Image courtesy of A Poke in the I found via Google search.
Thanks to the good people at the London Public Library, Brick Books & Poetry London, my late mother’s ace poem Balloon is going up on a London billboard. Yay.
Balloon is a miraculous work of words & shape. Balloon is from Mom’s 1965′s Lozenges. It also appeared in a A Poke in the I: A collection of concrete poems.
The billboard will be in the Wortley Rd. -Stanley area & be up & at em for Poetry Month. The version will be the Lozenges one, I believe, lovingly typeset by my late father as he helped with Mom’s collection subtitled Poems in the shapes of things (if memory serves).
Here is a note from Carolyn Doyle, the Landon branch librarian who was a great friend — like so many others involved in this project — to Mom. Thank you.
As big as ball, as round as sun, says Mom’s Balloon poem. That is how I feel now.
Here is some of Carolyn’s note about the billboard project:
I am so happy that you had a chance to mention the idea of this project to Colleen after we spoke at Landon in January.
We would like to plan a Balloon billboard launch for Sat April 14 at 3pm in front of the billboard and wondered if that time and date was a good one for you and your family. The billboard is actually scheduled to go up sometime during the week of March 26 but thought that we would have a little party there mid-month….lemonade, cookies, balloons, a short reading of some of Colleen’s work. We would love your participation and any input into this gathering.
The library is also printing postcards of “Balloon” to hand out during April (National Poetry Month) with the details of this party on the reverse side.
We are working hard to make this a simple and interesting celebration that I hope would be fitting and pleasing to Colleen.
Thanks for your support, James.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Carolyn
Categories: General
London
What is Poetry Month ? Who’s eligible to be read publicly by
celebs or are we supposed to have Happenings or Occupations?
Must the poems be the work of others, or can we come up
with our own?
A lovely tribute to a wonderful poet, and such an inspiring message to have on a billboard in LondonOnt!
JBNBlog will look to the muses on this one . . . Poetry Month, what is it? how to celebrate? Answers from any & all welcomed.
I’ll be walking down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in my 65+ hand
and my dog Patience at my side.
In view of the distressing news from Behghazi re young airman’s CWGC
grave attacked, find myself quoting quietly the 1940 poem of RCAF’s
John Gillespie Magee, lost over England the following year. ‘High Flight’
Like other great poems, may it bring solace & healing with its words.
No connection to us, sorry if I misled you. Just following up on a family
poem in the news coverage re lost the airmen whose gravestone was
destroyed by Libyian hooligans.
Doesn’t the City’s WWII ‘Books of Remembrance’ brochure mention a
local airman’s poem ?
No more poetic offerings to your blog in this suposedly Creative City to
helo build enthusiasm for National Poetry Month to assist the Library – and in
tribute to a local favourite your mother, now a Billboard illustrator?
Humph.
My celebration of Poetry Month will include visits to The Cheese Poet at the Western Fair Farmer’s Market.
James – Great little anecdote about Mrs Reaney Sr. in today’s the Globe
and Mail on the Obit page “I remember” feature.
Ms Linden – What, pray is the Cheese Poet?
-Has having a mental library of poetry been drowned out in recent
years by technology that feeds entertainment into ears and then into
empty brains ?
Sr. not St.
JBNBlog has made the change . . . but likes Sr. not St. as a sound poem or mantra in the making, too.