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Born in Milwaukee in 1947, Heidi Greco came to Canada in 1968. "The award I am proudest of is my Canadian citizenship," she has written. "I'm still convinced I 'picked' my parents because I thought they were Canadian. At the time, they were honeymooning at the Lake of the Woods."
A community organizer who helped create her local arts council, Greco has been active in the League of Poets and in the successful initiative to preserve Joy Kogawa House. Her work has appeared in several anthologies including Crossing Lines (2008), Listening With the Ear of the Heart (St. Peter's Press, 2003), Study in Grey: Women Writing about Depression (Rowan Books, 1999) and Friendly Erotica (Martin Park Publications, 1996).
Dainty but ambitious, Heidi Greco's tiny chapbook, A: The Amelia Poems (Abbotsford: Lipstick Press $8) attempts nothing less than to retell the life story of the missing aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who disappeared in 1937 while crossing the Pacific. Through Earhart's own furtive notes and poems, Greco incorporates speculation that Earhart was captured by the Japanese and likely imprisoned on Saipan--but not executed.
"Building on these P.O.W. theories," she writes, "some have suggested that the U.S. may have come to an agreement with Japan that secured Earhart's release." But Greco then deviates from the theory that Earhart was placed in protective custody, granting her a false identity which allowed her to live out her days in obscurity. A: The Amelia Poems imagines "that when eventually returned to the U.S., she was forced to spend the rest of her life in an asylum in New Jersey."
Heidi Greco was a co-recipient of the 2011 Ken Klosky Novella Contest for Shrinking Violets, a story about the bond between a single mother who works as a supermarket cashier and her son.
Greco's non-fiction Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude (Anvil 2020) revisits the 1971 film, Harold and Maude, an unusual May/December romance, and comments within the times the film was released.
CITY/TOWN: South Surrey, BC
DATE OF BIRTH: 1 April, 1947
ARRIVAL IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: 1970
EMPLOYMENT OTHER THAN WRITING: Freelance editing, occasionally as an instructor for the Creative Writing Branch of Surrey's Department of Continuing Education.
BOOKS:
Siren Tattoo: A Poetry Triptych (Anvil Press, 1994)
Rattlesnake Plantain (Anvil Press, 2002)
A: The Amelia Poems (Abbotsford: Lipstick Press $8) 978-0-9781204-2-9
Shrinking Violets (Quattro Books, 2011). Novella. $16.95 978-1926802-36-7
flightpaths: The Lost Journals of Amelia Earhart (Caitlin 2017) $18 978-1987915471
Practical Anxiety (Inanna Publications 2018) $18.95 978-1-77133-581-2
Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude (Anvil 2020) $18 978-1-77214-171-9
[BCBW 2020] "Poetry"
Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to
Harold and Maude by Heidi Greco (Anvil $18)
BCBW 2021 Review by Jane Curry
Is it possible to write a love letter to a movie? In her new book Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude, Heidi Greco sets out to share everything she knows about her favourite movie’s production, casting, characters and place in history. In the process she includes us in her own personal journey and 50-year relationship with her beloved film.
First screened in 1971, the cult classic Harold and Maude is a coming-of-age, oddball comedy directed by Hal Ashby. It was chosen in 1997 for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for cultural, historical or aesthetic significance. The plot focuses on a suicide-obsessed 20 year-old, Harold Parker Chasen (Bud Cort), and his friendship and eventual romantic relationship with a 79-year-old, Maude (Ruth Gordon) a holocaust survivor who teaches Harold about the importance of living life to its fullest.
Greco is a poet, and clever in the structure of her book. The first page is a framed, untitled spoiler alert to her audience that includes several disclaimers. She recommends that readers “take the time to see it [the film], before you begin reading.” (If you haven’t seen it yet, or want to watch it again, it’s on Kanopy via digital streaming through your local library.) Greco also warns that she is “not a film critic, or an academic who is trained in scholarly research” and takes responsibility for all her errors. Next up Greco provides a useful cast list of ‘The Players’ and ‘The Collaborators.’ These clues aid our navigation of her dense research.
The body of Greco’s writing takes on the form of a play, complete with three chapters (or acts), beginning with: ‘Coming Attractions,’ where she presents her rational for writing. “I suppose you might call it a special fondness—one that’s based in emotion but that also takes into account the many elements director Hal Ashby’s film manages to accomplish in such remarkable fashion. Impeccable casting, erasing the fourth wall to create that special sense of intimacy with an audience, and soaring above it all, the emotional effect achieved through the score and the soundtrack both of which are creations of the artist known then as Cat Stevens.”
