John Robert Colombo

Distant Places: Poems and Effects of 2023 consists of the gleanings of one year in the life of the author – that is the thoughts, remarks, observations, impressions, readings, quips, quotations, etc., not to mention the “poems and effects” produced during the calendar year of 2023. It may or may not have been a vintage year, but it was a productive one, at least when it comes to examining one’s thoughts about what has been happening to and in the world, its abrupt changes and stark calamities, as well as its long-lasting achievements and technical accomplishments of one sort or another. The author in question is John Robert Colombo who includes in this mix some of his own poems and quotations along with the social observations of other people to create an admixture that might be considered to be what was once known as “a commonplace book.” Yes, that is what Distant Places is … a way of finding the whole in an aggregation or assemblage of its parts.

Workbooks for the Fourth Way is the overall title of a series of essays, articles, reviews, and notices concerned with the Fourth Way. Over a period of two years, forty issues appeared every two or so weeks on the Internet and were researched and written for friends, colleagues, subscribers, and browsers. There was no cost for anyone. Some of these forty issues may still be found on the Internet, but it seemed reasonable that anyone interested in one issue might be interested in all forty issues if they were collected and made available in their original order. An issue might include one, two, three, four, five, or so items of interest. Here they appear as they were published but without their original illustrations which have been dropped for reasons of copyright. The series was devised and written by John Robert Colombo, Toronto author, editor, and anthologist. There is no group affiliation and the term Fourth Way is used in a generic way rather than in a specific sense. “The essays were written to satisfy my own curiosity and to include any references to Canada in the literature of the Work. I reasoned that if I was going to read books about matters like these, I might as well write about them while I could still recall their contents. It may be that I overestimated the curiosity of the educated public as the number of subscribers never exceeded seventy-five persons – plus the number of casual researchers or interested browsers which of course could not be estimated. Somewhat earlier, while it appeared irregularly, I contributed perhaps seventy-five reviews to the scholarly based website overseen by Sophia Wellbeloved. (The present work is dedicated to the memory of this Oxford-based scholar and author.) The reviews that she published written by various people are of continuing interest and have yet to be collected. The present work was formatted and then reformatted by Bill Andersen, designer and friend, to whom I am most grateful.” JRC

Wonder Words is a collection of sentences that give expression to expressions: ideas, ideals, thoughts, notions, feelings, emotions, moods, errors, truths, falsehoods, commonplaces, etc. These take the form of adages and apothegms that intriguingly sidestep “common sense” in an attempt to convey to the reader some degree of “uncommon sense.” So these compositions, whether they take the form of aphorisms or of adages, far from being age-old, are brand-new compositions. They have been composed in the spirit of exploration and discovery, innovation and invention, scholarship and showmanship, by John Robert Colombo who is the author, editor, compiler, and translator of a great many books including compilations of quotations and literary anthologies. A list of these books appears on his website (www.colombo.ca). The present publication is not unique for it follows in the wake of the same author’s previous collection titled Every Other Word.
 
ISBN-10 1-894540-96-4. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Paperback format, 6 inches x 9 inches, 110 pages, 2023. $30.00 plus postage and handling.
 

Notebook Six: Occasional Writings consists of those 500 prose texts that were not included in The Notebooks of John Robert Colombo, the general title of the uniform set of five volumes issued in the Summer of 2018 that collected Colombo’s blogs, blurbs, interviews, questions and answers, notations, essays, récits, letters, literary materials, etc. These were composed between 1957 and 2020.

The present volume, being issued in 2023, exceeds 200,000 words in length, and includes texts that were over overlooked in the original selection process or were more recently completed.

“To call John Robert prolific would be a serious understatement.”
– Moses Znaimer, broadcaster and host, introducing JRC’s 2002 ideaCity address titled “Talking Canada and Why We Should Preserve Our Heritage of Eloquence and Wisdom.” 

A World Elsewhere is a compilation of the “poems and effects” composed or constructed during the course of the year 2022. These quasi-literary creations serve as dramatic records of the ideas, emotions, and sensations experienced by the author over the last 365 days and nights. This book is the twentieth and final volume in the series of “annual anthologies” prepared and published by John Robert Colombo, author and anthologist, writer and editor, whose byline has appeared on over two hundred books, all of which are listed on his website < www.colombo.ca >.

ISBN-10 1-894540-95-6. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Paperback format, 6 inches x 8.5 inches, 100 pages, 2023. $25.00 plus postage and handling.

All Over Once Again is a collection of 160 “poems and effects” written and devised by John Robert Colombo during the calendar year 2021. The “poems and effects” lead the reader through the labyrinth of that single and sullen year, recording highs and lows, ups and downs, its numerous incidents, subjects, setbacks, and considerations, some personal, some public. This book is an unusual publication, individualistic in style and subject, and the eighteenth “annual volume” of JRC’s unusual series of contemporary compositions.

ISBN-10 1-894540-95-6. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Paperback format, 6 inches x 8.5 inches, 124 pages, 2022.  $30.00 plus postage and handling.

This is not a book of quotations or a volume of aphorisms. Instead, Every Other Word is an original collection of 1,720 remarks and observations about the world and its inhabitants that consider and reconsider the traditional wisdom of the ancients and the clichés of the contemporary world. It is written in an entertaining way and is meant to be instructive to ponder. It is an original work and a challenging one by poet and anthologist John Robert Colombo who in these pages combines poetry, quotation, and imaginative in a yet-to-be imagined manner!

         ISBN-10 1-894540-87-5. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Paperback format, 6 x 8.5 inches, 264 pages. $30.00 plus postage and handling.

