Words That Actually Matter (article)

Years ago, in a poetry workshop at UBC an established and esteemed Canadian writer (won’t say which one) questioned the wisdom behind my writing practice when I told her and my classmates I seldom saved copies of any of my poems up to that point. People in the room seemed incredulous (disbelieving). “Well, what on earth do you do with them?” - one of them interrogated. “I put them in letters.” “Letters?” “Yes.” “You don’t keep a copy for yourself?” “Maybe some of them do, but I don’t.” “Don’t you want to publish any of them?” “Only one person, anywhere has that poem - doesn't that make it special?” You could see wheels turning as the writer remarked, rather dismissively, “well, if you published any of them then at least you’d get to do things like come here and read for you guys.” I couldn’t argue with that rationale but it also occurs to me that in all truth I can’t remember any of that woman’s poetry, a Governor General’s Award winner, mind you, indicating that somebody, somewhere must like her work. I’ve always said that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure – which more or less means that you can’t account for taste and this includes areas such as that routinely referred to as art. But I've also asked: is it memorable?...will I or anyone else remember it? I can think of only 2 authors whose poetry I can read for an hour or longer in one sitting - e.e. cummings and Al Purdy - NOBODY else (not even my own stuff, haha!)...and I love poetry. Some collections of poetry? you need only open and turn to a page, any page and read a stanza or selection then turn to any other random page and read and you will think you are reading the same poem. Leaf through it and it is like reading the same poem over and over again - one...long...poem. One doesn't seem distinguishable from any other. Many are called, but few are chosen, haha! Entertainment is a different beast in my mind. I won’t get into providing examples of expression I feel are art and those which are entertainment, cause some…are both. At any rate, I listened to a fantastic interview with Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are. The writer remarked - “my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson and Mozart,” and I have long felt and said the same thing. The writers (though not always necessarily what might be considered the “great” writers) told and taught me most about what it meant...to be alive. As a passed-around Indian kid I never experienced an adult or elder figure who shared with me or provided me with context or background about the world I inhabited. It was only through literature (with a Big L), certainly not comic books, or children’s television or movies that I found the insight that would resonate with what I call my soul. It is not an exaggeration to say the great and lesser writers were more a mother, father or grandparent to me than any actual living human being until I was well into in my twenties (and people wonder why I'm such a strange guy haha!). But I also feel, about writing, and the words which have spoken to me and still exist to speak to me long, long after they were written – I believe in them with all my heart, for they have, as much as anything, changed me. These things are true. So, for me, to write is not an entertainment or a past time or a hobby - it is a compulsion. It is something I must do. If once, even twice in a life a writer can summon, then put down, words with any kind of depth he can go beyond entertaining, he can touch people and he can move them, and he can make them think and he can thereby enlighten them. For the first time on my blog I am including work by other artists.

Lorraine (I called her Lou) was 19, I was 23 or 24 or so when we knew each other at Lake Louise and worked together in an ancient, rustic, wooden hotel, high in the Rocky mountains in the early nineties. In our off-hours, she and I were in the habit of reading to each other until the one being read to fell asleep. There was a lot of napping going on up there and I’m sure it had nothing to do with how much pot was being used. Either way, I was given this poem during our time together and I kept it and it is very dear to me. I don’t claim it to be about or inspired by me - I don't wish to convince you of it's literary merits or impact - it is just something beautiful for me and I have held onto the words. Thanks Lou

I See You

You are my window to the world

Brush your finger upon my cheek

a touch that be so daisy petal soft

Our souls entwined, we conquer all mightier

sail the un-sailable seas

Unsure as a new born, my eyes remain closed

Life’s golden hand at love

an attempt to caress the sweetness

only to feel the rose’s prick

The blood trickles to drop free

you’ve pierced my naïve heart

To laugh and dance upon my remains still,

as I breathe your sweet breath

I lay with no heart

only to see you continue your journey in another’s hand

- Lorraine F.

Finally, I am posting this poem by Storm (my daughter) who was 7 when she composed this and it just may be my favorite poem…period. Pardon me if I don’t mistake this for evidence of possession of not only an abstract thought process, but an elegant one…

My Special Place

I have a special place

It is quiet as a snake

It is quiet as snow falling

It is so quiet I can hear the sound of wind going by

It is so quiet I can hear the butterflies flying by me

I have a special place -

it is a lake and lots of other things

- Storm Standing-On-The-Road

Like Maurice Sendak said: art has always been my salvation.

