A Temporary Stranger brings some permanence to the past
Late writer paints vivid picture with his observations
In June 2015, Jamie Reid died suddenly. At the time, he was working on the manuscript that became this three-section book. Beginning with 13 Homages, which is dedicated to everyone from the wellknown (Charles Baudelaire) to the lesser so (surrealist poet Paul Éluard), most of these are written in such a way that you could be mistaken in thinking that Reid had known these people personally. It’s not everyday that a description of someone like “always the flatulent dadaist playboy” opens a poem such as the homage to Francis Picabia, a French avant-gardist.
The 20 Fake Poems — called so, Reid observes, because at its heart “all art is fake” — venture into the political, the social and even the spiritual (Where to Find Grace). While this is the showpiece of the book, many of the poems seem somewhat lost on their own.
Only standing as a statement taken together can the loss of friends and old lovers lamented in Fake Poem 19 be a reflection of the anonymous dead witnessed in Fake Poem 20. The language is stark, direct and impacting.
The Recollections benefit greatly from his sharp and unflowered observations. Whether discussing the nascent bookstore radicalism and characters such as Curt Lang to legendary beatnik writer bill bissett, Reid really gives you clear images of who these people were, what the era was like and jewels of history that sound like they come out of another world.
The elite and prim boutique that defines Vision Vancouver is a very far cry from the gritty and exciting “... original Vancouver Bohemia, the one that was rooted in downtown Robson Street, the real early Bohemia, not the American-media-created Bohemia, the so-called ‘counter culture’ of Fourth Avenue that emerged after the middle 1960s ... ” It was Reid’s world for years, including when he co-founded the poetry journal TISH in 1961 with George Bowering, Frank Davey, David Dawson and Fred Wah.
It was the world he opted out of for decades after joining the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) to pursue years of political activism in favour of the power of the pen.
A Temporary Stranger provides the chance to become immersed in that world and in the author’s genuinely personable approach to literary art and cultural commentary. It’s a voice that will be missed.