From your incurable optimist, dare I say, utopian?

Sadly, my dear friend Ann Haskell died Oct. 22 after a two-year battle with ovarian cancer. Assimilation of such facts of life is difficult without the means to attend the memorial. She was my ex-mother-in-law though I remained a great admirer and missed her terribly-almost as much as her youngest son Peter-after we split up. As a young woman I was in awe of her. Quietly strong, kind, intelligent, beautiful, a scholar, single mother and professor of literature at SUNY-Buffalo when we met, Ann and I thankfully reconnected and started corresponding a few years back, along with middle son Mark and her daughter—my surrogate little sister—Gretl, who reassured me, “Mom knew you were thinking of her.” Mark let all her loved ones know Ann died as she wanted, peacefully, surrounded by her beloved family and felines, no doubt with characteristic grace and dignity. Here is part of her obituary. As I told Gretl, I don’t possess words enough to describe her accomplishments.

Ann S. Haskell Obituary – 1/7/29 – 10/22/10     Ann was born in Washington, DC, in 1929 and grew up in Arlington, VA. While raising three children on her own, she was among the first women to graduate from Clemson University and was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship. She received her Doctorate with honors from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. She went on to teach at the English Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo, specializing in Chaucer and Medieval Life and Literature and in Children’s Literature, for thirty-seven years. She was a mentor and advisor to hundreds of students whose lives and careers she enriched with her generosity and scholarship. Her many academic publications include the books, “Essays on Chaucer’s Saints” and  “A Middle English Anthology,” which has been in print since 1969. Ann wrote Op-Ed columns, personal essays, and articles on food and numerous other subjects for publications such as the Smithsonian, the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and New York Times. She maintained a home in Provence in Southern France for forty years and she and her husband taught a program abroad on the Culture of Provence.

*sigh* Sure do hope I get to see Gretl and Mark again soon.

So, back to the grind . . . I’ve been trying to recall a time when I didn’t have a laptop handy 24 hours a day. How did I survive? Still in the throes of Visible Verse festival programming, production and promotion, literary scene pal Rob Taylor kindly blogging about it at Spread It Like a Roll of Nickels. I will be presenting a couple of videopoems–a preview–at Sean Cranbury’s Real Vancouver Writers Series, Nov. 17. I bought a Facebook ad, not sure how much they help but I got a good turnout for my Three Blocks West of Wonderland book launch. We shall see. I’m excited. Once I got down to the task though, of putting together the retrospective screenings, I discovered that it involved some serious archiving, that I would need to dust off, sort and label hundreds of works, which means dealing with hundreds of artists. Actually, that’s the least of it and I’m not complaining. I’m determined to enjoy myself, looking forward to meeting and greeting Ellyn Maybe, flying up from LA to perform, Kath MacLean from Edmonton, Taien Ng-Chan from Montreal, Paul Portugues from Santa Barbara–who is writing a book on poetry in cinema and wants an interview–and my close friend and long time associate Kurt Heintz from Chicago. It will be a blast, a blast of eye candy, poetry style. Steve Chow at Pacific Cinematheque had me answer these questions for their press release:

What’s been most memorable for you after ten years of Visible Verse?

The hybrid genre of videopoetry of course, its myriad and fantastic forms–evolution–but mainly the artists. I feel privileged to have worked with so many extraordinary poets, videographers and filmmakers, people like Michael Turner, Kurt Heintz, Tom Konyves, Sheri-D Wilson, Jill Battson, Penn Kemp, bill bissett, Gerard Wozek, Mary Russell, Doug Knott, Alice Tepexquintle, George Bowering, Susan Cormier, Adeena Karasick, George Aquilar, Amber Dawn, Kedrick James, Alexandra Oliver, Patricia Smith, Bud Osborn, Andrea Thompson, Ian Ferrier, Seth Adrian Harris to name but a few.

Given the explosion of mainstream of digital filmmaking tools (i.e. cellphone video, etc.) and vehicles like YouTube, where do you see videopoetry in the next 10 years?

I can imagine a growing awareness of videopoetry, plus more cross-pollination between disciplines, forms and media. With nearly universal access to the necessary tools, I envision rampant experimentation and innovation certainly. I can see, and hear, a fusion of poem and music, a blurring of the distinctions between song and verse, music video and videopoem, the primary element being voice rather than text. Along with all that, how can a renaissance in poetry not occur? I’m an incurable optimist though, even imagining a utopia where everyone is a creator.

Friday, I go to the theatre and transfer hundreds of short films, in essence. Warren (Dean Fulton) has promised to come by with coffee and hugs mid-slog.

On the home front, we’re enjoying a fairly dry, sunny autumn here in the Greater Vancouver Regional District with several days of record setting temperatures. I’m fighting a bug, swallowing garlic and delicious Malay style stew with sweet potatoes, chicken, cilantro, coconut milk and lots of ginger. Junior’s getting credit in English for his game reviews and our 90-lb pup, SamIAm has graduated from Conehead to Tightly Leashed. He’s so rambunctious it’s hard to keep him immobile enough for the leg surgery to heal. Well, he is a terrier.

3 thoughts on “From your incurable optimist, dare I say, utopian?

  1. Hey Big Sis – both my mom and Peter would be so happy and proud that you are such a creative dervish. Love, G (and belly tickles to formerly-conehead-Sam)

  2. Peter looked so much like his mom. Thanks for sharing this, Heather. It’s good to learn of such a fine human.

    Did you say SamIAm is a terrierist?

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