©2011 Champsteen Publishing

BEING NATIVE 101

Today’s East Side Smudge goes down and for the most impoverished postal code in Canada (statistically, speaking) it is clearly needed. Elsewhere on this blog I’ve written about institutional and systemic failure to address some basic issues of health and safety for the most vulnerable people. And though I may have implied it throughout my blog if not stated it outright - the healing of communities and nations begins here (taps chest)…

Basic universal fact about Indians: Indians pray.

If you are an Indian, 1st Nations, Indigenous, Native, Aboriginal (or WHATEVER) and are reading this and are not one in the regular habit of praying, my question is: what do YOU know that all your relatives and ancestors before you didn’t? I encounter a lot of Indians these days that seem to be too cool for school and get visibly skittish when it comes to acknowledging their "relationship" with Creator (insert lol here), that is, praying. How did it get like this? When did praying become something unseemly or embarrassing for us Indigenous types?

At ceremonies, events and gatherings I hear all the time, we pray for the ones to come and acknowledge those who came before us. Since becoming a father to 2 girls (now 11 and 14), I have come to experience a more profound sense of connection to people from the past (that I never met). I unabashedly pray for my kids (and their kids not born yet) and there is no doubt in my mind as I type this that people well before my time prayed for me. This is partly how it works being an Indian…it’s my part in what I call a sacred duty - All these things are real to me! - Perhaps a simpler way is to say it matters to me to pray and to try and put good energy out in the universe.

I may have never met you (if you are reading here for the first time) but if you are of aboriginal ancestry I am telling you, without question - you come from a long, long line of powerful, formidable, accomplished and deeply spiritual people who ALL prayed. My theory is that it is only due to a wide array of unique, historical circumstances that praying seems currently to have become a novelty among my generation and, for increasingly obvious reasons for the generation before ours, it is now a complicated if not painful subject. But our ancestral ties, our time on this earth, our unique vision of ourselves and our place in the universe are thousands of years in the making and cannot be undone or destroyed by force, plague or policy, it’s all been tried.

I have yet to visit any 1st Nations community where prayer wasn’t an active part in daily lives of those in pursuit of nothing more complicated or easily attainable than balance. This daily pursuit/practice or meditation if you like, has profound implications and potential for transformation and creative possibility. The solutions to our challenges require creative thinking to bring about change. Look to the people you admire, I am willing to bet that most if not all these are people engaged in frequent spiritual practice of one sort or another (cause I know you admire the admirable and not the shallow, superficial types, this is also part of my basic premise, lol).

We as a people have demonstrated consistently (though pessimists will say otherwise) a high capacity to deal with adversity, upheaval, trauma and grief. The evidence is…we are still here. But as I head down to Main and Hastings and the community smudge today I am more focused on the untapped reserves in our capacities for kindness, empathy, compassion, gratitude and our capacity for love. It is the VALUES which make us who we are from day to day. As you read this, YOU are an answered prayer - the fact that you live and breathe – this is not rhetorical. I am telling you: your people before you…prayed…for YOU…think about it.

So - your life-long question at the school of hard knocks or at Being an Indian 101:

Who are you and what do you stand for?

© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Watershed (song)

words and music: larry nicholson


I come from the heartland of peaceful hills
I’ve seen the kindness of love and the space it fills
I know no mother, no father mine to see
but everything I am is everything they’ll be
on painted ponies I named each road
the good will of strangers carried my load
I’ve tasted honey, I’ve tasted wine
I hold the sweet holy memory of her lips on mine
and I’ve known freedom…yes, I recall

inside the empire of broken dreams
cascading temples of gold where fortune streams
down darkened alleys are the ones who pay
for all this wreckage, these midnight ways
the ones grown lonely in the howlin’ wind
who mark the cost in dust in everything we’ve been
can love turn back time - will it pay the bills
or stop a bullet that tears through the night so still?
I’ve been a witness…yes I recall

saved all the letters you wrote about snow
and all the miles in between that remind me of home
out of the ashes, the watershed
a distant memory of names and of times we bled
speak to me softly on this moonless night
where faith can’t be seen and there’s no starlight
though still the waters must bring the rain
to hear a voice beside me in the darkness say
I’m too a witness…yes, I recall...
and I remember…yes, I recall…


©2011 Champsteen Publishing

...One Good Memory...

