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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, October 23, 2003

0920

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.))

Mr. George Bowering (Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Library of Parliament)

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. George Bowering

0925

0930

Senator Michael J. Forrestall (Dartmouth and the Eastern Shore, PC)

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird (Agent, Library of Parliament)

Mr. George Bowering

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Ms. Jean Baird

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Ms. Jean Baird

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird

Mr. George Bowering

Mrs. Carol Skelton

Mr. George Bowering

0935

Ms. Jean Baird

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ)

Mr. Marcel Gagnon (Champlain, BQ)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. George Bowering

0940

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. George Bowering

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. George Bowering

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. George Bowering

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.)

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

0945

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe (Saurel, Lib.)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Senator Jean Lapointe

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. George Bowering

0950

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. George Bowering

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. George Bowering

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. Jacques Saada

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.)

Mr. George Bowering

0955

Mr. Jerry Pickard

Mr. George Bowering

1000

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Wendy Lill

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Ms. Jean Baird

1005

Ms. Wendy Lill

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird

Mr. George Bowering

Ms. Jean Baird

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

1010

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

1015

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. Marcel Gagnon

Senator Jean Lapointe

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

Mr. George Bowering

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett)

CANADA

Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament

NUMBER 008

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, October 23, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0920)

[English]

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)): Pursuant to Standing Order 108(4), this is a study of the position of the parliamentary poet laureate, the holder of which is an officer of the Library of Parliament. We are delighted to welcome the first ever poet laureate for Canada, George Bowering.

If you have some opening remarks, that will be spectacular. Then I think the members will have lots of questions.

Mr. George Bowering (Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Library of Parliament): Thank you. I'll try not to continue until the vote. My ambition is to speak very shortly, and then answer questions brilliantly, I hope.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): That's always our wish too.

Mr. George Bowering: Today is October 23. On October 21 last year I was phoned and told that I was going to get the posting, and that I had to keep it a secret, which I did successfully for a couple of weeks. Then, from November 8 to 11, the news was made public to the press and the rest of the media, and they went crazy. We were really surprised; we were stunned at how much attention this posting got in the press. I was kept very busy.

I found out that the announcement had been made while I was waiting for a plane in an airport in Edmonton. By the time I landed in Toronto and my companion, Jean, picked me up, there were already three messages waiting for me on her cell phone. We don't even know how they got her cell phone number. So that's how diligent the press was. They were like that from then on. I got endless requests for interviews, and so forth. We were really astonished at how important... I don't know how important it was to Canada, but it was really important to the Canadian press.

Maybe partly because of that my life has been extraordinarily busy over the last 12 months, and it's going to be extraordinarily busy over the next 12 months, according to our schedule. In fact, we even had a double schedule for a while, and that caused a lot of problems.

Everywhere I went there were two main questions people asked me. One was, “What do you have to do when you're the poet laureate of Canada?” The other was, “What are you going to do for the young people?” Those were the two questions I got over and over again, amongst some others.

I said that according to the rules I didn't have to do anything. I read Hansard—it's about that thick—and it looked as if the people in both Houses wanted to make sure that if I did get the job I wouldn't worry too many people by doing too much. But they were pretty sure that any poet taking over the job wouldn't want the job unless they wanted to do something for Canadian poetry, and especially do something for the schools and young people who were interested in poetry. So that's what I've been doing.

I decided on about ten projects. So far I've managed to succeed on a couple of them, I'm still working on others, and other ones I've said are a little bit too much work. I've had two main problems working on these projects. First, they cost money and I didn't have a budget, which meant I had to go and scare up money somehow. The other problem was that my tenure is for only two years instead of 25, and I found out that when you're doing things in Ottawa or Toronto it takes a little time to get things done.

One of the most satisfying things for me over the last year has been the extraordinary help I've got from all the people involved in the parliamentary library. It's just been amazing. If you ever get a chance to look at my website, you'll see part of what I'm talking about. We managed to talk to Heritage, and they gave us some money to set up the website. Then the expert people at the parliamentary library created this website. It is just extraordinary.

One of my projects is what George Elliott Clarke, the poet from the Maritimes, calls POW, in other words, poem of the week. I have an anthology in which a poem by a Canadian poet appears every Monday morning on the website, spends a week there, and then goes into the archives. So anybody at any school, or any curious, young, diligent poet who wants to study poetry, can find any poem of the week from that year there. That's one project that has worked very well, and it's very beautiful.

The website has links. For instance, if you call up a poet like George Elliott Clarke, it will link you to all the other websites that mention him, including his own. Then, if the poem we have picked has been translated into any language, it will come up on the screen. It's a beautifully designed thing. I just love it. I even go to look at it myself, of all things.