No Longer Now consists of the “poems and effects” composed during the year 2020 by John Robert Colombo. The present volume ishis sixteenth “poetry annual,” so these volumes act as a good guide to what has changed and what has remained constant over the same number of years, especially during the difficult year 2020. Within these pages will be found some seventy-four “poems and effects” about more subjects than the reader might imagine. They came forth come the pencil, the pen, the computer, and the mind, imagination, and emotions of this most prolific of Canada’s creative spirits.

ISBN-10 1-894540-39-x. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Cover photograph by Ryunosuke Kikuno. Paperback format, 6 x 9.5 inches, 76 + ii pages. $30.00 plus postage and handling.

Remains to Be Seen with its equivocal title is a collection of the “Poems and Effects of 2019” composed by the Toronto poet and editor John Robert Colombo. There are over one hundred texts here in the sixteenth volume in this series of “poetry annuals” issued since the year 2005. These collections offer unexpected insights into the society of the poet and the world at large. Included is the author’s journal in prose for the same period of time. For the inventive use of language and unusual views of life under constraints, Remains to Be Seen is a work of complexity and charm. 

ISBN-10 1-894540-92-1 / ISBN-13 978-1-894540-92-6. Cover design and photo by Bill Andersen. Trade paperback format, 6 x 9 inches, 188 pages. $35.00 plus postage and handling.

More One Word Poems is a collection of poems that are so brief they might be called breviloquent. Most of the poems are a single word in length, seldom more than three words in all! Yet each poem is complete in itself. The reader is offered an unusual reading experience, one that requires co-operation (indeed, co-creation) along with the poet, John Robert Colombo, himself. There are about 770 poems or effects here that have been arranged under some 630 subject headings. More One Word Poems (2019) is the sequel to the same author’s One Word Poems which appeared in 2007.

ISBN-10 1-894540-91-3. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Trade paperback format, 6 x 9 inches, 78 pages. $25.00 plus postage and handling.

I Dream of Pallas Athene offers the reader thirty-nine original poems, some quite lengthy, that honour the spirit of Pallas Athene as a goddess of the Ancient Greeks and also in her present emanations as the Oracle, the Sibyl, the Witch, the Wiccan, the Psychic, the Channeler, and the Googler. Ruth Colombo, the author, is a retired Professor of English and Canadian Studies and is the author of the three-volume trilogy titled Sisters Agonistes – Sisters of Elysium, Sisters of Earth, Sisters of Olympus. ISBN-10 1-894540-90-5. Cover design by Bill Andersen. Trade paperback format, 6 x 9 inches, 216 pages. $35.00 plus postage and handling.

John Robert Colombo’s latest publication consists of all the poems and effects that he composed during the year 2018. The contents appear in chronological order, as do the entries in the Canadian author and anthologist’s diary or journal entries for the same year. It is surprising how many subjects and topics were depicted and described during those 365 days – difficult days by and large – so that it is hard to expound on the great range of interests shown in Future Considerations. As one poem begins: “Yes, it is hard to be a god, / Even a lesser god … / Especially a lesser god.”

6 x 8 inches, cover design by Bill Andersen, trade paperback format, published in 2019, total of 232 pages, ISBN-10 1-894540-88-3, $35 plus HST and postage.

This is the general title of five volumes that collect the occasional writings of one of the most prolific of Canada’s authors and anthologists. It is a treasury of his lesser-known works. In addition to researching, writing, editing, collecting, compiling, annotating, translating, and publishing over 222 books between the years 1957 and 2017, the author has written more than 1,000 short articles and essays – more than 1,000,000 words in all – that are now appearing, in the main for the first time, in this uniform edition. The Notebooks shed light on the achievement of this writer and editor-at large and share with readers, both general and specialist, one person’s informed thoughts, observations, feelings, and enthusiasms about cultural considerations, civilized values, literature, mysteries, Canadiana, and the world at large.

Soft cover. 5.5 x 8.5 inches, French flaps, author photographs by Bill Andersen, set of five books, trade paperback format, total of 2,323 pages.

Volume I: ISBN-13: 978-1-55497-760-4
Volume II: ISBN-13:978-1-55497-761-1
Volume III: ISBN-13:978-1-55497-762-8
Volume IV: ISBN-13: 978-1-55497-763-5
Volume V: ISBN-13: 978-1-55497-764-2

Set of 5 Volumes: ISBN-13-978-1-55497-795-9 (trade paperbacks)
Set of 5 Volumes: ISBN-13-978-1-55497-766-6 (e-books)

Available from The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. $150.00

Here is an entertaining compilation of out-of-the-way Canadiana discovered and presented by John Robert Colombo. The information is described in a novel manner. This is not a quiz book (long questions, short answers) but a question-and-answer book (short questions, long answers). The exchanges are grouped by categories: People, Places, Things, Ideas. Amaze yourself, amaze your friends. Ideal for both the browser and the specialist.

Soft cover. Cover design by Bill Andersen. 5.5 x 8.25 inches, 250 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1-55497-804-5 (trade paperback); ISBN-13: 978-1-55497-805-2 (Adobe e-book). A publication of The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. $30.00

In these pages are more than 175 poems and effects, along with twelve months of entries from the author’s daily journal. They document the year 2017 as lived by John Robert Colombo. Here are musings and amazements aplenty: tributes, reminiscences, plays on words, philosophical arguments, answers to unasked questions, lists, innovations, etc. The reader will be surprised at the turn of every page.

Soft cover. Designed by Bill Andersen. 6×9 inches, 296 pages, ISBN-10 1-894540-85-9 $50.00