~ Ted Plantos Dedication ~
Awards
Ted Plantos
Dedication
THE LIST
IS LONG, THE MEMORY
STRONG, READ ON!
and don't forget to visit the:
Hugh
Garner People's Prose Award!
My farewell for Ted by: Bunny Iskov I feel very lucky to have
known Ted Plantos. He was my friend and he was my mentor. Ted's
passion for writing and publishing was a gift he shared with everyone
he knew. Not only did Ted have his own wonderful books published,
he also helped to promote and publish other writers, especially
new poets. He developed and created the People's Poetry Letter,
which encompassed a readership world-wide. He single-handedly
instrumented and designed the Literary Network News - an on-line
e-zine. And on top of that, he introduced poets to other poets
through The Top Ten Poetry Book List. Writers could log on to
Ted's website and discover poets and poetry. His hard work and
devotion to the spoken word earned him the distinction of Life
Membership with The Ontario Poetry Society.
When I told Ted that I wanted him to be TOPS first Life Member, he said, "Bunny, how do you expect to make any money if you make everyone a Life Member?" Ted was the catalyst to my own personal achievements in poetry. The last thing he wrote for me, was the introduction for my first full collection of poems, being published later this year by Snowapple Press. Ted's pursuit of literary perfection sometimes cut him off from his colleagues and friends. But when he wasn't in his "hermit crab" state, he was a warm and caring individual who would spend hours on the phone discussing everything from food preparation to politics. There is, and always will be, a huge gap in the literary world and in my world. His gentleness, his kindness, his enthusiasm, his sense of humour and his wit and intelligence will be sorely missed. The Ontario Poetry Society, in recognition of Ted's life work and accomplishments, has established The Ted Plantos Memorial Seed Money Fund. This new program will enable individuals and small groups to apply for a nominal fee, in order to promote Canadian poets - to be heard and to be read. |
Ted's
Long Waking
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Lament for a Toronto poet.
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poem for ted"Dan Johnson" as i walk down Sherbourne St. |
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The Two-Winter Year
(for Ted Plantos, 1943-2001) by: John B. Lee though I have mostly lived in the world one winter at a time I lost a little of the summer in the lower latitudes of Africa seeking in the dead-grass season those less-of-the-light dog days when i was a serious distance from home too far away to shout the snow the way a vacant barn might shout white-minded words when the weather's real with non-ethereal things and the yard is sacralizing itself like altar linen washed when the bishop visits his oaken chair. And what will I make of the many deaths I have known since August caught me out of temper with familiar times? What will I make of heaven's stellar strangeness lost under that ancient navigator's cross with too many friends gone down to the grave since then, where the wet clay slumps on the spade and is heavier for that water-lined and rain-worried monument. I am thinking how as a boy on the farm I dug till sorrow welled and leaked and ankled me like a sweat mark on my boots and stones ground against steel refusing a walk-down and skidding the sharp-faced skill so the shovel's handle shocked me and I stood a little taller, all my weight too light to purchase a further inch while the root-work of a thirsty field consoled my shoulder and my eyes sank below the sod in the shadow's labour and the hill beside the hole grew restless waiting to receive its death and skidded earth enough to seed a single wheat. I am in particular thinking how the double winter bestoned so many of our poets we have lived a book-wealthy spring since then though I have felt the silent darkness as a doctor does listening for the hideous absence of breath so he might declare a widow's solitude an orphan's loss a lonesome friendlessness to the approximating clock of a quiet dusk and wordless moon. |
| Ted Goes Home (In Memoriam) by: Sheila Hyland Ted was Watching The Insect Picnic When the tide came in |
| Remembering Ted Plantos by Terry Barker TED PLANTOS: PEOPLE'S POET, CHRISTIAN MYSTIC AND CRITIC OF MODERNITY People's poetry and the Toronto and Canadian literary scenes have recently lost a very good friend, strong ally, and largely unsung hero - lifelong poet, poetry impresario, editor, publisher, mentor, and colourful man of letters about town, Ted Plantos. Ted, who dies Feb. 20, 2001 after a brief illness, was a founding member of, and tireless organizer for, the Canadian Poetry Association, recently serving as its President. He also co-founded, and largely ran, People's Poetry Letter and founded and edited The Literary Network News, an on-line international publication for writers. Recently, too, he was closely associated with the work and activities of the Art Bar Poetry Reading Series and The Ontario Poetry Society. Ted had been equally busy with poetry and poetics in previous years. In 1986 he founded te still-continuing annual Milton Acorn Memorial People's Poetry Award (now called the Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry), and before that he had been the co-founder of Poetry Canada Review and the founding publisher and editor of Cross-Canada Writer's Quarterly