The chant of rocks is the falls (after Emily Lee Luan) by Margaret Simon

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Wildflowers at Niagara Falls, Oct. 2023
Photo by Margaret Simon

is the rush of gravity
is the impulse of water*
is the pull of a mother… child
is the everlasting light of the sun
is the building of power
is the electricity of ages
is the reflection of rainbows
is the promise of peace
is the waking of a dream
is the shift of river
to fall.

From Margaret Simon:

For Fall break, my husband and I visited Niagara Falls. This trip was a bucket list item for me. The Falls did not disappoint. They are an amazing feat of nature, the kind that cannot be captured in a photo or video. You have to be there to hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water falling each second. I took a lot of pictures, but when I look at them now, they pale in comparison to the real live event. I’m so happy we did this trip. I highly recommend it. If you are planning to go, let me know. I have suggestions.

This morning’s (October 18, 2023) Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets was by Emily Lee Luan The warble of melting snow is the river. I borrowed her form for my own poem. I find that using a form helps me get out of my head and allowing creativity to do its magic.

Margaret Simon is a Mississippi native who married into a Louisiana life.  She lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana with her husband, Jeff.  Their now empty nest once housed three daughters, Maggie, Katherine, and Martha.  Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 31 years, most recently teaching gifted students in Iberia Parish.  She has published poems in the journal The Aurorean, anthologies for Today’s Little Ditty, in Poetry Friday Power Book Here We Go, and in National Geographic’s the Poetry of US.  Border Press published her collection of poems with her father’s Christmas card art, Illuminate in fall of 2013.  Blessen, a novel for young readers, was published in April 2012, also by Border Press.  In 2018, UL Press published her first book of children’s poetry, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape.  In her teaching profession, she has a Masters degree in Gifted Education and certification by the National Boards for Professional Teaching Standards.  Margaret writes a blog regularly at http://reflectionsontheteche.com.

Spirit of the Big Ditch Book Launch

SPIRIT OF THE BIG DITCH: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs.  By Robert Ratcliffe Taylor

Published by:  The Historical Society of St. Catharines

Robert R. Taylor’s latest book, SPIRIT OF THE BIG DITCH, has been decades in the making.  It is a richly illustrated 116-page collection of poems and songs that were inspired by the Welland Canals.  The full-colour softcover publication includes 73 illustrations and retails for $25.

A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of QR codes with each piece that when scanned, will link the reader to an audio recording of the poem or song.  The creative writings in the book are brought to life by special guest performers through their spoken word and sung performances.

SPIRIT OF THE BIG DITCH will be officially released at a Book Launch at the St. Catharines Museum on Tuesday, December 12th, but copies may be obtained earlier in December.  It would be appreciated if you could circulate this notice so that others who might be interested are made aware of the publication and its release.

The number of print copies is limited , so purchasers are encouraged to obtain them as soon as possible by contacting the Historical Society of St. Catharines at:  HSSC.contact@gmail.com   

Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs

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Bridges 20 & 21, Port Colborne, ca. 1930
by Charles Walter Simpson 

Spirit of the Big Ditch : The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs, edited by Prof. Emeritus Rob Taylor of Brock University, author of 8 books and numerous articles on the 4 iterations of the Welland Canal.

  • an anthology of poems, songs and illustrations celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Mr. Merritt’s “Big Ditch.”
  • 45 poems and songs tell the story of the Welland Canals from 1824 to the present
  • full colour artwork reproductions, early photographs, and other illustrations
  • QR codes for each poem to access a recording of the poem or song on The Spirit of the Big Ditch website

 

Published by The Historical Society of St. Catharines, December 2023, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the groundbreaking of the 1st Welland Canal in 1824.

On the Death of Major-General Brock by J.H.R.

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Push On, brave York Volunteers
by John David Kelly, 1896. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Low-bending o’er the rugged bier,
The soldier drops the mournful tear
For life departed, valor driven
Fresh from the fields of death to Heaven.

But time shall fondly trace the name
Of Brock, upon the scrolls of Fame,
And those bright laurels, which should wave
Upon the brow of one so brave
Shall flourish vernal o’er his grave.

Source: McCabe, Kevin.  (ed.) The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, 1999. Previously published in F.B. Tupper (ed.) The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock. 2nd ed. London, 1847. Poem is undated.

Composer and conductor Harris Loewen set this poem to music, with the score published by Renforth Music Publishing (New Brunswick) under the title Tears and Laurels. At the publisher’s request, the lyrics were slightly altered to create a version of the musical score that is non-specific, allowing it to function as an elegy for any war veteran. However, this recording was used on the publisher’s website. Many thanks to Prof. Loewen for permission to post this here.

Listen to Tears and Laurels 

Prof. Loewen writes: 

This track, as well as At Niagara Falls and Peaceful Niagara,* appear on the CD Voices of Niagara 5: Beauty is Before Me, the last in a choral CD series featuring music writing by Niagara composers. I believe that all the recordings in the series may still be available through the Dept. of Music at Brock University. Incidentally, John Butler’s choral arrangement of Macdonnell on the Heights (Stan Rogers) also appears on this CD.

You will notice that, coincidentally, all three pieces are originally written for male voices (although scores for other voicings are now also published). These tracks were all recorded, here in Niagara, by the combined male singers of Avanti Chamber Singers and the Brock University choirs. So, this is “home-grown” material in every sense.

At Niagara Falls and Peaceful Niagara were commissioned by the Niagara Men’s Chorus and premiered separately in two concerts in 2008. On the Death of General Brock (my original title) was written to celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and premiered by a small male ensemble at the October 2012 Brock University Soiree, a fundraising event. The publication dates of the musical scores, by the way, do not reflect the date of composition.

*Peaceful Niagara is the name of the composition of Prof. Harris, using the poem Niagara in 1882 by John Macdonald.

 

In Passing by Stanley Plumly

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Seeing Niagara: Returning From the Falls Postcard
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

On the Canadian side—we’re standing far enough away—
the Falls look like photography, the roar a radio.

In the real rain, so vertical it fuses with the air,
the boat below us is starting for the caves.

Everyone on deck is dressed in black, braced for weather
and crossing against the current of the river.

They seem lost in the gorge dimensions of the place,
then, in fog, in a moment, gone.

…………………………………..In the Chekhov story,
the lovers live in a cloud, above the sheer witness of a valley.

They call it circumstance. They look up at the open wing
of the sky, or they look down into the future.

Death is a power like any other pull of the earth.
The people in the raingear with the cameras want to see it

from the inside, from behind, from the dark looking into the light.
They want to take its picture, give it size,

how much easier to get lost in the gradations of a large
and yellow leaf drifting its good-bye down one side of the gorge.

There is almost nothing that does not signal loneliness,
then loveliness, then something connecting all we will become.

All around us the luminous passage of the air,
the flat, wet gold of the leaves. I will never love you

more than at this moment, here in October,
the new rain rising slowly from the river.

Source: The New Yorker, June 12, 1983.

 Listen to the podcast David Baker Reads Stanley Plumly with Kevin Young, in which Baker and Young discuss, and Baker reads, In Passing 

Read about Stanley Plumly