Jeremy Stewart : Introduction : Something – for Barry McKinnon (2024)

folio :Barry McKinnon (1944-2023)

I’m listening to Art Pepper as I write this. Barry McKinnonintroduced me to Art’s music when he was a guest on my campus radio showsometime in the early 2000s. The jazz I most loved then is not so differentthan the jazz I most love now—searching the dark clouds, high on holy fire.This does not at all describe the jazz of Art Pepper, which is way west coast, smartand breezy. Like a student, I listened patiently to Art’s music when Barryshared it with me, and what I can say for sure is that listening again now, Iunderstand it and like it far better than I did then. Yeah—I can hear it now; Iguess that’s jazz at 42 (versus 24).

It does feel like a lot of time has passed. This folioin periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics is a tribute to BarryMcKinnon; it is occasioned by his passing in late fall 2023. In the days afterBarry’s death, I was approached by the editors of Thimbleberry Magazineto edit a memorial folio for him in their print edition; however, difficultiesthey had prevented this from being realized. When it became clear that theissue would not be printed, I sent notes to contributors, among whom was DonnaKane, who encouraged me to explore other possibilities for realizing the folio.It so happened that I was at the same time corresponding with rob mclennan, whooffered to host the folio in periodicities. Donna and rob took on therest of the task of soliciting and editing submissions, and between the (verymodest) work I had already completed and their (much more substantial) efforts,this folio is now ready to share with you.

Of course, there would be nothing to show you withoutthe work of the incredible community of writers that are gathered here to pay tributeto Barry. This folio contains writing by Hope Anderson, Elizabeth Bachinsky,bill bissett, George Bowering, Marilyn Bowering, Lary Bremner, Sarah de Leeuw,Justin Foster, Solomon Goudsward, John Harris, Donna Kane, GP Lainsbury, SidMarty, rob mclennan, Paul Nelson, Matt Partyka, Graham Pearce, Al Rempel, CleaRoberts, George Sipos, Red Shuttleworth, Jeremy Stewart, Paul Strickland,Sharon Thesen, Simon Thompson, Michael Turner, Fred Wah, and Tom Wayman. Thisis a truly distinguished company and I would have expected nothing less. Ourimmense thanks to you all.

I want to take a moment to especially thank robmclennan for his generosity in hosting this work at periodicities—which,I suggest, is an especially relevant and meaningful home for it—but also forhis editorial care and support above and beyond. Special thanks also to MichaelArmstrong for sending me a Community Arts Council festschrift for Barry fromdecades ago. I want to thank Kara-lee MacDonald and Rob Budde for their attemptto assemble this folio, without which I may not have been involved in the sameway. Finally, my humble thanks to my co-Editor Donna Kane, without whose hardwork and persistence this work would never have been completed, and to whosecredit, in my view, the project most properly belongs.

I don’t want to spend all that much time on the thingseveryone knows about Barry, but I will spend some; let’s take a look throughthese snapshots, as in a family photo album – dry yellow grasses rustlingacross the frame; at the centre, a hardy pioneer in a stern hat, and in front,a wispy girl child almost invisible between the sheaves. Overleaf, Barry at aMontreal house party with Leonard Cohen, who he didn’t know, when their mutualteacher, Irving Layton arrives with his vaulting pole and a bottle of sherry.Barry with his period-appropriate glasses as a poet and a reader and a friendto poets and readers. Drinking a beer at The Barn with a young Joy and friends.Barry as a character in the stories of John Harris (John gave Barry all thebest and funniest lines). Barry as a winner of the bpNichol chapbook award, andas a poet bpNichol read and loved. Barry in his (and others’) stories about AlPurdy and Robert Creeley and the many extraordinary writers who comprised hisinternational poetry community. Connecting them with Prince George. Barrystanding where Purdy and Birney stood in the photo at Machu Picchu. Barry behindthe kit as a serious jazz drummer and in front of his record shelf as a seriousjazz listener. At a jazz club in Manhattan. Barry in front of a desk with anashtray built into it, lecturing an unpredictable clutch of northern kids,knowing and teaching that academia is not better or smarter than the society itcritiques. Add all these impressions and many more to the portrait of Barry reflectedin the work of the contributors to this folio.

We all know it, but I’ll say it anyway: Barry wasgenerous with writers, especially students. As I have related elsewhere, I tooka class with Barry in my first year at the College of New Caledonia, straightfrom dropping out of high school. I showed him my earliest, truly terribleattempts at poetry, and he managed to be encouraging while carefully avoidingpraising the work itself, which no one could have praised. Among the manythings he taught me, I always come back to Barry’s story about his father, whotold him, “root hog or die.” As an undergrad, I spent a fair bit of timesitting in Barry’s office, interpreting that teaching with him. Looking back, Imight now like to respond to Barry’s father’s dictum with a quote from the poetand novelist Roberto Bolaño on the courage of poets: “no one else in the world facesdisaster with greater dignity and clarity.”

Here’s something not everyone knows about Barry: he knewa lot, and taught me a lot, about success. In many ways, our earliestconversations always circled questions of success. Barry found or inventedanother kind of success far from the centre of the Canadian literaryestablishment and publishing industry, at the centre of poetry in another way. There’sthe poetry you write alone and the poetry you read alone, but there’s also thepoetry you read in terms of the poet who wrote it, through your relationshipwith them, more or less remote, and there’s the poetry community that getstogether and reads and listens and gossips and drinks and gets up to all kindsof hijinks. Barry moved through all these poetries with wit, courage, andgenerosity. He understood that the indignities to which poetry, and poets, aresubject in the north are funnier than they are cruel—but they are still cruel.He worked to make poetry and its situation less cruel and more dignified (butstill funny). There are many Gorse and Repository books on my shelves, and Ilike to go through them every so often and notice whose names I do and don’trecognize, and who was actually pretty good, and think about how for thesefolks, Barry helped make poetry something more for them that it would otherwisehave been. Those who envy other kinds of success more than they admire thiskind of success have much to learn about poetry and success both.

I’m going to mention the so-called poetry war, if onlybecause I can guess that some of you are thinking about it. I took a side; Isided against the group Barry sided with, because they were wrong. And I tookmy share of criticism (in 2014, people pointed me to a social media post whereBarry said that by throwing an old, ruined piano off a building, I wasdestroying western civilization. Yeah, man! I knew you would get it!). I knowthat people remember some of the events differently. We will not use this folioto refight the poetry war, and that means leaving room for differing views. AsDonna put it, “we are all grieving together regardless of how we rememberthings, and it is about Barry.”

What remains sad about it all, though, is that in theend, people are more than their ideas. Most of those who fought felt they hadto fight, but I still think it would’ve been better if we’d all had a beertogether afterwards. Barry is gone, Ken is gone, Brian is gone. (And bp, andAl, and Pat, and RK, and Andy, and, and, and…). But we’re still here, for now,and we remember them, perhaps even as they were; and when you and I finally goget that beer, let’s talk about them. And let’s take it back to the poetry ifwe can. Transcription of feeling, that’s what I thought years ago when Ifirst read The Centre. Then I thought, transcription of thought,or notation of thought. Fidelity to attention.

The Art Pepper record has run out. I lift the needleoff the record and switch the turntable to “stop.” I’m leafing through Barry’sbooks now—I stumble across the version of “Journal,” a poem dedicated to PierreCoupey, that appeared in Last Repository (1971-1981):