E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Robert Allen , the major Canadian poet, pictured, died a year ago, today. He is much missed, and loved. I fondly recall us walking through Soho, in 2005, and stopping to have a beer in a dive. We spoke of poetry, love, and science (a love of his). At the time, I hardly sensed how little time he had. Rob being Rob, he was modest in talking of his own living, as well as dying, and kept that mainly to himself. His extravagant verbal genius was then somewhat paradoxically related to his personal modesty, and perhaps made him less famous than he might have been - he rarely banged his own drum or tooted his own horn - instead advising, encouraging, mentoring, and editing, others. More and more it seems likely he is one of the significant Canadian writers of the last few decades, and certainly from Quebec.

Rob(ert) Allen, my dear friend, mentor and fellow Montreal writer, was, as I have said elsewhere, one of the great Canadian writers of our time. He was not as well known as Atwood or Carson, but his poetry stands comparison; and his prose is equally brilliant. I am certain that his work will enter the Canadian canon within the next decade, as its full range is reckoned. In terms of wit, erudition, and elegance, he had few peers. His writing belongs on the same shelf as The Third Policeman or Aberation of Starlight , or Gravity's Rainbow . Today, Canada's national newspaper of note has run an obituary that gives some sense of the man we love and miss still. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070208.OBALLEN08/TPStory/Obituaries

from Thirty-Eight Sonnets from Jimmie Walker Swamp 1 The declined summer seemed to call for white wine, then the sun sank and I was lost in time. Night takes half my hours, lately, and the reading light burns the page until I am insensible. What seemed light is dark, the dark a riot of burning. The ferris wheel in town blares its incandescence; the stage show can be heard for two kilometres. I can't know much of the world beyond. Land stretches to the limits of morning, much as, when I was a child, the map went to the edge, then kept going, to the wild, unlettered future, as shadowed as the past. Half my life has been knowing the dark earth of here, and not the promised secrets of the universe. I have it all here in my head. I don't know what it's worth. poem by Robert Allen (pictured above) first published in Standing Wave (Signal Editions, 2005) http://www.vehiculepress.com/robert_allen.html

One of Canada's greatest contemporary writers, Quebec-based, Bristol-born Robert Allen , has died suddenly of cancer, peacefully, at Jimmie Walker Swamp (his home in the Eastern Townships) with many who loved him at his side. Rob Allen (pictured) was many things - cult novelist with a linguistic turn that was Joycean in its word-play, but Nabokovian in its themes ( Napoleon's Retreat ); lyric poet with many collections (such as Wintergarden and Ricky Ricardo Suites ) who wrote both of nature and zany pop culture icons with equal brilliance; and, throughout his career, a poetic natural scientist, who, encouraged by his teacher A.R. Ammons at Cornell, in the '60s, began possibly his greatest work, The Encantadas - a long poem inspired by Darwin and Melville , two of his heroes. This last poem, which I think is one of the finest ever produced in Canada, and certainly in the last 40 years, was recently republished in a beautiful new edition by Conundrum press. Rob Allen was al...

Canada's most illustrious literary prizes are said to be the Governor General's (GGs). This year the poetry list features a few very good collections, including Ken Babstock's Air Stream Land Yacht , which I reviewed for the Globe and Mail this summer. In the review I suggested it was one of, if not the, best books written by a member of this generation of younger Canadian poets. Glad to see the GG jury agreeing with me. Sadly, the best book of poetry published this year by an older Canadian poet, The Encantadas , by Robert Allen, was not selected. Allen is one of Anglo-Quebec's greatest writers of the 20th century - as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, and poet his literary contribution to Montreal culture over the last 40 years has been nearly unparalleled, and, when one stops to consider his additional work as creative writing teacher, as editor of Matrix, as series editor for DC Books and as a mentor to several generations of poets that includes Stone, Cam...