In her second chapter ‘Feature Presentation’ Greco includes the bulk of her research and explores what makes Harold and Maude special. She compares the film to other films from the same period, as well as placing it in the context of the past century of cinema history. Her comparison with Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate, released four years earlier in 1967, is the most comprehensive. She examines the turbulent times of the late 1960s and early 1970s, concluding that Ashby’s anti-war messages and “embedded visual links to this era of such significant cultural change” are why this film continues to resonate today.
Greco also examines the innovative and meticulously detailed art direction, describing it as “letter-perfect.” Ashby relied on the talents of the film’s artistic director, Michael Haller to decorate the rail car where Maude lived. “The details for this task involved creating not only a memorabilia-filled, and homey environs, but Maude’s inventions had to be included—and to at least appear to function according to specs.” Maude’s ‘Odorifics’ fragrance device and Harold’s retrofitted Jaguar-hearse are legendary.
In a quest to define cult films, Greco quotes Christopher J. Olson, author of 100 Greatest Cult Films: “He points out that audiences for cult films often consist of people who consider themselves outsiders and reject prevailing cultural norms.” “Also, cult films should challenge mainstream sensibilities in some way and transcend typical ideas about good and bad taste.”
Harold and Maude was, in many ways, ahead of its time as one of “the earliest films to point its finger at war… to give us a full-on philosopher/environmentalist in the character of Maude” and to include “the concept of computer dating.”
To probe the history of the film even further, Greco includes an interview with actress Ellen Greer who played Harold’s third date; and a comical, fictitious interview with the deceased Dame Marjorie Chardin (aka Maude).
In the final, third chapter ‘Behind the Lens’ Greco completes her research with a scene by scene breakdown of the film and a bibliography.
Greco first saw Harold and Maude when she was in her twenties and a university student. Her love for the film has endured for half a century. Now a writer, editor, critic, literary activist and instructor, Greco acknowledges the film had a profound affect on her. “I can’t help but think the movie inspired me and helped me be brave enough to become the person I am today.”
978-1-77214-171-9
Jane Curry is head of the Joe Fortes branch of the Vancouver Public Library system.
A community organizer who helped create her local arts council, Greco has been active in the League of Poets and in the successful initiative to preserve Joy Kogawa House. Her work has appeared in several anthologies including Crossing Lines (2008), Listening With the Ear of the Heart (St. Peter's Press, 2003), Study in Grey: Women Writing about Depression (Rowan Books, 1999) and Friendly Erotica (Martin Park Publications, 1996).
Dainty but ambitious, Heidi Greco's tiny chapbook, A: The Amelia Poems (Abbotsford: Lipstick Press $8) attempts nothing less than to retell the life story of the missing aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who disappeared in 1937 while crossing the Pacific. Through Earhart's own furtive notes and poems, Greco incorporates speculation that Earhart was captured by the Japanese and likely imprisoned on Saipan--but not executed.
"Building on these P.O.W. theories," she writes, "some have suggested that the U.S. may have come to an agreement with Japan that secured Earhart's release." But Greco then deviates from the theory that Earhart was placed in protective custody, granting her a false identity which allowed her to live out her days in obscurity. A: The Amelia Poems imagines "that when eventually returned to the U.S., she was forced to spend the rest of her life in an asylum in New Jersey."
Heidi Greco was a co-recipient of the 2011 Ken Klosky Novella Contest for Shrinking Violets, a story about the bond between a single mother who works as a supermarket cashier and her son.
Greco's non-fiction Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude (Anvil 2020) revisits the 1971 film, Harold and Maude, an unusual May/December romance, and comments within the times the film was released.
CITY/TOWN: South Surrey, BC
DATE OF BIRTH: 1 April, 1947
ARRIVAL IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: 1970
EMPLOYMENT OTHER THAN WRITING: Freelance editing, occasionally as an instructor for the Creative Writing Branch of Surrey's Department of Continuing Education.
