For my 40th birthday, Heather and I decided to host three parties to help launch a very special book and to gather friends in Peterborough, Ottawa, and Cambridge to laugh, celebrate, and share in a fruitful season of writing.
This past summer, I dove into a pile of manuscripts that lay patiently on the back shelf, dusted them off, edited feverishly and published a number of exciting works – pieces that deserved a better fate than wistful dreams languishing unfinished. Heather (and my children) helped bring these dreams to life. Not only by coordinating invitations, booking venues, designing layouts, preparing food, or hosting friends and family, but also by reading and listening faithfully to early drafts of prose and poetry while spurring me on to complete each book.
Many of you also made these dreams reality. You showed up and laughed and listened (or sent your very generous and heartfelt regrets). You joined together as a community of readers, and your love and support are worth musing about for a few moments.
I love reading readers. At each party, I listened for the moments that made you snort or sigh. Some of you snorted at the same moment that others sighed! I leaned in when many of you said, “You know, I really liked the part when…” or “was X a reference to…” Young and old alike had something to say – something to contribute to a conversation that was worth having because it sparked moments of insight or delight.
I enjoyed the chorus of poems I received as many of you echoed back your own skillful weaving of words. It is a wonder to me. Readers create a sense of community through this type of participation. When we step out and join the fun, it binds us together. My poem prompted your poem in response, which begat a third…and on it goes. You did something. And now, you are quite possibly in danger of making it a habit! As Whitman, answering his own question, wrote in his poem “O Me! O Life”: the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Like Whitman, I have been questioning life – plodding I think – and the questions articulated in I’ll Be Here testify to this state of mind. What is eternal life? What is it like in Heaven? What will we do or see or say? Whitman’s answer doesn’t go far enough for my taste. Yes, we can participate here and now; yes, each one has something unique to contribute. But I don’t want to miss the reality that there is a Playwright crafting our scene, both here on Earth, and in the life to come. And while circumstances here below do not always prompt joy and celebration, I think the main point of I’ll Be Here is to suggest that the scene goes on above – that we can trust Him.
Our reading parties have been a small taste of those eternal vignettes. I hope you are inspired with fresh longing for literature and discussion that pushes back against so much of the banal, rude, crude, brutal, unsavoury chaff floating around in our everyday experience. I wanted to gather friends and family around God-given imagination once more and urge everyone to toss a log on the fire – to rekindle a sacred flame so often doused by futile speech.
I’m not quite finished dusting off these manuscripts, so look out for more to come. But while you are waiting, why not dust off your own, or take out a pencil and send me a line of verse! Thank you for all the love and support!
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, Collected Poems) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Todd Edward Anderson 