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MQUP editor Mark Abley is today's guest blogger
In the fall of 2009 I joined a group of writers, artists, translators and teachers in a side chapel of St. James Anglican Church on Ste. Catherine St. in the heart of downtown Montreal. We were there for an odd, touching occasion – the unveiling of a plaque in honour of one of Canada’s most eccentric and unusual writers, John Glassco.
Glassco (1909-1981) was a Governor General’s Award-winning poet. He was also a pioneer translator of Québécois poetry. He was also a superb memoirist – although the book in question, Memoirs of Montparnasse, is so elusive and slippery, it might best be read as a novel. He was also a horseman, a rural postman, a dilettante – and, oh yes, a bestselling bisexual pornographer. Not the usual sort of figure to be celebrated inside a church!
His commemorative plaque is the first in a series in what will become, in effect, Montreal’s own Writers’ Chapel. The second plaque, which was installed in late 2010, honours the poet and anthologist A.J.M. Smith. The 2011 plaque will recall the work of the renowned legal scholar, political activist and poet F.R. Scott. Montreal is a city of authors, so there’s no shortage of worthy candidates for remembrance.
One of the prime movers behind the Glassco plaque was Brian Busby, an ex-Montrealer who now lives near Stratford, Ontario. Brian is the author of A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Memoirist, Translator, and Pornographer, which MQUP will publish this spring. Having worked closely on the book with Brian, I can attest to his devotion to Canadian writing and his love of a good story. He also owns one of the most impressive private book collections I’ve ever had the pleasure of examining.
I’m looking forward with much anticipation, and a little nervousness, to see how reviewers and critics will react to Brian’s indiscreet revelations about John Glassco’s character. He was a rascal, no question about it. If he was also a plagiarist and a liar, does that diminish the value of his original work? And if he does not fit neatly into the conventional categories of “Canadian literature,” is that a comment on John Glassco – or on how we think of CanLit?
Read more about Montreal's Writers' Chapel
Pre-order A Gentleman of Pleasure
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