Neskie Manuel

..."if only one good memory is left in our hearts - I will meet you there" - (from my poem MAGPIE)

…Was recently in Ottawa and unable to attend the funeral of the late Neskie Manuel whom I had come know a little over the past couple years. Neskie is the son of Secwepemc (Shuswap) activist Art Manuel and grandson of late indigenous rights activist, George Manuel and nephew of the late healer and writer, Vera Manuel. Anyone not familiar with these names should brush up on their Indian history and become aware of the relentless commitment this family has demonstrated to their community, their nation and to all indigenous people - all Indians (at least in the land referred to as Canada) owe a debt of gratitude to these people.

It would be inaccurate to say Neskie and I were close friends, but as mentioned, I did spend some time with him the last couple years having visited his reserve and the surrounding area dozens of times. We took a road trip together to Prince George early last year and he stayed with me at my apartment in the city during his involvement at a conference there. Neskie was one of those people I don’t think you could help but like. He was young (30), handsome, soft-spoken, bright-minded, dignified and exemplified in every real way the attributes of leadership that seem naturally to descend upon certain people and who seem to inhabit this aura effortlessly. But like others in his family, Neskie’s understood role as a leader wasn’t assumed by birthright and lineage to other activists, it was actively demonstrated day in day out. Neskie was, among other things, an elected councilor for Neskonlith Band, a tireless advocate for preservation of the Secwepemc language, an open source computer guy (which means NOT using Microsoft or other corporate software or operating systems), a mobile radio broadcaster (a so-called pirate radio operator after oppression by the CRTC), a filmmaker who seemed to have natural skills at all communications technology - a helicopter mechanic, for pete’s sake! (this tutelage begun during his service in the Navy as a “younger” man!). It’s a little hard to comprehend how much experience some people seem to be able to cram into a day, a year…a life. I dug Neskie’s sense of humor and had to laugh when following a couple hours I did on-air on his radio set-up, I asked if he had listened to my program (I wanted his approval, you see), to which he responded, dryly – "ummm…yes…I did get to experience your witty banter". It cracked me up and I think we were pals.

I recall when, within 2 minutes of being introduced to his mother, I was seated at her kitchen table early one Sunday, eating pancakes with a bunch of the Manuels as though they had known me for years. Days later I was to be present at a birthday party for one of Neskie’s nieces and watched how generous and unabashedly affectionate the family was toward each other from top to bottom. For a person like me, being there (a frequent theme of this blog) was a gift and I was touched when, before we ate, Neskie offered a blessing and said a few words in the Secwepemc language. Those I admire most (of any background) all seem to share and exhibit in an almost imperceptibly subtle way the same type of unassuming humility, selflessness and generosity of spirit. In the company of people like this you feel safe and somehow…important.

I cannot speak or know of the torments, passions or forces which lured Neskie away from beside a campfire at a traditional family campsite in the back country (early in the AM on Mother’s Day this year) and then delivered him to the nearby river where he was found downstream some weeks later after an exhaustive search. Nor is it my intention to speak of loss or unrealized aspirations, for Neskie surely experienced and gave far more in his brief 30 years than many are able to in a much longer lifetime.

Perhaps the best thing I can say is that sometimes you wish only for a little more time with some people and maybe that I am somehow…changed…and better for briefly knowing Neskie and his people.

Send us your soft power, Neskie.

All my relations.



© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

...Now THAT's What I'm Talkin About...(article)

*update (added April 25, 2011)

Film Screening: Aakideh
Saturday, April 16, 1 pm & Tuesday, April 26, 7 pm
‘Aakideh’ is an Ojibwe word meaning brave or brave-hearted. Artist Carl Beam earned a reputation for being fearless, visionary and ultimately, unforgettable. From his early years growing up on Manitoulin Island to his turbulent years spent at a residential school, this documentary explores how these early experiences not only impacted Beam’s life but also his art. Location: Museum of Anthropology, Screening time: 65 minutes.



