Neil J. Lehto on Jollimore's Tom Thomson

In my email today, I have this comment about Troy Jollimore's book:

"I note with interest your recent post about Troy Jollimore's book, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, winning the National Book Critics Circle Poetry Award. I saw early report of the nominees and was quite intrigued because I saw nothing in the press reports or online discussion about that Tom Thomson is a Canadian icon. When I learned that Jollimore grew up in Nova Scotia, I wrote to him for comment. Jollimore responded promptly and graciously, confirming the character is drawn from the historical figure. Tom Thomson is Canada's greatest landscape painter. He drowned in Ontario's Canoe Lake under mysterious circumstances in 1917. I recently wrote a book about the subject, Algonquin Elegy: Tom Thomson's Last Spring. The book website is at http://www.alognquinelegy.com/. "

Lehto, writing from Michigan, continues:
"I hesitate to forward from Troy [what he] said about the subject of using a very-wellknown Canadian cultural icon in the book for both himself as a writer raised in Canada in a book published in the United States.For me, my initial interest arose from the title andI read portions of the book at Amazon.com, in part, for its references to TomThomson. I ordered the book a few days ago. Certainly,my experience of the book will be shaped in part by my own knowledge of thecharacter. I am, like, Troy, I suspect, especiallyinterested now to see the if the book gains a Canadian market. (I know verylittle about where the book is now being distributed andhow and when that would happen but read somewhere there were 750 copiesprinted.)"

The book Algonquin Elegy looks quite good, and I need to learn more Canadian lore!

National Book Critics Circle Poetry Award

Troy Jollimore won the poetry award this year, with a long narrative poem about a character "Tom Thomson." Thomson is an Everyman struggling with vicissitudes of 21st century life. Jollimore's research and teaching concern ethics, political philosophy, and literature. He directs the Humanities Center at Cal.State Univ.-Chico. He is a visiting faculty fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center this academic year. In my recent travels to Chico I was scheduled to see him read, but got lost on the way to the campus. My sister Jane Ciabattari, vice president of the NBCC board, says he gave a very wonderful reading at the finalists' reception and charmed the audience greatly. My friends Sally and Scott McNall of Chico report great confidence in his abilities. I would note that this selection emphasizes my belief that poets need to have as deep and wide an education as possible--either inside or outside the academy. Poetry is about synthesis of cultural, historical, arts, science, and technological knowledge, and all we interact with as humans. Poets, through well chosen words, help digest the strands of experience into something manageable. Poetry is about cultural survival, a serious business, formed from the lyrical personal encounter.

by Troy Jollimore

Tom Thomson in Hiding Trusts himself less, but more than others do; when he an elevator boards, they stand off to one side and keep an eye on him, suspicious-like; when he picks up a phone a little click lets him know someone else is listening, too. Meanwhile, spy satellites fly so low overhead they almost graze and take away a layer of his skin. He therefore cringes, hunches, don't look up, contemplates fake moustaches and dark shades, scurries from house to car, inside whose tin and plastic shell he feels less vulnerable. There is a war afoot: Intelligence versus intelligentsia. This he knows. Tom Thomson in Love Love pushed him sidewise through the bleary nights. It flew at him like storms. He tried to learn to overcome, to do without, but could, he found, not; nor cigarettes, neither. He stuck to them like glue. Opinions stuck to him and drugged him down into the muck. Always asked he what lay so deep down there – well now he knows: it's him – it's he himself, goes down so far and lies at bottom and takes not one breath all winter, like a turtle. Him, who looks upward through bottoms of glass-bottomed boats and so on into sky, sky up as he is down, sky blue as he, and free as he is not. People say "My friend" to him, but just ironically.