We’re getting down to the wire! There is one week left to submit your poem about Niagara Falls to the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Contest!!
The judges have sharpened their pencils and are eagerly awaiting reading the submissions!
The curator is feverishly working at getting all of the submission ready for the print anthology of the winners and contestants that will hopefully be available later this year.
It’s been about 19 years since I arrived in Andrew’s life.
Over that time I’ve watched while he quietly and without a lot of fanfare, acted on his passion for all things Niagara. A few of the many examples to which I saw him dedicate countless hours and energy:
…. His professional life which included being the Local History guru at the Niagara Falls Public Library where he vastly expanded the online collection of text and images important in the life of Niagara Falls, rescuing a number of collections from local photographers and the Niagara Falls Review.
…. Documenting in photos a year in the life of Niagara Falls, with photos taken every morning from the same spot on the Rainbow Bridge. Even on those days he wasn’t working first thing in the morning…weekends, Mondays, Tuesdays, holidays…he’d drive from Fort Erie to Niagara Falls around 8:30 in the morning, pay the bridge’s pedestrian toll, stand on the bridge to take a photo even if it was so foggy you couldn’t see the Falls, then go through customs to get back into Canada. He combined those photos with appropriate poems about the Falls, and 10 years ago published them in a book entitled Niagara Mornings.
….And his most passionate and long-lasting project, searching out, collecting, and recording all the poetry about Niagara Falls or by Niagara area poets on both sides of the border which we are celebrating today. Andrew’s talked about the many aspects of his journey with the Poetry Project, but my view is from behind-the-scenes…the long hours he spent poring over books, chasing copyrights, contacting poets, answering questions from interested readers and so much more.
Thanks you Andrew. for your passion and your dedication to contributing to the common good.
Congratulations on this celebration of 25 years of your enthusiasm and commitment.
Now to finish…
There was a young man from Niagara
Discovered just one rhyme – Viagra
How often, dear sir,
Has this one word occurred
And forced you to post crazy word slaw
Source: Louise Waldie, 2026
Louise Waldie is the retired head of the IT project management office of a major national insurance company, and wife of Andrew Porteus. She has been active for many years on the executive of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Social Club, and as a volunteer personal shopper for people in Northern Canada who do not have access to retail outlets. In their multigenerational complex blended family , Louise and Andrew have 5 children and 11 grandchildren with assorted spouses, and a great-grandchild.
The Falls of Niagara–From the Canada Side painted by B. Hess, 1868 Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
God of the mountain-height and rolling flood !
What majesty, and might and grandeur soar
In one unceasing hymn of praise to Thee
From out the turmoil of Niagara’s surge.
Roll on, proud terrorist ! with sweep sublime,
Whose merest touch is as the lusty throes
Of a whole race of Anaks starting from
A trance of passion gathering while it slept.
The massive oak that wrestles with the blasts
For centuries, is but a fragile whisp,
A giant’s toy, in thy relentless grasp ;
And man, whose pride would overawe the world,
Is but a paltry bubble in thy hand,
That passes into nothingness and death.
The crash and wrack of worlds, the sway supreme
Of nation over nation, and the rise
And fall of mighty empires, are as nought
Compared with thee, who’st seen the ages pass,
As in a mirror ; thou the Merlin dread
That beckons them to their eternal rest,
And lulls them into silence with a psalm.
The centuries lie buried at thy feet,
And all their shrouded hosts rise up to pay
The great magician homage. Thy dread voice
Is as the thunder amid Alpine hills,
And the sun-flash upon thine angry brow
The awful lightning of thy wrath, that like
The fine Damascus blade lets out the life,
Or ere the spirit mounts the Elysian fields.
The children of to-day will have grown old ;
Their children’s children from the ample scroll
And record where the generations trace
Their mortal autographs, shall pass away
And be forgotten ; but thy trumpet tones,
Wild, deep, sonorous, then as now, shall make
The heart of man a solemn fane of praise.
Æolus’ slaves, the rude compliant winds,
May lash the sea to fury ; billows roll,
And mountain-wave on mountain-wave be piled ;
When, lo ! the spirit of the storm bows down
Beneath the fetters of the angel, Calm :
But thy tremendous bass confronts the skies
With jubilee of passion evermore,
Unchanged, unchangeable, making thy song
The type of the eternal, without end.
Source: Niagara by Charles Sangster was first published in the British American Magazine (Toronto), 1 (1863): 234–35
Also published in Charles Sangster, ed. by Frank M. Tierney. Norland Echoes and Other Strains and Lyrics. Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 1976
Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi in a Suite at the America’s Best Inn on Lundy’s Lane . Photo by Alina Rashid, July 13, 2005 Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
The same old souvenirs
still amuse us — pennants,
Indian wood carvings,
and the aphrodisiac cocktails
whose nectar we spill
on pillows like some happy couple.
We spent our sleepless nights
rehearsing melodramas (I remember
your fondness for Chopin)
while the monotonous aquatic
thunder numbed our ears
and the braille of stars felt soft.
In a lofty luxurious suite
overlooking
the picture postcard cataracts
we tickled the skin of dreams
and fevered our love
with hors d’oeuvres.
At night the neon loins
of this city unveil brides galore.
O Rainbow Bridge,
believe me when I say
our honeymoon was nothing more
than breakfast in bed.
Source: Len Gasparini. Cutty Sark: Poems. Quarry Press, 1970. This poem also appeared in New American and Canadian Poetry edited by John Gill, 1971
This poem was not received favourably by all readers. In the Cincinnati Mirror a review was published by “G,” presumably the editor William Davis Gallagher. The tone of this review is set in the first sentence: “Upon what principle this production is called a poem, we have not been able to determine” and grudgingly continues “It is true, that it contains occasional good similes, and is not destitute of poetic imagery; and moreover, has one quality of the sublime—being sometimes eminently obscure.”
I’ve added this review in the pictures below, and also added it to this poem’s page on the website (link above).
I invite you to take some time, read the poem and then the review, and decide if G was perhaps a little harsh or right on.