Only in a world this cool could a Cree guy (me), on Coast Salish territory (Vancouver) visit the Museum of Anthropology to learn about the life and work of an Ojibway/Anishnabe (Carl Beam) artist from a Mohawk man (Greg Hill). In a world where many people (it seems) prefer to think of Indian art (and indeed, Indians) as relics, artifacts or something belonging to the past, last night was the perfect example of how a person and their work can transcend time and space. This in my mind is one of the things good art is supposed to do. Carl Beam’s vibrant display of painting, collaged images and text, not to mention his work in other mediums including architecture, installation, pottery, broadcasting and curriculum development and the places he studied and lived the and choices he made, all seem to depict a LIFE that IS art. And though the artist has now passed from this world his work continues to resonate and speak for itself which is another item of criteria that I think validates it. His work is also a clear example of culture that is alive and vibrant and is completely appropriate in a contemporary context. But the work and many of the things Carl Beam did outside of the studio or art gallery deeply reflect his roots and values (which is key) as an Anishnabe person. Only an Anishnabe person could have created this work and only Carl Beam could have created it in this fashion - it is completely original and you will experience nothing like it any other place or at any other time. Dig it while you can.


©2011 Champsteen Publishing

She...(poem)...

 

taste water,

autumn and the best mentioned of her –

be it the truth or some other way of saying

that my mother’s name is Edna

she is long gone yet has given me everything

build stories,

fire and kinship –

calmly speak so there is no mistaking

that my sister’s name is Ruby

she, like all my sisters, shares with me

every instance of this beautiful torment

sit silent,

fasting and on a hill –

breathe life then summon gentle words

because my grandmother’s name is Betsy

and remember that any place you ever go,

she has been there first

get posies,

foxtail and dandelion root –

each a medicine and each her favorite

tell everyone you meet, remember this:

my youngest daughter’s name is Grace

she too is woman and she gives me everything

© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Conversation on Poetry (interview)

*update (added March 13) - the page totals referred to in this clip include ALL writing, ALL genres; professional, academic and otherwise, NOT simply 1600 pages of poetry as may seem to be implied...which isn't really THAT many pages considering a novelist writing a book per year (or every other) may easily have completed well over 2000-3000 pages (or more) since 1998...still, i think of it as an accomplishment...



met the interviewer (Kathleen Imbert) at a book launch/reading (Salish Seas Anthology) i hosted - she was interested in my writing experience in poetry as a subject applied to her current training in broadcasting - a fascinating 1st Nations woman, from Wikwemikong Un-ceded 1st Nation in Ontario, owns and operates an art gallery in France and has lived in Aix en Provence these past 30 years - the entire exchange demonstrates one of the main ideas i had when i began this blog - our people networking, collaborating and utilizing various media and their creativity to tell stories...


*(who in the !@#$% left the Starbuck's cup in the shot?!?)




© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

Yellowbird Eulogy (or A Personal Cree Love Song for My Father)...poem

Yellowbird Eulogy (or A Personal Cree Love Song For My Father)

It is a breathless wind that sighs this morning
over this hard land, this country
I am here to speak of him
as is my right…as he is no more

I want to speak of love,
love mean
love lost, stolen and misplaced
and maybe of love enduring

Words have always been my medicine
good and bad
in my youth I did not believe in bad medicine
I took for granted the idea that one merely prayed
and the world was yours
but the with the passing of so many days and relations
I am older and so are those dreams

Father, when they put you in the ground
not all your children came and only your last wife
a solemn distance was kept between those present
out of respect or grief and those who came for closure

“I gave you everything – ” you once said
“all that I had”
nothing could have been more true

this cannot be explained to my friend and sister Ruby
a woman six month older than I
our mothers with different names
he is gone, I say
but for her, nothing has changed

and what about Tony?
my oldest brother from another mother
he slaps his knee and cackles
and tells of a flea-bitten, broken down quarter horse
my father gave to him for his son
a horse Tony named Glue
“the old man,” he would chuckle,
“still waiting for the buffalo to come to back”

Where are you now Mitchell?
a brother from yet another mother
who, before he was killed, told my father,
“if I didn’t love you I’d have killed you a long time ago
you son of a bitch!”
with me
my brother remains that tiger, tiger burning bright

