A fool once caught a crow That flew too near even for his stone’s throw. Alone beneath a tree He examined the black flier And found upon its sides Two little black doors. He opened both of them. He expected to see into Perhaps a little kitchen With a stove, a chair, A table and a dish Upon that table. But he only learned that crows Know a better use for doors than to close And open, and close and open Into dreary, dull rooms.
James Reaney, 1949
Crow near Jericho Beach, Vancouver, BC.
“The Crow” is from The Red Heart (1949), James Reaney‘s first book of poems.
’s windows, last night, rain wrote upon,
And Bobdog, while we slept, was miles away,
Beating the bounds, our frontier nose-spy
Reporting back at dawn.
We reward him for knowing about
Quarrels in lover’s lane,
Thieves on the prowl and other such
Nightwalkers.
Canny protector, I pray you:
Bark always when strangers come nigh.
Yes, we cannot smell trespass
Nor hear it, as you can.
Piss a ring of fire round our house,
Our curtilage, my land, my concessional lot.
Lead me safely at last
Under this township to my last cot,
And when Elderberry is a ruin,
Guard my grave from the academic wolf,
The curious professor
With his fine wire-brush
Who would dig me up again
From my happiness, your kingdom.
James Reaney, 2005
“Elderberry Cottage” is from Souwesto Home, a collection of James Reaney’s poems from 2005 and published by Brick Books.
Daisy’s Aria from John Beckwith and James Reaney’s 1982 opera The Shivaree is now part of a two-volume anthology of soprano arias from Canadian operas produced by Counterpoint Music Library Services.
In collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre, Dr. Nakagawa plans to create anthologies for each voice type.
UBC Public Scholar Dr. Stephanie Nakagawa performs “I Need You Guillaume” from Victor Davies and Maureen Hunter’s 2007 opera Transit of Venus, one of the arias from her collection of music from Canadian operas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRulssBwJXw
Daisy’s Aria from The Shivaree
Caralyn Tomlin (Daisy) and Avo Kittask (Quartz) in The Shivaree, Comus Music Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre, Toronto, 1982.
In The Shivaree, Daisy is abandoned by her lover Jonathan and accepts the marriage proposal of a much older man, William Quartz. The story gives a Canadian rural setting to the Greek myth of Persephone borne off by Hades. In the aria, Daisy regrets marrying Mr. Quartz and longs for Jonathan to rescue her.
Daisy: Oh Jonathan, why have you forsaken me? Is there still time – to take me away?
ARIA Jonathan, you were a strange young man. You never could decide if I was yours, So Jonathan, I tried to make you decide By letting Mr. Quartz keep company with me. But if flowers and leaves keep company with winter, They soon find they’re stabbed with an icy splinter. My heart’s like the lane and the fields in fall, Rusting and stiffening with cold until all Lies buried in colourless snow, Jonathan! Walk above the snow Where the garden was — Walk above the snow That covers me up, Jonathan! That covers me o’er.
Cover for James Reaney’s libretto for The Shivaree, which premiered at the St. Lawrence Centre on April 3, 1982.
Join us on Sunday March 7 for The John Beckwith Songbook — a concert celebrating the music of Canadian composer John Beckwith in honour of his 94th birthday.
Presented on the Confluence Concerts You Tube Channel, this celebration of John Beckwith’s song repertoire features three programs encompassing nearly all of his music for solo voice, including folksongs and songs set to poems by ee cummings, Miriam Waddington, and Colleen Thibaudeau.
“Jamie lived in London and I lived in Toronto so our collaboration was almost exclusively through correspondence,” he recalls. The composer Richard Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal carried on their famous collaboration much the same way. And like Strauss and Hofmannsthal, Beckwith and Reaney had their disagreements: “I wanted the leading character in our first opera to have a cat,” recalls Beckwith. Reaney replied tersely: “Cut the cat.”
Advice for potential opera composers? “You have to get a good book or you won’t have an opera. I’ve had students come up to me asking ‘What should I do for words?’ I tell them to get to know some writers.”
Page from Reaney’s draft of the libretto for Night Blooming Cereus (see John Beckwith’s 1997 book, Music Papers: Articles and Talks by a Canadian Composer, page 219)
The high school is the palace of Merlin and Cheiron Where governors and governesses teach The young Achilles and young Arthurs of the town.