BOOKS:
Siren Tattoo: A Poetry Triptych (Anvil Press, 1994)
Rattlesnake Plantain (Anvil Press, 2002)
A: The Amelia Poems (Abbotsford: Lipstick Press $8) 978-0-9781204-2-9
Shrinking Violets (Quattro Books, 2011). Novella. $16.95 978-1926802-36-7
flightpaths: The Lost Journals of Amelia Earhart (Caitlin 2017) $18 978-1987915471
Practical Anxiety (Inanna Publications 2018) $18.95 978-1-77133-581-2
Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude (Anvil 2020) $18 978-1-77214-171-9
[BCBW 2020] "Poetry"
Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to
Harold and Maude by Heidi Greco (Anvil $18)
BCBW 2021 Review by Jane Curry
Is it possible to write a love letter to a movie? In her new book Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude, Heidi Greco sets out to share everything she knows about her favourite movie’s production, casting, characters and place in history. In the process she includes us in her own personal journey and 50-year relationship with her beloved film.
First screened in 1971, the cult classic Harold and Maude is a coming-of-age, oddball comedy directed by Hal Ashby. It was chosen in 1997 for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for cultural, historical or aesthetic significance. The plot focuses on a suicide-obsessed 20 year-old, Harold Parker Chasen (Bud Cort), and his friendship and eventual romantic relationship with a 79-year-old, Maude (Ruth Gordon) a holocaust survivor who teaches Harold about the importance of living life to its fullest.
Greco is a poet, and clever in the structure of her book. The first page is a framed, untitled spoiler alert to her audience that includes several disclaimers. She recommends that readers “take the time to see it [the film], before you begin reading.” (If you haven’t seen it yet, or want to watch it again, it’s on Kanopy via digital streaming through your local library.) Greco also warns that she is “not a film critic, or an academic who is trained in scholarly research” and takes responsibility for all her errors. Next up Greco provides a useful cast list of ‘The Players’ and ‘The Collaborators.’ These clues aid our navigation of her dense research.
The body of Greco’s writing takes on the form of a play, complete with three chapters (or acts), beginning with: ‘Coming Attractions,’ where she presents her rational for writing. “I suppose you might call it a special fondness—one that’s based in emotion but that also takes into account the many elements director Hal Ashby’s film manages to accomplish in such remarkable fashion. Impeccable casting, erasing the fourth wall to create that special sense of intimacy with an audience, and soaring above it all, the emotional effect achieved through the score and the soundtrack both of which are creations of the artist known then as Cat Stevens.”
In her second chapter ‘Feature Presentation’ Greco includes the bulk of her research and explores what makes Harold and Maude special. She compares the film to other films from the same period, as well as placing it in the context of the past century of cinema history. Her comparison with Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate, released four years earlier in 1967, is the most comprehensive. She examines the turbulent times of the late 1960s and early 1970s, concluding that Ashby’s anti-war messages and “embedded visual links to this era of such significant cultural change” are why this film continues to resonate today.
Greco also examines the innovative and meticulously detailed art direction, describing it as “letter-perfect.” Ashby relied on the talents of the film’s artistic director, Michael Haller to decorate the rail car where Maude lived. “The details for this task involved creating not only a memorabilia-filled, and homey environs, but Maude’s inventions had to be included—and to at least appear to function according to specs.” Maude’s ‘Odorifics’ fragrance device and Harold’s retrofitted Jaguar-hearse are legendary.
In a quest to define cult films, Greco quotes Christopher J. Olson, author of 100 Greatest Cult Films: “He points out that audiences for cult films often consist of people who consider themselves outsiders and reject prevailing cultural norms.” “Also, cult films should challenge mainstream sensibilities in some way and transcend typical ideas about good and bad taste.”
Harold and Maude was, in many ways, ahead of its time as one of “the earliest films to point its finger at war… to give us a full-on philosopher/environmentalist in the character of Maude” and to include “the concept of computer dating.”
To probe the history of the film even further, Greco includes an interview with actress Ellen Greer who played Harold’s third date; and a comical, fictitious interview with the deceased Dame Marjorie Chardin (aka Maude).
In the final, third chapter ‘Behind the Lens’ Greco completes her research with a scene by scene breakdown of the film and a bibliography.
Greco first saw Harold and Maude when she was in her twenties and a university student. Her love for the film has endured for half a century. Now a writer, editor, critic, literary activist and instructor, Greco acknowledges the film had a profound affect on her. “I can’t help but think the movie inspired me and helped me be brave enough to become the person I am today.”
978-1-77214-171-9
Jane Curry is head of the Joe Fortes branch of the Vancouver Public Library system.