He did not give me ponies, however
but I know traveling vast distances
on the power of 350 horses
taming a 1975 two-door Chevrolet
my own fire engine red convertible pony
40 miles to the gallon
a steel-wheeled faithful steed if ever there was one
mine is a death race with the past
I survey the human wreckage all around me
and convince myself that I am winning

I kept the fire that final night we watched over you, dad
smoke rose from what I had built
wood burned and carried my fingerprints
in wisps to the ages

they tell me I am much like you
prone to vanishing for days
and, at times, for years
for you it was into the army
a place you would never talk about
though when you came out, they said,
you were never the same -
long before that, you disappeared to residential school
a euphemism for labor camp in our country
a place that saw you and other Indian children
labor, work and grind away
to refine their lumber, their leather, their tin
and their words
so you spoke in two tongues
never fluent in one
not much good at the other
a man for whom words simply got in the way

I too can disappear – it’s easy
I hitch-hike and sing for my supper
and am usually in any place but where I want to be
I also carry a restless heart
and little patience for fools
too proud to admit that I am among the biggest fools there are

It’s true I don’t remember everything
but about him I will say
he did give me things...
like kisses, guitars, his eyes and lessons
on how not to treat our mothers
I learned these things well
I am nothing if not a good student

Scene:
Christmas 1973
A shabby cowtown 2nd story walk-up
Four little Indians cower and watch as a whiskey-fueled battle rages
It’s Indian against Indian
in this fight we hope she wins

(fast forward)

Scene:
Christmas 1999
Just outside the reservation in a dimly lit trailer shack
over Wild Turkey a more subtle clash commences
“how come you don’t speak better Cree?”
“how come none of your other kids visit you...dad?”
It’s still Indian against Indian
and in this fight nobody wins

And didn’t we both love white women, dad?
didn’t we both learn our lessons well?
didn’t we both wind up broken men?
your arm and skull to her racist father and brother
and much later, my heart to another's indifference -
now, even I know that you cannot cross the streams

Father you have left me in a strange time
where there is no room for men and women in the bottom line
where the only person who cares
less about your problems...is everybody
Would it please or disappoint you to know that I am educated?
whatever that means and for what it’s worth

We are Indians you and I, aren’t we?
we do not fight and die for our right to cast our vote
we are born with that right
we fight and die to feed our children...and our souls

and we dance –
I think of you as a grass dancer
laying it out for all those that followed
your death giving us a place to meet one last time
If anything I am a ghost-dancer
summoning you and everyone I can think of
dancing as fast as I can
hoping against hope that one day I may see you again
and none of us will ever know any kind of hunger again

Uncle Bob once said:
if you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise,
just remind me and I’ll show you the scars

well I wear the scars of this love
I carry them like a sacred pipe handed down
the scars are mine and no one need understand them
I too know what it is love something or someone
that you can’t even stand

there it is again...that word
Love
I am hanging on to it
It is all I have and all I have to give
It is my reward and my punishment
and the mightiest weapon there is against forgetting

So long Apps…father
I may see you again at the Wrecking Ball Tavern, in Hell,
Where they’ll play country songs about
faster horses
younger women
older whiskey...and more money

or maybe,
after time out in the happy hunting ground
I’ll see you at the Howard Buffalo Memorial Rec Center
we’ll meet inside the eternal Round dance
and we’ll meet there as young men
in a place of sacred things
where only our names are remembered
and there is no word in our language for redemption

ekosi


© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

My Amelinda...(song)

words and music: larry nicholson


I lost my way but not my power
getting younger by the hour
she comes to me at night in my music and poetry

it’ s hard to fly when you’re born to run
when you’re wings get too close to the sun
we fall and we fall and get caught in this mystery

are you wicked, are you weary in your own love? -
does it bind you, do you find it sets you free?

the hard times come and go
like a shadow, like going home
to Amelinda

how does an Indian come so far?
this life I’ve built’s a house of cards
this port town’s full of road men and actors and gypsies and me

I still believe, I just don’t know
sometimes a black bird’s just a crow
but as I walked away I could swear he was winking at me

is the wilderness in your heart your own making -
did you get love by bringing love to its knees?