The radiators teach the rule of monotony Cheep cheep cheeping in the winter classroom Timid fingers learn to turn a fire on.
A stuffed hummingbird and a stuffed Sandhill Crane. In the dusty looking glass of grammar, Number, the young see the shape of their brain.
But what and where did I learn most from? High, dark, narrow as its single window In the old high school there was a cloakroom—
A cloakroom! In winter stuffed with cloaks Soft with outside things inside Burs, mud, dead leaves on some of the coats.
At four o’clock there are forty-nine bare hooks As a hundred hands reach up And I, lingering rearranging my books
See sweeping face peer in of janitor Alone in the winter twilight The old janitor! An image to ponder over.
Of course I learnt snow dripping windows Corridors of words, cobwebs of character, The ninety-two elements in a long row, But most I learnt
The insoluble mystery of the cloakroom And the curious question of the janitor In some ways so centre and core January man and cloakroom From which the moon each month unlocks upon the wave A white bird.
James Reaney, 1962
James Reaney at home, age 1 1/2 years, January 1928.
Sunday November 15, 2020 – Thank you all for joining us at Wordsfest via Zoom for James Reaney: Words & Music. You can view an archived version of the event here: https://fb.watch/1NryVbGfTv/
Stephen Holowitz, Sonja Gustafson, Oliver Whitehead, and Ingrid Crozman at Aeolian Hall, October 18, 2020
A big thank you to Sonja Gustafson (soprano), Ingrid Crozman (flute), Stephen Holowitz (piano), and Oliver Whitehead (guitar) for your wonderful performances of selections from James Reaney’s poem “Brushstrokes Decorating a Fan” and Colleen Thibaudeau’spoems “Watermelon Summer” and “Lullaby of the Child for the Mother.”
Sonja Gustafson performs “Ernie’s Barber Salon Near the College” from “Brushstrokes Decorating a Fan”
And thank you, Carolyn Doyle, for being an excellent moderator and drawing forth the stories and recollections behind the music. Composers Stephen Holowitz and Oliver Whitehead first got the idea to set music to James Reaney’s “Brushstrokes Decorating a Fan” when they were asked to perform at his 81st birthday party on September 1, 2007. Their success with James Reaney’s work led to an appreciation for Colleen Thibaudeau’s poetry and composing the music for Adam Corrigan Holowitz‘s 2013 play Colleening.
Our grateful thanks to Joshua Lambier and Gregory De Souza at Wordsfest for helping us put James Reaney: Words & Music together.
About the composers: Composers Stephen Holowitz and Oliver Whitehead are members of the London jazz group The Antler River Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hteyhpy3gcM
The James Reaney Memorial Lecture series celebrates the life and work of Southwestern Ontario poet and dramatist James Reaney, who was born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and found a creative home in London, Ontario.
Our thanks toWordsfestand theLondon Public Libraryfor their support of the lecture series, and toPoetry Stratfordand theStratford Public Libraryfor their support in hosting the earlier lectures (2010-2015).
Sunday November 15 at 3:00 pm EST — Join us at Wordsfest via Zoom to hear James Reaney’s and Colleen Thibaudeau’spoems set to music by London composers Stephen Holowitz and Oliver Whitehead. Soprano Sonja Gustafson and flautist Ingrid Crozman are among the performers recorded earlier at Aeolian Hall for this online presentation.
Stephen Holowitz, Sonja Gustafson, Oliver Whitehead, and Ingrid Crozman at Aeolian Hall, October 18, 2020
Following the music, host Carolyn Doyle of the London Public Library will lead a discussion about the relationship between Words and Music, and the stories behind the poems. The theme of Words and Music plays off “Words & Music”, an old downtown London cultural outpost beloved by Colleen and Jamie when they moved to London in 1960.
The James Reaney Memorial Lecture series celebrates the life and work of Southwestern Ontario poet and dramatist James Reaney, who was born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and found a creative home in London, Ontario.
