The series launches
at the Flin Flon Public Library on April 28, 7 pm, with a dynamic visiting
author known for his innovative writing and unforgettable performances. Garry
Thomas Morse is the author of five poetry titles and four fiction
titles, notably Governor General’s Award poetry finalist Discovery
Passages about his ancestral Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations myth,
history, and fallout of the potlatch ban. Morse’s latest poetry title Prairie
Harbour features a long poem set in Saskatchewan, and includes an
interlude about fur trade history in Manitoba. He currently resides in
Winnipeg.
Garry Thomas Morse took the time to entertain a few
questions ahead of his visit. Conversation starters, if you will.
Ore:
Our
communities are situated along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, the
relationships between them many, varied, and continually shifting. Your latest
book Prairie Harbour is set around
what the cover describes as “vigilantly maintained border/lines that mark the
relatively “unsung” decline of natural prairie life.” How do you define and approach
borders in your work?
Garry Thomas Morse:
Not long after I arrived in Regina, a writer
there told me that “the rigid streets and right-angled trucks need your influences.” Lovely. Approaching
from a First Nations perspective, borders do not necessarily exist.
Ecologically, we as human beings seem to want to box in the natural landscape,
to contain its wildness, even to the point of extirpation and extermination. I
used to think this was chiefly for economic reasons but now I’m more inclined
to think it is down to our inherent irrationality. Aesthetically, I struggle
with the margins on the page and also with notions of a national literature. A
major shift from Discovery Passages
in this book is from the voice of cultural insider to the voices of exilic
outsiders, or howling souls outside those margins, throughout history.
Ore:
Your work is
deeply engaged with history. When did you begin this exploration and how has
your engagement with historical texts and the historical record changed over
the course of your writing life?
Garry Thomas Morse:
I think it probably began with Discovery Passages. My trip to Alert Bay in BC got me interested in
local history, from the immediacy of experience to documents, records, and personal
stories. Though my novel Minor
Expectations uses a different approach, cycling through a number of
literary styles from different epochs to make up the story. More recently, I’m
interested in the obvious biases to be found in journals, biographies, and respective histories.
That process began with research on fur trade history and the Métis, resulting
in those rather caustic “heritage minute” poems smack in the middle of Prairie Harbour.
Right now, I’m working on a forthcoming novel in which a
relatively ageless totem/man travels around Western Canada and retells a number
of historical events along the way. I would say that engagement with historical
texts is more entertaining to me than ever before. I tend to tease out the humour
and absurdities in my books, whenever possible.
Ore:
Many of our
citizens moved here for jobs and involvement in the local arts scene has long
played an important role in community-building. Originally from BC, in recent
years you’ve lived in Regina and now in Winnipeg. What has been your experience
of community?
Garry Thomas Morse:
Since quitting my editor job and moving away from Vancouver
in 2013, I’ve experienced a lot of unanticipated culture shock, going from the
Yukon to Saskatchewan to Manitoba, and it has definitely been hard to start
over a few times before knowing where I need to be. Usually, it’s a handful of hearty
individuals in any given place who make time to reach out, exchange ideas and
writing, and keep me from feeling too lonely. Though mostly it is geography and
climate that have made me into an entirely different person, teaching me that
all my priorities were out of whack before.
Ore:
In
close-knit rural communities such as this, the border/lines between arts
disciplines are often very fluid. Local musicians, actors, visual artists, and
writers frequently collaborate to mount ambitious productions and create unique
cultural experiences. How have the various arts disciplines informed and
affected your writing?
Garry Thomas Morse:
Well, aspects of the history of the development of Western
music (or classical music), along with those of opera, have a powerful impact
on my writing. An RSO performance of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony gave Prairie Harbour a new structure and trajectory,
especially because of the tension between rural and urban dance forms in the
scherzo movement. Dmitri Shostakovich is there in that text too, although his
music has had a greater influence on “Twelve Preludes and Fugues,” a long poem that is
part of my next book of poetry. Also included will be a sequence that
re-poeticizes that Orpheus opera by Philip Glass along the streets of Winnipeg.
With financial assistance from The Canada Council for the Arts through The Writers' Union of Canada.
With financial assistance from The Canada Council for the Arts through The Writers' Union of Canada.
