John Robert Colombo

Aphorisms are on my mind these days. I have released a new collection of them. A Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore consists of 104 pages of aphoristic expressions, comments, and observations that go from Abkhazia and Achievement to Zombies and Zoos. It is not a general collection but a specialized compilation focused on the notion of traditional thought, its prevalence, persistence, and power. It may be seen as a riff on Denis Saurat’s notion of “philosophical poetry.” The visually engaging cover is the inspired work of designer Bill Andersen (with a nod to the spirit of the “magical boxes” of artist and sculptor Joseph Cornell). Colombo & Company. 6″ x 9″. ISBN-10-1-894540-59-X . $30.00

The poetry readings that I give these days are few and far between. But when I do give a recital – as I did as part of the Wordstock Festival in Collingwood, Ont., Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011 – I focus on new and unpublished work. In fact, the occasion marked the “first reading” of only those poems that I had composed since the first of the year. They will appear in next year’s collection and probably nowhere else.

So my recital was a literary presentation, not a performance of proven “platform” poems. This fact was appreciated by the audience (largely composed of fellow writers). John Irving reads only from novels in progress. I now do the same for poetry in progress.

Most recitals slip by unnoticed; nobody thinks about them, so the spark is extinguished in the dark maw of history. That did not happen at the Wordstock reading, for one member of the audience was the lively poet (and one-time protégé) Stuart Ross, who has made a name for himself as an innovator and publisher. To my surprise he wrote a column for his blog about the Wordstock reading. It is informative and it recreates the ambience of the event. Here is the link.

 http://bloggamooga.blogspot.com/2011/09/john-robert-colombo.html

Jeepers Creepers …

Yes, the title of my latest book is Jeepers Creepers … and it consists of about three dozen ghost stories … that is, told-as-true accounts of encounters with ghosts and spirits reported by Canadians from across the country. This is not a book about haunted houses … instead, it is a collection of first-person narratives involving events and experiences that are weird and sometimes wonderful but always mysterious and perhaps even miraculous! This is not folklore These are true reminiscences from real people and they were complied by John Robert Colombo, the indefatigable anthologist whose books include dictionaries of quotations, collections of little-known facts about this well-known country of ours, and volumes of poetry and aphorisms. Jeepers Creepers: Canadian Accounts of Weird Events and Experiences lives up to its subtitle! Experience the uncanny. Think about the paranormal. Read this book! (Subliminal suggestions!) Published in trade paperback format (6″ x 9″, 216 pages) by Dundurn at $19.95.

Fascinating Canada is a book about offbeat Canadiana. It is not a quiz book, though it does consist of questions and answers – 357 short questions and 357 long answers. The subjects cover the waterfront (from Highway of Tears to the peculiar portrait of Brian Mulroney that hangs in the House of Commons). The book could be described as consisting of “trivia,” but I describe it as consisting of “treasures,” because one of the components of self-knowledge is national knowledge, nourishing a curiosity about what has happened here in the past and what is happening here right now. The arrangement of the book is by four categories: People, Places, Things, Ideas. There is an Index and a Preface which explains what it is all about. Fascinating Canada is published by Dundurn as a trade paperback: 6″ x 9″, 246 pages. It is available, as we used to say, “at better bookstores.” $19.99. Chimo!

“In her thoughtful epic work, Sophia Writ Large / Sophia Writ Small, Canadian poet Ruth Colombo takes Jung to task.” So writes Daryl Sharp in his newly published book Trampled to Death by Geese. His book combines memoir and commentary. It is spiked with humour and an enthusiastic appreciation of the lyrics of pop songs as well as of the verses of new and traditional poets.

Sharp’s work is issued by Inner City Books, one of the world’s leading publishers of books devoted to the influence of C.G. Jung. (The book’s tongue-in-cheek title comes from the writings of Kierkegaard.) In the chapter titled “Sophia Matters,” Sharp quotes close to fifty lines from Ruth’s long poem “Jungian Sophia,” lines that touch upon the goddess, the analyst, Satan, Yahweh, and Job.

As a dedicated Jungian, Sharp is not wholly convinced by Ruth’s feminist argument, which finds fault with aspects of Jung’s “Answer to Job,” but he does find that “her attitude and poetry touch my heart.” So it seems, after all, “Sophia matters”!

Gnomology is an old word for an old activity: the study, the collection, or the writing of aphorisms and aphoristic expressions. James Geary, the English writer and authority on the subject of aphorisms, has dubbed me a “modern gnomologist.”

Imponderables is the title of my latest collection of 1,500 of these expressions. These aphorisms offer insights and outlooks on topics arranged alphabetically from the letter A to the last word Zombies!

Imponderables is published by Colombo & Company in a trade paperback edition with a stunning cover designed by Bill Andersen. The edition, which measures 5.5 inches by 8.25 inches, consists of 226 pages. ISBN-10-894540-60-3. List price $30.

I continue to collect and publish on an annual basis the poems and effects that I wrote during the previous year. Now available between soft covers are some 200 “poems and effects” written betwen January and December 2010. The 184-page collection is titled Entresol and its contents are certainly as unusual as its title might suggest. The four-colour cover is visually engaging and the inspiration of designer and friend Bill Andersen.

I used to review a lot of Canadiana, but lately I have focused on other writing. Yet I did succumb to a dedicated and talented editor’s blandishments to write a long, comprehensive review of Peter C. Newman’s twin volumes called Heroes and Mavericks published by Harper/Collins. If you type into a search engine like Google the words “The Court Jester by John Robert Colombo,” you may read the review in its entirety, as it appeared in the Jan.-Feb. 2011 issue of Literary Review of Canada.

If you would like to see and hear JRC chat amiably for thirty minutes on a variety subjects, directly to a 3D videocamera, check out this YouTube posting (below). The so-called “video-portrait” was produced, directed, and videographed by Reg Hartt, the proprietor of the Toronto-based Cineforum. He set up his new camera on the porch of his brownstone opposite the Beer Store on Bathurst Street and asked me to sit on a stool and talk. Reg is off-camera the entire time (and unaccustomedly quiet!). The footage is difficult to watch (imagine Andy Warhol splashing the screen with swatches of 3D colour), and it is hard to listen to (noisy deliveries of cartons of beer), so I do not advise anyone to watch much of it. A couple of minutes will suffice to give everyone a “taste” of this concoction — or creation! Here is the site in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U8XtLG2ERO

The year 2010 has proved to be a busy one. In that year alone I published two collections of poetry, End of Greatness and Poems of Space and Time; two works devoted to my favourite popular writer, Sax Rohmer, these being The Sumuru Omnibus (426 double-columned pages) and Tears of Our Lady (62 pages); plus an anthology, edited with Brett Alexander Savory, Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories.