Robert Frost, 1974-1963

55 years ago today Robert Frost stopped by a woods on a snowy evening . . . and departed this veil of tears.  RIP.

Why "Epiphanies in the Rue Sansregret"?

No big mystery or deep-seated symbolism. Since I launched this blogspot in late 2009 I have been asked several times the origins and significance of the title - Epiphanies in the Rue Sansregret. In addition to Looking Toward Portugal, my general commentary blogspot launched a year earlier, I wanted to also host a site that would be confined to the posting of literary-based commentary while also sharing some of my own modest literary offerings . . . poetry, flash fiction and the like. Like I said . . . no big mystery.

During the winter of 2009-2010, during my annual visit to my favorite lodge in northern New Hampshire not far from the Canadian frontier, I chanced to make one of my occasional forays through Québec’s Eastern Townships to Montréal just a couple hours away. It was snowing quite hard when I arrived in the borough of Hochelaga Maisonneuve in the city’s east end. Considered to be Montréal’s version of Brooklyn, HoMA, as it is affectionately called, is erected on the presumed site of the village where, in 1535, the French explorer Jacques Cartier first made contact with the indigenous Iroquoian people living along the banks of what is now the St. Lawrence River. It was for a long time a down and out working class area famous for its street and biker gangs and the violence that accompanied them. Add to this chronic poverty as many of the local factories closed down. There was a brief and welcomed renaissance when the 1976 Summer Olympics took place nearby. And today the area is experiencing another reawakening although, in my mind, it is still an underrated and overlooked neighborhood where some of its original grittiness remains as a reminder of what once was.

These days there are a great many good Hochelagais places - old, new and retro - to eat and drink in HoMa, including one of my all time favorite sushi joints in the rue Ontario Est. That is where I chose to have lunch on this particular trip into the city. Street parking was at a premium due to the recent heavy snowfall yet I managed to find a spot on a back street just a few blocks from the restaurant. From there I had to navigate the deep snow banks and icy sidewalks. But I made it in one piece, and as always, it was a fantastic meal. I decided to take a short detour back to my car to walk it off.

Strolling down rue Joliette I came across a sign that immediately caught my attention; affixed to the brick wall of one of the row house, it pointed to rue Sansregret. How could I not venture forth to see a street promising "no regrets." The housing stock in Hochelaga was mostly constructed between 1880 and 1920; rows of brick and stone duplexes and triplexes. Interspersed behind them is a network of ruelles [alleys]. These thoroughfares first appeared in Montréal around 1845 when large rural properties were subdivided into smaller lots. Some are simply narrow unimproved footpaths while others are as wide as streets with names and their own addresses. Although officially defined as "a narrow street; especially a thoroughfare through the middle of a block giving access to the rear of lots or buildings," a "ruelle" originally referred to the small space between a bed and the adjacent wall, or, in more general terms, a literary coterie as well as the room where it met.

I took a short detour along rue Sansregret which extends for a single block and provides access to several garages and

the rear entries to residences along rue Joliette and rue de Chambly. It was on this detour, along this short stretch of Montréal alley, I found myself suddenly thinking of literary salons and the idea for this current blog came to mind. It would take a few more months before I was ready to launch, but when I did, I could think of no better title than this one.

I will further explore Québec’s Eastern Townships in my next posting. Stay tuned.

Winter Dreaming

 
"Beauty at low temperatures is beauty" was Russian poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky’s response to seeing Venice blanketed by a rare snowfall. This passage can be found in Watermark (1992), his short, evocative treatise describing his frequent winter home since 1973 and where he is now buried following his death in 1996 . . . a city once described as "of dreamlike beauty that banishes nightmares." It was a place where he might seek solace from the disturbing facets of daily existence.

Brodsky describes the extraordinary winter light, "savoring its touch, the caress of the infinity whence it came. An object, after all, is what makes infinity private." This stands in broad contrast to Rainier Maria Rilke’s impressions eighty years earlier while walking on the seaside cliffs just a short distance across the Adriatic at the Duino Castle near Trieste. There "beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are / just able to endure . . . ." (Duino Elegies). I prefer Brodsky’s outlook.

If you have not read Brodsky’s little gem, you really must. Especially if you have ever spent any time in the ephemeral and enigmatic place that is Venice. "Better yet, read it and open your eyes and other senses to its encyclopedic wonders," John Updike wrote in his New Yorker review upon publication. "Another dividend," Updike continues, "will be how it may open your eyes to actually see the places you live, work or visit other than Venice! Anticipate a change in your comprehension of life."

Brodsky was no stranger to the aspects of winter, even in Venice. "Seasons are metaphors for available continents, and winter is always somewhat antarctic, even here." He was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg today) in 1940 and he and his family survived the hunger and deprivations of the Nazi siege of that city from 1941 until 1944. He ran afoul of the Soviet regime and was exiled to the Archangel region of northern Russia in the mid-1960s. He was later sentenced to hard labor in the Soviet gulag system and eventually fled Russia, living for a brief time in Vienna and London before settling in the United States in the early 1970s where he taught at several universities and college. But there was always time to visit Venice, particularly in the winter.

Like Brodsky’s Venice, I have my own special winter place . . . the Great North Woods of northern New England . . . to which I frequently return dreaming of winter light. "I have never seen a grander or more beautiful sight than the northern woods in winter." With these words a young Theodore Roosevelt described his regular sojourns to a wilderness camp in Maine’s Aroostook County. I could not agree with him more.

In addition to our regular months-long summer hiatus in Maine, for the past several years I have also been making regular trips to far northern New Hampshire during the height of winter (which also include detours into nearby Vermont, Maine and Québec). Trekking the ridges and hollows of the Great North Woods, among the chain of Connecticut Lakes hard on the Québec border, has proven a palliative for whatever ails me at the time, and it has helped me put my life into perspective on more than one occasion. I went there to ponder plans to retire only to return home confident it was time to move on with the rest of my life. Regardless of the season, this region has become my "panic hole" which, as defined by Gerald Vizenor, is a physical or mental place offering respite from the real or imagined pressures and stresses of daily life and the responsibilities that go with them. Who could not use one of these? Yet it has been the winter visits when I have connected most to this region. Much as Brodsky did in Venice.

Brodsky was onto something when he penned "Beauty at low temperatures is beauty." There is something about trekking through the deep snows of these quiet northern New England woodlands where nothing stirs but the cold winds. Nothing is heard but the creaking and scraping of barren branches and the crunching of snow beneath one’s feet. Or sitting by a warm fire in the lodge and watching snow devils swirling across an iced-over lake. The temperature, even during the day, frequently plunges into the deep double digits below zero. Yes, Brodsky was correct. There is something inherently beautiful in all of this.

As I write this the snow is falling steady across the region. I regret that I am not making my annual trip north this year.

Like years past, there has been a heavy accumulation of snow across the region since before Christmas, and despite a couple quick thaws, the snows have returned along with frigid sub-zero temperatures well-known in these parts this time of year. It was just not in the stars this time around. But this does not preclude me from dreaming about a northern New England winter with its special lineaments of light and the beauty of its low temperatures. And why? I refer back to Brodsky when asked why he close Venice during the winter. He recalled the " . . . lonely monument to Francesco Querini and his two huskies carved out of Istrian stone, similar, I think, in its hue, to what he saw last, dying, on his ill-fated journey to the North Pole, now listening to the Giardini's rustle of evergreens in the company of Wagner and Carducci." I go because there is magical music in the air that banishes nightmares. That’s why.