which flourished for over a decade. Ted's most successful book-publishing venture was as associate (with Milton Acorn , Robin Mathews, and others) in Steel Rail Educational Publishing, the Left Nationalist successor organization to the Canadian Liberation Movement, which produced poetry, historical studies, and books on Canadian culture and politics, and inspired a small political party, the National Party, which actually ran candidates in Toronto and Ottawa in a federal election. At the back of all this, was Ted's decades-long promotion and management of the Toronto Public Libraries' Reading Series, as an outgrowth of this youthful enthusiasm for poetry's oral expression at the Parliament Street Branch. Over the years, the TPL Reading Series put him in touch with virtually every poet (and poetaster) who lived in Toronto or visited the city, many of whom have gone on to prominence. Ted wrote and published eleven books of poetry, a children's book, a collection of short stories, and numerous essays, reviews, and editorials (as well as caring for a house and family in partnership with his wife May). It will be as a People's Poet par excellence that Ted will be primarily remembered. (From Beyond Bethune, Synaxis Press, Dewdney, B.C., 2006 174pp, $30 I.S.B.N. 919-67246-9) If you want to buy the book, it is available in Toronto at Humber College Bookstore, Lakeshore Campus, 3199 Lakeshore Blvd. West at 23rd St., Longbranch, Etobicoke, Toronto Call 416-675-6622 Ext. 3236 for hours. Or you can e-mail the publisher at synaxis@orthodoxcanada.org. |
| I
think Ted should be widely remembered and honoured. After all, Ted:
1. Ran the Toronto Public Libraries¹ reading series at the House on Gerrard for eight years (1970 - Œ77). Many of his featured readers were leading People¹s Poets. 2. Led People¹s Poetry workshops (weekly) for Toronto Public Libraries at the House on Gerrard (1970 - Œ77). 3. Co-founded and ran Old Nun Publications (1972 - Œ75). Published People¹s Poetry books/chapbooks as well as Old Nun Magazine. 4. Edited and published Cross-Canada Writers¹ Magazine (was Quarterly) from 1978 - ? (I think, but am not sure, 1991). 5. Edited and published Poems for Sale in the Street (Steel Rail, 1979), an anthology of People¹s Poetry. 6. Helped found the Canadian Poetry Association (later an officer of same) in January 1985. Although the CPA is open to every sort of poet, ALL of its founding members were People¹s Poets or had come out of that literary movement. 7. Established and ran the Milton Acorn Memorial People¹s Poetry Award (1987 - present). 8. Edited and published People¹s Poetry Letter (1993 - present). 9. Established and ran the People¹s Poem Contest and the People¹s Political Poem Contest in conjunction with People¹s Poetry Letter. 10. Edited Not to Rest in Silence (UnMon America, 1996), a chapbook of People¹s Poetry. 11. Befriended Milton Acorn, who often needed befriending. So Ted started out as a poetry activist in 1970. Three entire decades of hard work for poetry and for his fellow poets! No one did more. Fraternally, . . . James Mekler & Deahl, Publishers james@meklerdeahl.com http://www.meklerdeahl.com And a further thanks to all who participated in the Tribute Reading: Dear Poets, Thank you for helping make the Ted Plantos Celebration a success. I spoke to May afterwards and she was pleased. And I am sure that Ted was pleased, too. Of course he was no doubt a tad embarrassed. Ted was always much better at promoting the writings of others; not so good at putting himself forward. But he will simply have to get used to folks praising him and his poetry and his fiction. Ted was not just a Toronto writer 100 percent, he was a Cabbagetown writer. In a way Ted was like Raymond Sourter, whose work he admired. Ray is a Toronto poet 100 percent, but his turf is Bloor West Village, not Cabbagetown. In my view, if there were ever to be an anthology of poetry for and about Toronto, Ray and Ted would be its stars. It is therefore sad that not one bookshop in Toronto has a single copy of any of Ted¹s books on its shelves. (Actually, they do not have any of mine, either, but I never did for Toronto what Ted did.) And although Ted wrote so many truly fine poems - several being read at the library yesterday - his poetry is in none of the standard anthologies used in our schools, colleges, and universities. These anthologies, so widely read by students of CanLit, include books published by Oxford, Penguin, McClelland & Stewart, General/Stoddart, Academic Press, Gage, Doubelday Canada, and Longman. The truth is that only three anthologies - that¹s right, only three - included poems by Ted. The one I published, Mix Six, five o¹clock shadows, published by Letters Bookshop, and We Stand on Guard, Poems and Songs of Canadians in Battle. Mix Six is, of course, still in print, but I do not know about the other two. One could, in fact, get an honours degree in creative writing from York University and never hear the name of Ted Plantos. I feel that we poets who so admire and value Ted¹s writing should work to place his poetry before the public. If we fail to keep his work alive, no one else will. On behalf of May, who, as you may be aware, is a rather shy woman, I thank you for helping celebrate an amazing man and an amazing writer. Fraternally, . . . James james@meklerdeahl.com - http://www.meklerdeahl.com |
| For Ted - George Swede (First Light, First Shadows, Snapshot Press, 2006)
Burial of a friend— |