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Bearing witness / Gary Geddes.

by Geddes, Gary, 1940-

Arbutus Editions, 2016.

Coups d'etat -- Chile.

Canadian essays -- 21st century.

Essays -- 21st century.

Ralph Gustafson distinguished poets lecture series.

9781928172093 (pbk)

"The Ralph Gustafson distinguished poets lecture, Vancouver Island University, 18 October 2001."

Bearing witness (2001) -- Blind witness (2012).

Geddes combines two lectures, one he gave in 2001 recalling his 1987 visit to Chile as part of a quartet of Canadians including Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane and Mary di Michele, there to do readings and learn about the political situation (hosted by the Chilean Writers Association - SECH). They had the opportunity to interview human rights workers and victims of the 1973 military coup and resulting dictatorship, those willing to risk their lives to bear witness. The visit has inspired meditation on a writer's role in bearing witness. In this first essay he reviews the work of a broad range of Canadian poets -- Bissett, Lee, Moure, Wayman, Atwood, Acorn, Purdy, Lowther, Klein, Lampman, Livesay, Layton, Newlove, Davey -- and other key thinkers on the role of the writer to explore what it means to bear witness in Canada. In the second lecture, The Blind Witness, written in 2012, after doing interviews for a book on human rights and trauma in sub-Saharan Africa, he began to view my role as a writer and witness quite differently. Whereas in Chile he had spoken mostly to relatives of the disappeared and the politically executed, hearing stories at two removes, in Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Somaliland, he was speaking to the actual survivors of violence and talking to people at the International Criminal Court in The Hague to learn about notions of justice and healing in these countries and to discover how victims of atrocities might recover at least the semblance of a 'normal' life. When Geddes returned from Africa, he realized a profound shift was taking place in his perception of his role as a writer. Ironically, though one step closer to the actual events he was being called upon to learn and share, he had the disconcerting sense that he had become even less of a witness and more of an accomplice, and that he needed to redefine what he was doing. This leads him to investigate the role of witness to atrocities committed against First Nations and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The essay concludes with 3 poems, not so much reliable history as what British poet Ted Hughes calls "dirty, ragged little love letters to the world." The first offering, "Sandra Lee Scheuer," is a poem about the killings at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard during the Vietnam war. The second, "What Does A House What Want?," addresses obliquely the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Finally, a prose-poem that grew out of those shared testimonies called "Human Rights Commission".

Canadian essays.

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