New book explores life of prolific B.C. writer
Researching author George Bowering turned up a few surprises, says biographer Rebecca Wigod
Writer Rebecca Wigod first started talking with two-time Governor General’s Award winner, Order of Canada recipient and former poet laureate George Bowering about his life and work back in 2011.
Now, after seven years and many interviews with the 83-year-old Bowering, Wigod has delivered the first biography of the widely acclaimed B.C. author (he has 100 books across genres to his credit).
Out now from Talonbooks, He Speaks Volumes: A Biography of George Bowering has 20 chapters — Bowering’s preferred length for a book according to Wigod.
The road to this project began with Wigod’s love of a good literary biography. Finally, after years of reading those types of books, she decided she wanted to have a go at writing one herself.
“I thought about who in Western Canada deserved a detailed biography but didn’t have one,” said Wigod, a former features writer and books pages editor at The Vancouver Sun. “Into my mind came George Bowering, known for being prolific, for having received countless awards and honours — a man with a big personality, quick with a quip.
“I’d interviewed him in 2005, after he’d finished being Canada’s first parliamentary poet laureate,” added Wigod. “I liked his style. I wondered about his substance, so I started reading him.”
We got Victoria’s Wigod to answer a few questions about getting Bowering on the page. Q
What did you say to convince him to participate in this book? A
He didn’t need much convincing. He’d been expecting someone to want to write his biography one day. That’s why he saved his manuscripts; carbon copies of all the letters he sent; the letters other writers sent him; his diaries, containing published reviews of his books, and so on. Q How did you go about telling his story? A I read his work and made notes on it. I looked up what’s been written about him: the reviews he got and the critical literature.
He and I met every few months. Over the seven years I worked on this, we did more than 21 interviews.
I interviewed his relatives, fellow writers, friends, professional colleagues (he taught at Simon Fraser University for almost 30 years), former students and folks who played softball with him in Vancouver parks.
I read 50 volumes of his diary and took notes on them.
I made two trips to Ottawa and, at Library and Archives Canada, read some of the thousands of letters he has sent and received. He has left
a massive paper trail.
Rather than tell his story in the conventional way, I decided on an essayistic format. The chapters are aspects of him: There’s one called “The Poet,” one called “The Husband,” one called “Mr. Baseball.” Q What did you find out about Bowering that surprised you? A
I didn’t realize, when I started out, how heavily influenced he was by four American writers born in the late 19th century: Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, HD (Hilda Doolittle) and William Carlos Williams. This got him into trouble in the 1970s and ’80s, when Canadian nationalism burst forth. People thought he should have used Canadian models.
Also, although he has a phenomenal work ethic and keeps pumping out books, I didn’t realize that he hasn’t always written for the masses. Big Canadian publishers have brought out much of his work but he’s just as happy when small ones do. He has often
gone “niche,” instead of always trying to be a crowd-pleaser.
Talking to his former students, I learned that while he cracked jokes in class, he was a surprisingly hard marker. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. On the other hand, if students took literary cues from him — if they loved reading and gravitated to the writers he admires — they were invited to join him and his friends for beer on Friday nights. Q Prolific is kind of an understatement with Bowering. That said, what is at the heart of his drive to produce? A
Early in his writing life, he felt he ought to be constantly churning out pages, like Thomas Wolfe, author of Look Homeward, Angel. In 1961, when he’d finished his novel Delsing (which has never been published), he told himself, “Now to sort it, bind it, and send it out. And get busy on the next one.” Having published frequently for decades, he feels unsettled if there isn’t a new book of his due to come out soon.
Q Does he have a favourite among his own works? A
When asked this question he doesn’t name his wellknown titles. He’s partial to “I Like Summer,” at the start of his book Teeth: Poems 2006-2011 (Mansfield Press, 2013). He likes the “latenight poems” in his Delayed Mercy and Other Poems (Coach House Press, 1987). He woke himself up at 2 a.m. to write each of them and put into each a line from a book he’d been reading that day. His essay collections, such as Craft Slices (Oberon Books, 1985) and Errata (Red Deer Press, 1988), have a special sheen for him because his favourite people like them. Q
He has a bit of a reputation for being a hard ass. Did you see that side of him while you were interviewing him? A
No, he was sweet and charming throughout. I can’t say he answers questions in a conventional, straightforward way, but we came to understand
each other better as time went on. Our interviews began in 2011, and several years later I came across a 2011 diary entry in which he said about me, “She’s a good heart, I think, but I think she’s a little out of her depth.” That stung (and felt kind of “meta”), but I actually don’t mind. It’s what he felt at the time, so it’s fair comment. Q What is it about baseball that he loves so much? A
For George, baseball is part of the rhythm of life, tied in with the seasons. He has written that opening day is “not only the proof of the end of winter … but a defiance of the end of things.” In one of his novels he calls a ballpark a place “at once free from all the constrictions and dangers of life, and bound perfectly to rules that we obey though we know they don’t matter.” When he used to play softball, he felt a sort of divine force operating in him when he performed well. His diaries contain detailed accounts of how he played in every game. Q
Would you say you are friends now after this project? Will you be going for a beer? A
We are friends and would go for a beer, sure. But he’s health-conscious these days and often opts for tea.