¿ (0925)

That's one project that has worked very well. I'm working on other ones now. I'm not very good at going to chase up money, but I'm learning how to do it.

One of my projects is to develop the ancient relationship between poems and wine. I figure if that writer who's now sitting over in Rideau Hall can do all he's done for Canadian wine, I should try to do something too, particularly because I was brought up in Oliver, British Columbia, the wine capital of Canada, and I now live in the Niagara region.

I've been talking to vintners in both British Columbia and Ontario about my project for bottles of Canadian wine with Canadian poems on the labels. So far, if there are eight stages to that we're on about stage three. We haven't rounded up the money yet, but we have talked to some very influential people, thank goodness.

Other projects include an anthology of poems by brand-new, young, teenage Canadian poets, interspersed in an anthology with stuff about poetry by expert Canadian poets. So we will no longer hear with any patience those English teachers in high schools who say, “Gosh, we would like to teach Canadian poetry, but we really don't know how to do it”. They will know how to do it once this anthology is released. We don't know when it is going to be released, but we will be talking with a nice, rich publisher next week, having already spoken with another one.

I have nine or ten other projects. Some of them involve postage stamps. We got euchred on that one a little bit by the National Library—I hope you're using those stamps anyway. There's a whole pile of other stuff, but I don't want to use up all your time, I want to hear your brilliant questions.

The other thing is that I didn't wear a tie today because this shirt won't close properly. But I did wear one last night—honestly. Anybody who was there remembers I was wearing a tie last night, right?

There's another thing. I was going to complain—in fact, I did complain over and over again—that the British Prime Minister traditionally gets a sackbut of red wine as part of his reward for being chosen the poet laureate. I complained about that in a few very useful places, and one of the great vintners in Oliver, British Columbia, the wine capital of Canada, made sure they had a ceremony in Oliver this summer, where they presented me with a barrel of Cabernet Franc, with my picture and part of one of my handwritten poems on the label. That breaks down to 300 bottles. He said, “What do you want me to do with these 300 bottles?” I said, “Ship them to where I now live in the Niagara region, so I can have some wine for parties I go to there”.

¿ (0930)

Senator Michael J. Forrestall (Dartmouth and the Eastern Shore, PC): Good for you.

Mr. George Bowering: I'm open for questions.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Ms. Skelton.

Mrs. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance): You said you wanted to work with children--and you're going to put poems on wine bottles. I have a problem with that. How about Pepsi, Coke, or something like that?

I have one question. How much money did Heritage Canada give you for your website?

Mr. George Bowering: I'm not sure. It was something like $6,000.

Is that right?

Ms. Jean Baird (Agent, Library of Parliament): That wasn't for the website.

Mr. George Bowering: Oh, that wasn't for the website. I'm sorry.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: How much of a grant did you get from Heritage Canada?

Mr. George Bowering: Jean, do you know how much I got from Heritage Canada? Was it $7,000, $6,000, something like that?

Jean organizes my entire work.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Come to the table, Jean, so we can translate what you have to say.

Ms. Jean Baird: I look after a lot of this stuff for George, otherwise he'd have no opportunity to do any writing.

Everything for the website was done by the parliamentary library, in kind, as part of what they do. The money from Heritage is to pay the poets for the poems that are posted. Heritage is doing this through their world poetry day.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: So how much was that?

Ms. Jean Baird: They've committed $10,000 to the project.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: How many poems have you written for us? What have you published this year? Have you done a lot of writing?

Mr. George Bowering: I'm currently working on a book that is prose primarily, but I have committed some poems between airplane flights over the last year.

My first one was on a request for the new year, and I published that in the weekend magazine of the Vancouver Sun. It's a poem about the relationship between nature and those people who are not too fond of nature. It's a kind of warning poem in the tradition, I guess, of Earl Birney, our great ecological poet.

I wrote another one on request for a poetry conference I went to in Campbell River, British Columbia. They bring a poet in residence to the conference and ask him to compose a poem for the conference, so I did that one as part of my Governor General--that's just a job I'm aiming for now--I mean my poet laureate job. I did another one for the Peter Gzowski golf tournament for literacy program in Victoria.

I think there's one more official one.

Ms. Jean Baird: The Book and PeriodicalCouncil.

Mr. George Bowering: Yes. I wrote one for the Book and Periodical Council. That's soon isn't it?

Ms. Jean Baird: It's for the freedom to read week.

Mr. George Bowering: When is that?

Ms. Jean Baird: It's in February.

Mr. George Bowering: Then I wrote one unofficial poem that's addressed just to Ms. Baird.

Mrs. Carol Skelton: I'm glad you did that one. It sounds like she keeps you organized.

Is this part-time or full-time? How much time do you spend on it?

Mr. George Bowering: That's sort of like the question that is often asked of poets. People ask, “How long did it take you to write that poem?” The traditional answer is, “All my life.” It's a job that's really hard to quantify, because most of my job as poet laureate involves going to places and talking to people. Part of the time, if I'm really lucky, is spent sitting quietly and being assaulted by a poem, and somehow or other managing to get it down.

Writers usually cannot take any time off; you just don't get it off. You want to watch a baseball game--as anybody with any brains would want to do--and a poem assaults you while you are doing that. So you stop what you're really enjoying to work on that. It's a job you're doing almost all the time, I guess, although I have to admit it's one of the nicest jobs I can imagine. Being a poet, I'll tell you, is a lot better than, say, working in an orchard in Oliver, British Columbia.

¿ (0935)

Ms. Jean Baird: Could I partly answer that question?

There has been discussion about starting a group called friends of the poet laureate, because as George said, I don't think anyone anticipated the response. Because my background is in bibliography and other things, I've been able to help.

Within the first six months, about 40 hours a week of my time was spent organizing papers so the archives at the library--which is where George's papers are held--could get things in the appropriate fashion. You can't underestimate, for future people, the amount of support that's needed for this position, if you want it to continue to be a prominent, meaningful position in the country.

Mr. George Bowering: That's very important. Whoever the next poet laureate is, I hope to God she gets somebody who works as much as Jean does to help. I would not have been able to do a tenth of the stuff I've been doing over the last year by myself. It's just daunting. Of course, I could have just sat and done nothing, I suppose.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Monsieur Sauvageau.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Mr. Gagnon would first like to say a word.

Mr. Marcel Gagnon (Champlain, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

I wanted to tell our poet that I am extremely happy to meet him because I've been one of those who insisted on having a meeting with the parliamentary poet laureate.Up to now, I have listened to you with a great deal of delight. We can see how interesting is your work and also how far- reaching it is for Canada as a whole. I would simply like to welcome you and to thank you for appearing before us today. I will now yield to my colleague.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Good morning and welcome.

I listened to Mr. Skelton's questions and, if I understood correctly, you wrote, in your official capacity, four poems in one year. If you allow me to make a comparison, perhaps a little lacking, I notice that your fees are honorary, I will admit, and they amount to about $3,000 a poem. Recently the mayor of Montreal was being taken to task because he had been paid $6,000 to make a speech which was still a little longer than a poem.

You have written four poems in your official capacity. I look at your fees and I notice that you receive $10,000 for travelling expenses and others and $12,000 as an honorary contribution; I have no problem with that. You said that Heritage Canada gave you $10,000 through Jean, if I understood clearly, to set up the website and promote some poems. You have also thanked the lady for being at your side for a year now, to work on this file.

Could you give us an idea of the real cost of the job of a poet laureate? On paper, it is $22,000 but from what we have learned this morning, this amount has now reached over $30,000. Therefore, it is already $10,000 or $15,000 more than the amount suggested to us and it seems that there are other people working with you. Can you tell us how many people are working with you, directly and indirectly, and what are the real costs for the House of Commons and the Senate, of having a poet laureate?

This is my first question; I will have others afterwards.

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: Thank you.

In my estimation, I'm probably making about $1.00 an hour over the year, in terms of the work I do as poet laureate. This is not unusual for a person who chose as a young guy to be a poet. It's unfortunate that we don't have millionaires who say, “Here's a painter I'm going to support; here's a poet I'm going to support.” We're living in an age when the government or quasi-government agencies like the Canada Council or Heritage are going to make it possible for the arts to arrive.

I haven't added up the number of hours I have spent as the poet laureate over the last year. My guess is that I'm probably making about 20% of the minimum wage, depending on what the minimum wage is in the various provinces.

¿ (0940)

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I appreciate your sense of humour and I too recognize that a poet is an artist but what I question is the necessity of a parliamentary poet laureate. Therefore it is not your role as an artist and a poet that I am questioning but your official position as a parliamentary poet laureate.

How much does this new position cost really? According to the estimate, we are told that it costs $12,000 but we learned this morning ,after just a few minutes of conversation, that this amount has reached over $30,000, on top of the staff. It seems to me quite natural that we should know exactly how much this new position of parliamentary poet laureate costs.

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: I don't know what the staff costs are.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: How many people work for you?

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: I don't have employees, but there are people at the parliamentary library who can spend some of their time developing my website, being in correspondence with me, or whatever it is they do.

I think what we're missing here is your suggestion that the money I'm getting is coming to me for the poems I write, which is not the case. The poems I write are not part of what wears me down. The work I have to do includes getting up, writing speeches, getting on airplanes, talking to people in meetings, organizing people's poems, finding people's poems, spending hours and hours in libraries looking for the poems that are going to be on the website, writing the biographies of all poets, contacting them, and so on and so forth. So the work I do as a writer, as a poet, is a minimal part of my job. The job is mainly to do that drudge work.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That's the reason why I only question the component of “poet laureate” and not the other one.

Among the criteria for the selection of the poet laureate we find:

Candidates should be able to write in either one of the two official languages. A practical knowledge of both official languages is an asset.

First can you tell me whether you have a basic knowledge of French? Ever since your appointment as parliamentary poet laureate—and I'm not talking about your work as an artist before being appointed to this position—and on your website how significant has French been in all those poems which were published, and in your position? On the assumption that you only speak English, would you suggest that the next poet laureate be French speaking only?

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: I've heard suggestions that the next one should be a francophone, and that it's not necessary. My position is that the next one should be a francophone. As a matter of fact, I even have a choice about who I think it should be, but I'm not allowed to make that appointment.

I decided that everything on the website should be translated into both languages, but I think the French poems should be presented in French, and the English poems should be presented in English. Then if those poems have been translated before, there will be a link to where that is.

I can read poetry in French pretty well. I'm not a bilingual person, but I've always insisted on reading that work in French. So the French poems are going to be presented in French, and if there has been no translation into English they will just be in French. If they have been translated, then we'll go to that.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Do I still have some time?

[English]

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Mr. Saada has to go to something, and he asked before everybody else. Is that okay with you?

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): Sure, and it's along the same line anyway.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): These are the same questions I think.

Mr. Jacques Saada: These are not exactly the same questions but they look very much alike.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Therefore, this might be a case, once more—we know that there are problems within the public service with regard to designated bilingual positions—where the rule has been broken in your case.

Would you suggest that the next poet laureate, since the appointment is for two years, could be French speaking only?

¿ (0945)

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: I suggest that the next poet laureate should be francophone, whether bilingual or unilingual.

[Translation]

Senator Jean Lapointe (Saurel, Lib.):

May I make a comment in that respect, Madam Chair or do I have to wait for my turn?

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I am done.

Senator Jean Lapointe:

This is just a comment. The poet laureate is no doubt quite aware, as are all those who work in the artistic field, that when you try to translate a poem from French into English and vice versa, the work loses a lot of its flavour. When you translate a poem from English into French the meaning is not at all the same, so it's really a loss of time. Therefore, I think that it is a very difficult task. I know only of one poet who has been able to adapt songs by Jacques Brel. His name is Rod McKuen. He made adaptations but he did not translate the poems.

This is the comment, Madam Chair that I wanted to make on this subject. When my turn comes up again, I will have more questions to ask.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Thank you.

Mr. Saada.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I should like to thank the poet and his staff for appearing before us today. My question was a little bit in the same vein. If I remember correctly—and I am going very very far back—when a poet such as Baudelaire was translated by Mallarmé , this was extremely complicated. Mallarmé himself was a poet and had a thorough knowledge of English, but the translation was still extremely difficult. I do not expect that we could translate your poems. I believe that it would be an aberration. As a linguist, I don't see how this could be done.

My question has already been asked several times but I would still like to emphasize one point. In my opinion,—and this is a recommendation that I will make here—if we want to abide by the spirit of the law on official languages, if we want to respect bilingualism on which our country is built, I cannot believe that we could appoint as a second poet laureate, somebody who wouldn't be French speaking. I do not expect that the law or the spirit of the law be followed by a translation of the poems already published, but I would expect that we would abide by the law or at least the spirit of the law by making sure that the next poet laureate be in fact French speaking.

[English]

Now I have a question for you. First of all, it's very refreshing to hear you, because we are used to hearing so much pragmatism around this table. It's refreshing, good, nice, pleasant. I thank you for your laughter and for your sense of humour too.

Talking about sense of humour, I'm trying to figure out how to interpret what is on your website concerning the haiku olympics. There is a sentence at the end of this--a quote, theme, or something--that we should all have sex with chickens. Could someone explain that to me please? By the way, I want to reassure you I'm not a rooster, so it's okay with me.

Mr. George Bowering: That's actually not entered on the website. It's a link to a TV program. There's this very edgy television program on Citytv in Vancouver. It's largely a comedic program, from what I understand.

¿ (0950)

Senator Jean Lapointe: I hope so.

Mr. George Bowering: There's an agricultural part of it too. I was attempting to.... Whenever the subject of poetry comes up and people in the media start talking about poetry, whether it's on Radio-Canada, in newspapers, and so forth, people start being amusing. They start to think it's funny.

We just heard this recently. Somebody was talking on CBC Toronto in the afternoon. They brought up the subject of poetry, and immediately they started.... Avril what's her name--

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Benoit.

Mr. George Bowering: Yes. She and her guest just started having fun. As soon as you start talking about poets or poetry, it's supposed to be funny.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I'm sorry to interrupt, but on a more serious note I was simply a bit concerned. There are things we can say humorously among adults, and so on. I apologize if my source wasn't correct , but I was kind of worried about linking this kind of theme to your statement concerning your attachment to developing youth and sensitivity to poetry.

Mr. George Bowering: Yes. This is a TV show that's supposed to be shocking. It on at 1 o'clock in the morning. Although you know--

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: He was quoted out of context.

[English]

Mr. Jacques Saada: I just wanted to make sure I sorted things out for my own sake. Thank you.

Mr. George Bowering: Certainly it wasn't offered on an agricultural program.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): A different context.

Mr. Pickard.

Mr. Jerry Pickard (Chatham—Kent Essex, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Bowering, congratulations. I think the job you have will certainly benefit Canada and future generations.

As a former teacher, I really believe that everyone benefits from poetry. I see young people experience life through poetry in many cases. The promotion of and work with poets in our educational system can make a huge difference in understanding, in compassion, in all of the attributes we talk about.

I guess I view poetry not as an upper-brow issue, but as a very common connection between people, their emotions, and their experiences. It is my view that as the first poet laureate you have a tremendous role to play, and that role has to be to identify the strengths, needs, and aspirations that should be achieved within your purview. Two poet laureates, one French and one English, would probably suffice better.

But there has to be a continuum of where we're going and the accomplishments we're making. That isn't measured in a few dollars; it's measured in what we are really trying to accomplish. It's not, as you mentioned, measured in four poems you have written; it's measured in how you can reach out to society and make a difference. I believe there have to be mechanisms, finances, and support in place to achieve that.

If the purpose of the position is to just be there so we can say we have a poet laureate, there's no achievement or accomplishment there. You said that your term is for two years, and you've experienced one year already. I hope that part of your direction in the next year will be to lay some type of direction for future people in your office, to make sure that certain things are accomplished. Through that accumulation of information and stating of the goals that need to be achieved, I believe we can make a tremendous difference in our educational system and our cultural system, and balance them very well.

Do you perceive this as possible, with the limited time and resources you have? If it's not possible, what would you really target your future year on, in trying to leave a mark that's going to be picked up and moved on in the future?

Mr. George Bowering: The conclusion I came to quite early was that because I'm the first guy, I'm going to have to make a report of some sort and give it to my bosses at the parliamentary library, with suggestions about what could have been done, or what we might want to do for the next poet laureate. Maybe my experience running around looking for funds or looking for a way to organize can become part of the ammunition or the resources for the next person who comes along.

I know that the continuity you spoke of is going to happen, that it's possible. For instance, the people who had the celebration for me in Oliver, which happens to be my home town in the south Okanagan, say they would like to do this for the next poet laureate as well. They would like to invite the next poet laureate, wherever she comes from, to come to a celebration and be honoured by the people of the south Okanagan. I think that sort of thing can happen over and over again with publishers, and so forth.

One of the things they've done in Oliver is create a university scholarship for a high school kid from that place--with my name on it, fortunately or unfortunately. One of the requirements they and I agreed on was that the scholarship would not be judged by the high school teachers according to that kid's grades, as they normally are, but on how that kid had shown some aspiration as a writer. and some desire to say that writing was something that a kid from the south Okanagan Valley could aspire to do. That is part of what my message is going to be, and that's why I want to make that anthology.

Can you imagine if you were the parent of a 15-year-old kid who had a poem in this anthology that was in the high school library? A different attitude toward poetry would be out there, not only among those kids and the teachers in those schools, but among the parents of those kids, that it was a normal aspiration for a kid to want to write poems.

You know, they all write poems. In the last few years, whenever a kid gets killed in a car crash they build a little monument to the kid where it happened, and the kids who were his friends write poems to try to deal with that situation--the same way they found out in the First World War that most of the Canadian soldiers over there had written poems inside their jackets. They were all writing poems.

Some people think it's a rare thing, an unusual thing; that poetry is somehow removed from the hand reach of the normal citizen, but it's not. Everybody writes poetry. Whenever anybody in somebody's family dies, they write poetry. Whenever somebody gets married, ordinary people in that family write poetry.

One thing that could happen is we could give you more models for that poetry you're going to write, so you could write better poetry. If you write better poetry, you're going to be a better citizen. That's my opinion.

¿ (0955)

Mr. Jerry Pickard: All of that needs to translate somehow into society. I think you're dead right. Every one of us remembers poems we learned in public school and secondary school. All of us have gone to different places where poetry has made a tremendous impact.

I think a poet laureate's job is to look at our institutions to see how to further the cause of that culture, that messaging--and I would say poetry is as much messaging as anything else--in our society, and make it a tool that all of us function with on a very regular basis.

Mr. George Bowering: We need to make it seem normal.

It happens that Ms. Baird did an 80-page report for the Canada Council the year before last on what was going on in Canadian literature, mainly in the high schools and in the colleges all across the country. She found out that the curricula in Canadian high schools had declined, in terms of use of Canadian literature, over the last ten years, which is alarming. Then she found out some of the reasons why that had happened.

That's why I am really interested in doing the anthology. It's going to tie the relationship between those kids who are in those schools and the poets who are making the poems. If you take the number of people in this country and the number of really good poets we have in the country, we've got anybody beat that I know of, including the Irish, as far as I'm concerned. If I can get this anthology working and suggest that this become something that happens every year or every two years, so there is a poet laureate anthology every two years, one for every poet laureate, I think we're going to help those school teachers who say they don't know how to handle this literature.

We're going to say, look, here's a book, and here's the relationship. Jean found out that the teachers would say, “The kids are not very interested in poetry. They don't read much in the way of poetry. They don't read much at all.” Then they surveyed the kids, and they said, “This is the stuff we read, and this is the stuff we write.” The teachers didn't even know about it.

So if we could somehow bring those two groups of people together and suggest that the poet laureate of Canada and the Parliament that supports the poet laureate of Canada were interested in poetry, a 14-year-old kid in Campbell River, B.C. would no longer have to hide the poetry he wrote. He could say, “Halfway through the basketball game I was playing last week, I got this idea for a poem.” That would be my ideal.

À (1000)

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Mr. Bowering, your next questioner will be one of Canada's great playwrights, Ms. Lill.

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thanks a lot, Carolyn.

It's great to be here with you. It's a brilliant thing we have done, this House of Commons and Senate. We have finally done something really right, in terms of literature. It's very exciting that this position now exists, and it's very exciting that you're in it.

Just listening to all of the activities you mentioned--the anthology with the young poets, the POW program, the wine and poetry, and the postage stamps--they are good, energetic ideas. They're absolutely what should be happening right now. So I'm really glad you've just jumped on this the way I think everybody hoped you would.

We have to realize this is a new office, and we have to make sure there is a structure in place to support it. We have to watch it carefully over the next year or two and find out if there is enough of an infrastructure.

Jean, I'm very glad you're here. But we have to make sure that after Jean there is a structure there to keep all these wonderful activities happening. We can't let them just flounder because of neglect.

Mr. George Bowering: That's a danger, yes.

Ms. Wendy Lill: So I hope that over the next year you will give us a very good idea of what we need, to make sure this doesn't flounder; that it's got the support required to allow it to continue and grow.

We have Roch Carrier now at the Library of Parliament. We also have somebody there who's speaking out on the need for more books, more literature, and more support for the arts in schools. So that's a sort of one-two punch now, and it's very exciting. There's no question there.

I just want to welcome you. If you want to speak from your heart about the importance of this role, I welcome you to do that before we have to go to vote.

Mr. George Bowering: How are you going to vote?

Ms. Wendy Lill: I'm not sure what we're voting on.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): The rumour is that bell is just for the opening of the House. There will be another 15-minute bell before the vote. Is that correct?

Ms. Jean Baird: There was some discussion about monetary issues. I'm thrilled, as you are, to have George here and to have him in my life. It has been an auspicious time, because I've worked with Heritage--George has mentioned the contract I did with the Canada Council. I've worked with the Writers' Trust. I have a background in academics.

A number of years ago I published a national magazine in which we once profiled a kid...went in and did a profile with you. So I'm fortunate to know some of the ropes that are needed for the position. But I do 30 or 40 hours a week--sometimes more, sometimes less--not for pay but because of the importance you're talking about of the position.

I'm thrilled, as are you, with the selection of George. It's such a brilliant choice. I think one of the reasons why those in the press were all over this was because you made such a great choice. They really thought you were going to pick some toady poet who wouldn't do much or say much, but because of George's knowledge of history, the connection with poetry, and being a novelist of the same calibre, the position has achieved such a role.

It also needs that support, and it's thrilling to see discussions between the Canada Council, the Library, and Heritage saying, “Okay, we've got this far; what structures can we put in place?” They're talking about a “friends of the poet laureate” structure that would start to replace the work I've been doing. The structures are there; they just need to talk to one another. It's new, right?

À (1005)

Ms. Wendy Lill: Maybe you could just tell us all a bit more about this “friends of the poet laureate” structure, and how that fits into this place called Ottawa. We want to make sure it doesn't get swept out somehow; that it has some sort of sticking power.

Mr. George Bowering: From the very little we've thought about it so far, it would have to involve the resources of the government and the capital region, and the resources of private industry in the capital region. I understand there's a large pharmaceutical industry here, for instance. So we want to somehow make a partnership among the local government, the national government, the local industry, and by extension, the national industry.

It could even go so far as to suggest that you wouldn't have to be an academic or a government person to offer your assistance. When you think about Peter Gzowski's grab the golf business, it's very easy to understand how important it is to make literacy happen. It was a stroke of genius to relate golf to literacy, because it seems that practically everybody in the country is interested in golf. It's maybe a little more difficult to do it in terms of poetry, but we have to find out the way that's going to operate.

Right now I don't have any friends among the computing people in this region. I would like to work in some kind of organization in which somebody from the high-tech business would say, “What can we do to help?” I'd be very willing to give up more of my afternoons to tell that person how they could do that.

Ms. Jean Baird: One of the practical concerns right now with the vintage poetry idea is that vintners love the idea--

Mr. George Bowering: I made up the name “vintage poetry”.

Ms. Jean Baird: All sorts of wineries want to do this. They think it's a wonderful idea. If you had 12 wineries buy in and commit to 1,500 cases, there would be a quarter of a million poems suddenly out in the community.

We're at the stage right now where the practical problem is that the LCBO isn't going to let wineries from B.C. do it. So what you need is someone within the industry who has that practical information who will say, “I'll be a friend of the poet laureate to help figure that out”. So I think the friends structure will allow expertise to come to make things happen when it's required.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): Senator Lapointe.

[Translation]

Senator Jean Lapointe: Mr. Bowering, I thank you very much for the insight you provided us with, because the first time I read in the newspapers that we would have a parliamentary poet laureate, I asked myself what a poet would have to do with Parliament. Therefore, the explanation you gave us this morning provides us with an extraordinary insight on the necessity of having a parliamentary poet laureate.

The poems which appear on wine bottles are they yours?

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: No. The bottles of wine that were made in Oliver have a selection of my poems on them, but the notion is that the bottles of wine will have poems on them from various other poets.

Senator Jean Lapointe:

I hope they will one day.

[Translation]

Do you hold the copyright for those poems?

À (1010)

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: That's a really interesting area. When we were doing the website.... They're just now developing copyright for electronic publications. That's a very dicey situation so far. Luckily we've been able to keep ahead of them. Most writers' contracts are just beginning to have copyright for the publisher.

What do you do for bottles of wine? I remember when I was being celebrated in Oliver that they had books and bottles of wine with my picture on them. They were done for the scholarship. The vintner said, “We will give this wine for that scholarship”.

But it was so peculiar. People wanted me to sign the books, and they wanted me to sign the wine bottles. So I was doing that. I began to consider exactly what you're thinking about. I don't think any Canadian publishers have any little provision inside their contracts yet. I'm pretty certain there would be no problem with the....

Senator Jean Lapointe: You mentioned--and it was a little too fast for me in English--something related to stamps. I'm very interested in stamps.

Mr. George Bowering: It's one of my projects. We haven't been working on it as much lately, but we have been working on it.

I want to have a celebration of some poets who are now dead--because, of course, they have to be dead. Have you seen the stamps the National Library just put out? They have a stamp of Anne Hébert and three other people...I forget who. They're beautiful. They're exactly my idea. I was so shocked when we went in to see Roch Carrier. He said not to tell anybody, and showed me the design before they came out. I thought it was beautiful. I still have the desire....

My hope is that there will be perhaps four poets on stamps each year.

Senator Jean Lapointe: Perhaps you could send me a letter, sir. I'm on the stamp advisory committee.

Mr. George Bowering: I'll remember that.

Senator Jean Lapointe: Then we will we actually have a recommendation for that.

Now I want to come to what's very important to me. If we had offered you a five-year contract, would you have accepted that?

Mr. George Bowering: Knowing what I know now, I would have.

Senator Jean Lapointe: As far as I'm concerned, two years is not enough. You just take a breath and the time is gone.

[Translation]

I don't know whoever thought of two-year contracts for poets but that does not give you time to do anything. I think it's ridiculous. I don't know whoever made that decision, but in my opinion it is the wrong one.

Furthermore I don't like this idea of alternating. Based on the cost and the significance which this position has for our country, among French-speaking as well as English-speaking Canadians, I think it is not necessary to change from French to English every other year. It is ridiculous. If you want my advice, I believe it would be possible—and I am going back to the cost, the budget and so on—to have two poets one French- speaking and another English- speaking who could work harmoniously and exchange ideas, but on a five-year basis.

Madam Chair, I may look like an imbecile but I would rather be considered as such rather than a nobody. Therefore this is my recommendation.

I don't know whether you know that wonderful song by Gilbert Bécaud— you probably do not know it because it's extremely French:

When the poet died, all of his friends cried.

When the poet died...

Well if we had treated the poet better when he was alive, he would have lived longer. This is my conclusion.

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: Yes--and fewer poems.

That might very well be one of the things I talk about when I make my recommendations. I've heard the idea of two poets before, and I've heard the idea of five years before, but I've never heard the idea of two poets for five years before. It's a brilliant idea. It's a wonderful idea.

Senator Jean Lapointe: I'm brilliant.

Mr. George Bowering: I know of two of the great poets who are going to be poets of the week. One's name is Lapointe.

Voices: Oh, oh.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): So you could stay, and then we could bring in a francophone at two and a half years, and then we could change over the two at the end of five years. Is that what you're saying? I think we'd have to change the legislation somehow.

À (1015)

Mr. George Bowering: That's the problem. You'd have to go through both Houses and change the legislation.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): But you don't think it would be impossible to do. Could the website and everything be shared? There wouldn't be duelling poets.

Mr. George Bowering: Whether they are within the same linguistic community or not, poets often argue with one another all the time, but it's amazing how much we have done in collaboration with each other. I would have loved to spend five years with Nicole Brossard. I could have died after working with her in this kind of situation. It would have been really good.

It's a new idea. There have been poets laureate in places before, but there have never been co-poets laureate before. Canada could have a great idea, a brand-new notion. Maybe in Belgium they would think, “What a good idea.” Maybe in Switzerland they would think, “What a good idea.”

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): That's great.

Monsieur Gagnon.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon: Thank you, Madam Chair.

After listening to Senator Lapointe who is an artist which I am not, I find it easier to tell you that when I heard of a parliamentary poet laureate, I too wondered why we should need one. However, I can tell you that following the testimony given this morning I am extremely enlightened. I find that you have a very interesting and useful role in order to put some colour in people's life in general. You talk about wine; that could be something else. I understand that poetry can have a soothing effect on our life and make it more pleasurable and I thank you for this.

I too endorse the remarks to the effect that translation cannot adequately bring out the richness of a poem. It would probably be better to have two poets who could complement each other: one who would think in French and the other in English.

Therefore I thank you for your work and for the insight you provided us with this morning. I have no more questions because we have to go and vote but I do want to thank you a lot for your appearance and I am very happy to have insisted on having you appear before this committee. I think we should do that more regularly.

Senator Jean Lapointe: I have a last very brief comment to make, Madam Chair. I think that at the moment the government incurs some extremely pointless expenses which are much less useful than the contribution the poet laureate can make and that the costs associated to that contribution are quite minimal. If you need support I shall be there for you. I don't have any money to help you but there might be some somewhere. I think that for the young people of this country English speaking as well as French speaking there is a wonderful future in poetry and cultural endeavours because there is are great benefits to be derived from it. I believe that in a few years, if you work carries on, poets will have a spokesperson, and they will contribute a lot more poetry in our lives in the future which, in my opinion, is necessary.

Thank you, Sir.

[English]

Mr. George Bowering: I hope so. Thank you.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): This is a perfect blessing.

[English]

We just want to thank you for your vision and leadership as poet laureate. With this tiny little bill, no one could have thought there would be websites, anthologies, and speaking tours. You've already done what I think a decade of poets laureate might have hoped for.

So thank you very much. We are very grateful for the idea of bringing you to our committee. We hope that even coming here to the Hill helps a little bit, in terms of people shining the odd spotlight on the good things Parliament does occasionally. So thanks so much.

Mr. George Bowering: Thank you.

The Joint Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett): The meeting is adjourned.