Inside the Trumpian Reich

I have finished reading Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, and despite the author’s somewhat sullied bona fides and criticisms of his journalistic methodology, I have no trouble believing much of what he has written is right on the mark. Many of the events, facts and conversations are supported by stories we have all read or heard in legitimate media reports and through DJT’s own statements and tweets over the past year. To quote Sean Spicer, the much maligned former White House press secretary - "You can’t make this shit up." Michael Duffy’s and Nancy Gibb’s essay in Time describes the book’s revelations as having captured larger truths. That said, if only 10% of what Wolff has written here is factual and true, then it is enough to make you ill. The White House and the Presidency are in total disarray and this country is being led by a man who is ignorant and infantile and not up to the demands of the office; a man who has no curiosity and makes no effort to inform himself and who is being advised by a coterie of unqualified and inexperienced charlatans, many of whom can rightly be labeled fascists. The individual who stood in front of the Capitol one year ago and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States has made a mockery of it. His mission is to undercut it at every opportunity. The man now sitting in the Oval Office promised to make America great again, yet his behavior in office and his ill-informed actions and comments have only tarnished America’s reputation within the community of nations. He insults and slanders our enemies and allies in equal measure while denigrating that which we hold dear about our democratic institutions. History teaches us that unheeding hubris can only lead to our own rendering of a Gottesdämmerung, a twilight of the "gods" in which leaders and their people are banished to ruins. Pray this is not our fate. But more than prayer, let’s work hard this year to send the White House Trumpsters and their Congressional minions packing. Let’s take back our country. Let’s really make America great again! It is up to us now. Take a stand! Resist!

The Chimes of Freedom Flashing . . . .

The Poet Bloggers 2018 Revival Tour continues . . . .

In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden as the walls were tightening
                                                – Bob Dylan

I have just been invited to speak at "Darkness on the Edge of Town" - An International Springsteen Symposium sponsored by the Pennsylvania State University and to be held in April at Monmouth University, on the New Jersey Shore. This will be my fourth presentation dealing with Springsteen and his music. Prior to this I have talked on the subject of Springsteen and John Steinbeck (at Monmouth and again in at a Steinbeck conference in Sun Valley Idaho), and on the Boss and Woody Guthrie. The topic this time around is "Chimes of Freedom: The Social and Political Impact of Bruce Springsteen’s 1988 East Berlin Concert."

Springsteen and the E Street Band performed across Europe in the early autumn of 1981 as part of its 1980-1981 The River Tour. This included four concerts in West Germany, one of these at the ICC Halle in West Berlin. Bruce and Steve Van Zandt took the opportunity of this gig to cross through the Berlin Wall into East Berlin for a short visit during which they walked about unnoticed (with the likely exception of the Stasi, East Germany’s ubiquitous Ministry of State Security).

Seven years later, Bruce brought the band back to Germany as part of the 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour, playing concerts at West Berlin’s Waldbühne and East Berlin’s Weissensee Velodrome, the latter before an enthusiastic audience of 160,000+ (in comparison to the rather sedate crowd of 17,000 in West Berlin). Bruce described the East Berlin audience as the largest he had ever played to . . . "I couldn’t see its end." In fact, it was the largest concert by a western artist in the entire 40 year history of the ill-fated German Democratic Republic.

Two months later Bruce would join several artists for the world-wide Amnesty International Human Rights Now! during which he made his first overt political statements . . . "trying to assert myself as a world citizen . . . This tour marks my graduation of sorts." But it was in East Berlin where Bruce Springsteen rang the chimes of freedom for the first time for all the world to hear. And just over a year later the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall came down for good.
 
 

With a New Year Comes New Posts

A friend and fellow poet informed me that a group of poets who also blog have pledged to resurrect their blogs for a 2018 Revival Tour. Each will try to post at least once a week during 2018.

I host two blogs. "Looking Toward Portugal" is billed as general commentary "from the edge of America" - www.lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com. I have been posting there fairly regularly since late 2008. This blog, on the other hand, is more literary in concept and execution and it was designed to use social media as a means of sharing some of my literary endeavors - poems, flash fiction, criticism and reviews, literary news, obituaries of literary favorites . . . whatever strikes my fancy - with a wider audience.

So I accept the challenge and let’s see how well I do. Listed below are the writers who are participating so far. Check them out and share what you like with others. That is how we build and support our community of writers. And if you are a poet blogger, why not join us.