These clouds are soft fat horses That draw Weather in his wagon Who bears in his old hands Streaked whips and strokes of lightning. The hooves of his cattle are made Of limp water, that stamp Upon the roof during a storm And fall from dripping eaves; Yet these hooves have worn away mountains In their trotting over Earth. And for manes these clouds Have the soft and various winds That still can push A ship into the sea And for neighs, the sable thunder.
James Reaney, 1949
“Clouds” is from The Red Heart (1949), James Reaney’s first book of poems.
Alice Munro Country: Essays on Her Works and its companion Alice Munro Everlasting form a two-volume collection celebrating the work of Canadian writer Alice Munro. Editor J.R. (Tim) Struthers has brought together critical appreciations from 34 contributors, including Catherine Sheldrick Ross, George Elliott Clarke, Jack Hodgins, Judith Thompson, Monika Lee, and James Reaney.
Like James Reaney, Alice Munro grew up in Southwestern Ontario and many of her early stories are set around Wingham, Ontario, in Huron County. Reaney’s essay, “An ABC to Ontario Literature and Culture,” outlines a graduate course he taught at the University of Western Ontario in the early 1970s.
JULY 18: VIII.Through the Years in West Nissouri, Miller, Duncan, Munro. This was local history into fiction day since Alice Munro in Lives of Girls and Women has an historian uncle whose idea of writing is to pile up droplets from the parish pump (Who was the reeve in 1901? When did the school trustees put in cement platforms around the porch?) and never try to drive a line through them. Eventually, the tin box with his research in it is thoroughly drowned by the Maitland River in flood.
Since Sara Jeanette Duncan’s novel about Brantford is our first successful realist novel, you should read it to see how these things should be done; what is frequently depressing about the run-of-the-mill novel about us nowadays is the imprecision of viewpoint; all right, you’re not going to tell us much of a story, but could you have dug out some photographic details just a tiny bit less clichéd than these? [Volume I, page 54]
Alice Munro Country: Essays on Her Works and Alice Munro Everlasting: Essays on Her Works are available from Guernica Editions.
James Reaney’s “An ABC to Ontario Literature and Culture” originally appeared in Black Moss, Ser. 2, No. 3 (Spring 1977).
See also Stan Dragland’s Wordsfest lecture James Reaney on the grid (November 2, 2019) where Dragland recalls being part of an earlier team-taught version of the course when he first came to Western.
The Alice Munro Literary Garden in Wingham, Ontario
Like the life here The wallpaper repeats itself Up and down go the roses Similar blows struck out By air-banging green fists: A bright rose and a blue one A pink blow and a blue one
The years have not changed their likeness Except that those behind the sofa Have kept their original blaze And those opposite the window Have turned yellow.
Aunt Henny says to Aunt Penny, “Have you read She? Oh, a terrible book, An awful book! Yes, it’s by Haggard Rider Haggard.”
Aunt Lurkey says to Aunt Turkey: “I nearly slipped today, I nearly Slipped today. We should put a piece of carpet On that particular step We should,” Says Aunt Lurkey taking another should Off the would pile.
No one remembers when The wallpaper was new, except The wallpaper itself In the green smothered darkness behind The sofa and the cupboard.
And I, I their awkward fool Board there while I go to school.
In late summer 1965, James Reaney’s Alphabet Press printed the first edition of Colleen Thibaudeau’s Lozenges: Poems in the Shapes of Things in London, Ontario. Thibaudeau’s husband James Reaney typeset the poems and also designed the cover. In fall 2024, Hilary Neary, historian and former Alphabet Magazine designer, proposed a facsimile second edition of the…
Thank you for coming to the 16th annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture celebrating poet Colleen Thibaudeau’s ‘Big Sea’ Vision this past Saturday November 29th. This year’s lecture is part of Colleening 2025, a year-long celebration of Colleen Thibaudeau’s centenary. Thank you, Peggy Roffey, for leading us through a thoughtful exploration of Thibaudeau’s poetry. After getting us to…
This year, in the spirit of metaphor, the 2025 James Reaney Memorial Lecture steps to the side and shows the “she” beside the “he”: James Reaney’s wife, poet Colleen Thibaudeau (1925-2012). Join us on Saturday November 29th at the London Public Library Central Branch for poet Peggy Roffey’s presentation “Colleen Thibaudeau’s Big Sea Vision”. In a combination…
James Reaney 