it’s a long road through this life
make my way to the distant sight of
my Amelinda

the only darkness in the world is not knowing
the only fear are the things you cannot see

I still love things hard to hold
like snow falling in quiet cold
like Amelinda

in my dreams and my prayers
I light candles, I climb the stairs
to Amelinda…


© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

For What It's Worth...(20th Annual Missing & Murdered Women's Memorial March)...editorial

2010 Women's March


the 20th Annual Missing Woman’s March (in East Vancouver) is many things to many people; a call for justice, a call for peace, a time to reflect or to grieve or a fleeting moment to pray that no other mother, daughter, sister, niece, aunty ever become one taken as so many have been before. I go simply to honor the ones lost and to support their families with my presence. At the end of the day I believe that each other are all we have. I feel that relatives and people I never met have prayed for me in the same way that I pray for the ones to come after me. It is a deeply held conviction that gets stronger with me as I get older. Time and experience shows there is little consolation or comfort to be found in institutions or society (such as it is) in general. If I, as a native person, cannot be counted on to provide (at a minimum) moral support, how can I expect anything from anyone else? One need only remember how last year the city of Vancouver pressured organizers of the march to postpone the event until after the Olympic party was over. It may have seemed to be something of a downer for all those more keyed on having a good time. Fortunately, the people who knew better did better and the march took place on Valentine’s Day just as it will this year. In my mind, the power in ceremony is derived from the presence and common purpose of those in attendance…it is about being there. Down here, everybody knows everybody it seems and identifying yourself as a member of a community needs to be exemplified in some active fashion. Politics and rhetoric will always find a platform at the periphery of these things but the love and spirit of the people who have lost someone to an angry and insatiable culture can’t be diminished. If nothing else, today’s march may simply be a call for grace…


© 2011 Champsteen Publishing

a little ditty for some friends...

this song is found earlier on this blog but i changed the key and taped this for a couple of friends in cowtown, celebrating the big 4-0...

Okay, So I CAN'T Sing...(article)

that's not the point...i call myself an artist, as such it's crucial to seek, find and experience the creative process such as i define it. For some, morning pages or keeping a journal...for others different activities do the trick. In my mind it is simply an active way of manifesting various types of creativity that interest me. ALSO, it seems to open up space for more or other kinds of original work.

On another note a friend has opened a personal Youtube page with what i would describe as less-than gripping material on it – a collection of simple videos he shot and posted that have garnered a staggering 2.8 million hits/views...UNBELIEVABLE!!!! - that is until you consider that little teenager justin beiber has over a billion views or hits i read recently...i've never believed more is better (necessarily) or that quantity means quality, it simply means people have the means to access disposable media on a scale that dwarfs anything we knew before. My friend has some degree of literacy and better than moderate awareness of computers and how the Internet works. He is able to assign the proper tag words/posting options/settings/links to other pages so that virtually any search one carries out on the Internet will sooner than later point you to HIS page even if you are looking for something completely unrelated to his page or material located therein. It is simply good manipulation of this form of media. It's small wonder that the corporate hordes are looking for every conceivable way of monetizing your use of the Internet, that is, making money off of what you choose to look at on the Internet. I am providing Free-Blogger with a very small stream of advertising by placing my material here and having (mostly) people I know visit, but the majority of the people coming here are pals of mine who are simply curious and i have at present no strategy for or interest in pulling in more readers/viewers...well...perhaps i could at least post something remotely interesting.

*(added Jan 17th, 2011) according to Pingdom, an Internet tracking service, here are some mind-boggling stats): there are presently 1.97 billion Internet users - there are approximately 294 billion e-mails sent per day (89% are spam) - there 152 million Blogs, if "...bottom lines and wet noodles..." can be considered completely average, then there are roughly 76 million blogs out there that you would probably find MORE interesting than this one...(better get started, i'll wait here)...

on the Internet you have the potential to get an artist's best (and worst) stuff

as for songwriting, it's one of the greatest creative challenges there is for me. i'll always be an aspiring songwriter and guitar player...it's one of creator's ways of allowing me to speak to the universe. There's at least a couple songs i'm proud of so i'll keep right on working on them...it's good for the soul...


copyright 2011 Champsteen Publishing