Happy reading and writing in 2018!
                  Beth Adams http://www.cassandrapages.com
                   Teresa Hichens Ballard http://teballard.blogspot.com/
Sandra Beasley http://sbeasley.blogspot.com
Carolee Bennett https://gooduniversenextdoor.com/
Mary Biddinger wordcage.blogspot.com/
Andrea Blythe http://www.andreablythe.com
Dave Bonta http://vianegativa.us
Jim Brock http://picturesthatgotsmall.blogspot.com
James Brush http://coyotemercury.com
Angela T Carr https://angelatcarr.wordpress.com/
Patricia Caspers http://www.patriciacaspers.com/
I. F. Caton http://analogverse.blogspot.com/
Grant Clauser http://www.uniambic.com
Kevin Connor https://ordinaryaveragethoughts.wordpress.com/
Jared Conti http://www.theoracularbeard.com
Josephine Corcoran http://www.josephinecorcoran.org
Jill Crammond https://jillypoet.wordpress.com/
Jenelle D’Alessandro http://www.borderandgreetme.com
Laura E. Davis http://www.dearouterspace.com/
Kate Debolt http://www.katedebolt.net/blog/
Heather Derr-Smith ferhext.com/
Risa Denenberg https://risadenenberg.weebly.com/blog
Amy Dryansky https://amydryansky.com
Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow http://cschwartzbergedlow.blogspot.com
Andrew Eickstead http://www.unleashingthewordhoard.com
Lou Faber https://anoldwriter.com
Jeannine Hall Gailey webbish6.com
Gail Goepfert gailgoepfert.com
Erica Goss http://ericagoss.com
Uma Gowrishankar https://umagowrishankar.wordpress.com/
Sarah Kain Gutowski mimsyandoutgrabe.blogspot.com
Charlotte Hamrick zouxzoux.wordpress.com
Erin Hollowell beingpoetry.net
Trish Hopkinson https://trishhopkinson.com/
Jennifer Hudgens https://jenniferelhudgens.wordpress.com
Catherine Hume https://catherinehume.wordpress.com/
Crystal Ignatowski http://somehiatus.tumblr.com/
MJ Iuppa http://mjiuppa.blogspot.com/
Charles Jensen https://charles-jensen.com/kinemapoetics-blog/
JJS https://thisembodiedcondition.wordpress.com
Jill McCabe Johnson http://jillmccabejohnson.com/blog-chanson-daventure.html
Collin Kelley http://www.collinkelley.blogspot.com
Kathleen Kirk https://kathleenkirkpoetry.blogspot.com/
Anita Olivia Koester https://www.forkandpage.com/
Lakshmi thiswinterheart.tumblr.com
Courtney LeBlanc wordperv.com
Lorena P Matejowsky https://nothingbutblueskies.wordpress.com/
Marilyn McCabe OWrite.MarilynonaRoll.wordpress.com
Ann Michael www.annemichael.wordpress.com
Amy Miller http://writers-island.blogspot.com/
James Moore jameswmoore.wordpress.com
LouAnn Sheperd Muhm https://louannmuhm.com/
January Gill O’Neill http://poetmom.blogspot.com
Shawnte Orion http://batteredhive.blogspot.com/
Ren Powell https://renpowell.com/category/poetry/
Bethany Reid http://www.bethanyareid.com/
Susan Rich http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com
Lee Ann Roripaugh https://runningbrush.wordpress.com/
Sarah Russell https://sarahrussellpoetry.net
Jennifer Saunders http://www.magpiedays.com
Carl Setzer https://questionsall.net
Martha Silano http://bluepositive.blogspot.com/
Kim Bailey Spradlin www.kimbaileydeal.net
Bonnie Staiger https://bonniestaiger.com/
Rosemary Starace https://thresholdview.wordpress.com/
Hannah Stephenson http://thestorialist.com
Stephanie Lane Sutton athenasleepsin.wordpress.com
Christine Swint https://balancedonedge.blog/
Carey Taylor https://careyleetaylor.com
Dylan Tweney http://dylan20.tumblr.com/
Michael Allyn Wells http://stickpoetsuperhero.blogspot.com/
Lesley Wheeler Lesleywheeler.org
Allyson Whipple http://allysonmwhipple.com
Sean Wright https://sbwrightpoet.blogspot.com.au

*This list is current as of January 3. I have joined the ranks today


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