I was certainly known in my family for word play (intentional or otherwise) from a very young age. My father loved poetry, and used to recite it to us on special occasions or when something brought a poem to mind. In fact, his wake-up call to us when we were children was A. E. Housman’s Reveille:

Up, lad, up, t’is late for lying.
Sunlit pallets never thrive.
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.

His love of poetry stimulated mine.

I love words. I love the sounds and rhythms of poetry. I love the ability of poetry to speak of ideas and emotions I can’t otherwise articulate.

As a child I wrote plays and directed and performed in them (I am sure they were awful!) but in my teenage years I set aside my love of drama, and didn’t return to it until middle age. Something made me want explore what dramatic expression could add to a poem. 

Janice as Amelia Earhart 

In her performance poem "Amelia"

Photo by Eileen Floody

Several members of my writers’ group were also interested in exploring this, and that exploration led to the performance poetry group “Performance Anxiety” and several public performances. I think I love performance poetry because it builds on my excitement about interdisciplinary work – taking work in one medium and seeing what possibilities open up as it is transformed into another medium.

The "Wild Women of Chesterman Beach" poem

~ one of Janice's handmade books.

In the last few years I have been making handmade books, as beautiful things in their own right, and as a medium for my poetry. It has been interesting to work with my hands, when so much of my creative work has been in my head. And exciting to try to transform poems into a physical object, a book, which illuminates the poem. There’s that interdisciplinary excitement again! 

I am currently working on an exhibition of my handmade books, which I hope will open this coming fall here in Tofino. I have incorporated original artwork, created by local and other artists, in some of the books and that artwork will be part of the exhibit. I hope to have an evening of performance poetry as well. 

Sherry: That sounds wonderful, Janice! I'll be there!

Janice's poem on a surfboard

For the Tofino Boardwalk,

An event sponsored by Tofino Arts Council

Janice: Over the years I have written stories and poetry, and a radio play which was performed live at CBC Calgary (At 7 am! The actors complained bitterly about how the early hour was affecting their voices!) Some of my stories and poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, as well as in the local and much beloved Sound Magazine and Tofino Time. 

Several years ago the Clayoquot Writers Group published a serial story in Tofino Time, each chapter written by a different member. In 2003 my long poem Ipsissima Verba, was published as a chapbook by Leaf Press in Lantzville BC. To launch the chapbook, I turned the poem into a stage play with four characters – the Dictionary, the Philosopher, the Mathematician and the Muse – to highlight the interplay of voices in the poem. I think this was my first foray into performance poetry.

Sherry: It sounds amazing! You are talented in so many areas, Janice. Thank you so much, for allowing me to introduce you to Poets United. We have enjoyed every minute.

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors