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The Simon Poems (Bayeaux $12.95)
The poetry hierarchy in every country is mostly determined by who you know, who you dedicate your poems to, who you write reviews about, who you drink with, sleep with, used to sleep with, or flatter, or denigrate. Poetry awards are usually allocated along these same lines.
Allen Bell of Victoria isn't likely to win poetry prizes. He's a poetry outsider who has co-written, with Atom Egoyan, screenplays such as The Sweet Hereafter, The Adjuster and Speaking Parts. Success in one field usually prevents success in another.
A self-described out-of-control worrier, Bell has released two recent poetry collections, Thy Harry's Company and Puppet Poems; now he's dusted off his first poetry manuscript, The Simon Poems (Bayeaux $12.95), written between 1976 and 1980. It's a series of narratives in which a separated father speaks to his pre-school son.
Bell, with deadpan concision, includes a wrenching 13-page account of the 1976 Port Moody kidnapping of Abby Drover by family friend Donald Alexander Hay, who kept the 12-year-old girl in a bomb shelter-like compound that was hidden beneath a cupboard with a false bottom, and while he participated in the search parties.
...Abby was handcuffed
And chained to the wall
And Donald Alexander Hay
Attempted to copulate
Standing up
She remained
In the bomb shelter
The aforementioned 181 days
And the one person
To whom she had access
Was Donald Alexander Hay
He could come to the bomb shelter
For intercourse etc
And threaten to kill her
And in the lining
Of her boot
Abby concealed a note
And said whoever this may concern
If you find me died
My killer is Don Hay
Of 1601 Gore Street Port Moody
He kidnapped me March 10 1976
In the morning
I also died if so
After my thirteenth birthday...
This deeply disturbing poem is beyond cleverness and obliqueness. It is trying to be useful. It expresses one parent's awareness of the fragility of our freedoms; it is chillingly instructive of the need to protect children from insanity.
It is an unedited news report from the trenches of evil. It doesn't edit out the people leaping from the burning buildings. And it doesn't direct us as to exactly how we must respond, emotionally and intellectually, to the reporting.
In light of crypto-fascist remarks made by western world leaders Silvio Berlusconi and George Bush-both of whom have openly asserted 'our' values are simply superior to 'their' values and therefore countries such as Italy and the United States simply deserve to dominate other countries and cultures-Bell's non-emotional chronicle of events in Port Moody's suburbia is sobering indeed.
Donald Alexander Hay is a terrorist.
Mankind is capable of horrendous evil. Mankind of all races is capable of unforgivable savagery. It is necessary and good to confront evil, to acknowledge it exists and to fight it with determined speed.
It is also necessary to be highly discriminating and lawful, to not take advantage of one's (temporarily) superior moral stance, to recall Tolstoy's fascinating viewpoint, 'the source of rage is within you.' To be overcome by rage, by vengeance, or lust for victory, is to be lost.
Although it is often next-to-impossible to abide by the Christian dictum, 'turn the other cheek,' as a wandering ex-carpenter once advised, that is a standard by which all human behaviour can be judged. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. We are animals and animals require training, some restraint, so as not to bite one another in the street.
Or, as Buddha once noted, 'You become what you oppose.'
...And they went into the garage
And Donald Alexander Hay
Had climbed up the ladder
And was doing up his pants
And the police heard a whimpering
And looked into the hole
And Abby was trying to climb up the ladder
And was completely hysterical
And said she wanted her Mom
And Donald Alexander Hay said
Why don't you guys blow me
And at the police station he said
Let me out the back door
And blow my head
And the prosecutor said
It was a tempting request
And he said
It spoke well
For the discipline
Of our police forces
And their regard
For the rule of law
That the request was not acted upon...
1-896209-64-5 [BCBW 2001]
Allen Bell of Victoria isn't likely to win poetry prizes. He's a poetry outsider who has co-written, with Atom Egoyan, screenplays such as The Sweet Hereafter, The Adjuster and Speaking Parts. Success in one field usually prevents success in another.
A self-described out-of-control worrier, Bell has released two recent poetry collections, Thy Harry's Company and Puppet Poems; now he's dusted off his first poetry manuscript, The Simon Poems (Bayeaux $12.95), written between 1976 and 1980. It's a series of narratives in which a separated father speaks to his pre-school son.
Bell, with deadpan concision, includes a wrenching 13-page account of the 1976 Port Moody kidnapping of Abby Drover by family friend Donald Alexander Hay, who kept the 12-year-old girl in a bomb shelter-like compound that was hidden beneath a cupboard with a false bottom, and while he participated in the search parties.
...Abby was handcuffed
And chained to the wall
And Donald Alexander Hay
Attempted to copulate
Standing up
She remained
In the bomb shelter
The aforementioned 181 days
And the one person
To whom she had access
Was Donald Alexander Hay
He could come to the bomb shelter
For intercourse etc
And threaten to kill her
And in the lining
Of her boot
Abby concealed a note
And said whoever this may concern
If you find me died
My killer is Don Hay
Of 1601 Gore Street Port Moody
He kidnapped me March 10 1976
In the morning
I also died if so
After my thirteenth birthday...
This deeply disturbing poem is beyond cleverness and obliqueness. It is trying to be useful. It expresses one parent's awareness of the fragility of our freedoms; it is chillingly instructive of the need to protect children from insanity.
It is an unedited news report from the trenches of evil. It doesn't edit out the people leaping from the burning buildings. And it doesn't direct us as to exactly how we must respond, emotionally and intellectually, to the reporting.
In light of crypto-fascist remarks made by western world leaders Silvio Berlusconi and George Bush-both of whom have openly asserted 'our' values are simply superior to 'their' values and therefore countries such as Italy and the United States simply deserve to dominate other countries and cultures-Bell's non-emotional chronicle of events in Port Moody's suburbia is sobering indeed.
Donald Alexander Hay is a terrorist.
Mankind is capable of horrendous evil. Mankind of all races is capable of unforgivable savagery. It is necessary and good to confront evil, to acknowledge it exists and to fight it with determined speed.
It is also necessary to be highly discriminating and lawful, to not take advantage of one's (temporarily) superior moral stance, to recall Tolstoy's fascinating viewpoint, 'the source of rage is within you.' To be overcome by rage, by vengeance, or lust for victory, is to be lost.
Although it is often next-to-impossible to abide by the Christian dictum, 'turn the other cheek,' as a wandering ex-carpenter once advised, that is a standard by which all human behaviour can be judged. Do unto others as you would have done unto you. We are animals and animals require training, some restraint, so as not to bite one another in the street.
Or, as Buddha once noted, 'You become what you oppose.'
...And they went into the garage
And Donald Alexander Hay
Had climbed up the ladder
And was doing up his pants
And the police heard a whimpering
And looked into the hole
And Abby was trying to climb up the ladder
And was completely hysterical
And said she wanted her Mom
And Donald Alexander Hay said
Why don't you guys blow me
And at the police station he said
Let me out the back door
And blow my head
And the prosecutor said
It was a tempting request
And he said
It spoke well
For the discipline
Of our police forces
And their regard
For the rule of law
That the request was not acted upon...
1-896209-64-5 [BCBW 2001]
Submitted on June 3, 2003 in By David.
