My Want List

I have a number of rather large literary projects on the go, both with members of the Editorial Board and with individuals whom I have encountered on the World Wid Web, a truly fascinating mechanism to meet and correspond with people without the involvement of Canada Post or it’s counterparts in other nations. There surely must be a time when these organizatons must go the equivalent of bankrupt, and their service doesn’t improve with age either! In the process of creating a book, or books, I need content; I cannot create an omelette without eggs, the same way a creative writer does. Hence for each project I have a want list of stories, books, magazine appearances, newspaper appearances and or digest appearances. I shall endeavour to list them here by author. This blog entry is a work in progress, and I shall emend and update it, as well as link to it in the future. I shall be eternally grateful, as well as pleased to reimburse the reader for out-of-pocket expenses for any items on these lists that can be supplied, either by e-mail attachment or by the equivalent of that dinosaur Canada Post alluded to above.

Greye La Spina: (collaborating with J-P Gervais and Robert Weinberg for The Gargoyle and Others,The Compleat Greye La Spina) The Balkan Girdle, Action Stories Magazine, April 1922; The Broken Idol (as “by Isra Putnam”) The Thrill Book March 15, 1919; The Miser’s Stategem, Thrill Book, March 15, 1919; In the Fable’s Heart (as Baroness di Savuto) Top-Notch Magazine, Oct 15, 1918; Love Across the Ages, Metropolitan Magazine, May 1923; The Promise (vi), Parisienne Monthly Magazine, May 1919; On Scaring Oneself into Conniptions,(ar) Science Fantasy Correspondent Jan-Feb 1937; Popular Venetian Crochet, McCall’s Magazine, August 1915; Sacrificed for Love, Telling Tales Magazine, April 1922

“Wainwright T. Morton and McGarvey” by Donald Barr Chidsey: The Carrion Clue(Dime Detective Magazine Mar 15 1935); The Scar Clue (Dime Detective Magazine June 15, 1935); Once Too Often (Detective Fiction Weekly April 29 1939); The Jawbones of Nightmare Swamp (Detective Fiction Weekly Apr 5 1941)

Jack Boyle:(collaborating with Curt Ladnier for The Compleat Boston Blackie Stories) An Answer in Grand Larceny (The Red Book Magazine, January 1919) The Daughter of Mother McGinn(Cosmopolitan Magazine, June 1919) Alias Prince Charming (Cosmopolitan Magazine, July 1919) Black Dan(Cosmopolitan Magazine, October 1919) The Face in the Fog (Cosmopolitan Magazine, May 1920)

Henry St. Clair Whitehead: Mechanics of Revision (Writer’s Digest, September 1927); The Project Method (Date unknown); The Occult Story (The Free-Lance Writer’s Annual, 1927)

Fraklin H. Martin: (in collaboration with Edward Agnew for WWI Air Adventure Stories) Lone Eagle (Aces, September 1932); The Cloud Crasher (Wings, August 1932); Dealers in Death (Wings, October1934); God Help the Hun (Wings, January 1935); Song of the Eagle (War Birds, June 1937)

Frederick Nebel:  (in collaboration with Edward Agnew for WWI Air Adventure Stories) Skyrocket Scott (Wings, March 1928); Birdmen of Borneo (Air Stories, September 1927); Bolt From the Blue (Air Stories, October 1928); High-Flying Highbinders (Air Stories, March 1930); South of Saigon (Air Stories, June 1930); Boomerang Barnes (Air Adventures, January 1929); The Scourge of the South Seas (Flying Stories, 3 parts, September–November 1929).

Raoul Whitfield: (in collaboration with Edward Agnew for WWI Air Adventure Stories) The want list consist of 54 stories, instead of an individual list, here is a link to the web page where the entire table of contents can be reviewed and the wanted pulps are highlighted in red.http://www.batteredbox.com/LostTreasures/57-WWIWhitfield.htm

Nctzin Dyalhis:  (In collaboration with Robert Weinberg for The Nictzin Dyalhis Portfolio) The Whirling Machete (Underworld, December 1933)

August Derleth: (In collaboration with Robert Weinberg for a new short story collection) A Man’s Conscience (Life StoryMarch 1945); Phantom Lights (Fantasy Fan May 1934); The Splinter (Tryout March 1927)

E. A. Apple: (In collaboration with Randy Vanderbeek for The E.A. Apple Omnibus Voume 4) Hop Joint (Detective Story Magazine, Volume 121, #6 – September 27, 1930)

Michael Harrison: (in collaboration with John Michael Gibson for The Compleat Adventures of Chevalier Dupin) The Curious Illusions of General Hérouard: The Affair of the Mutton-fat Bowl; The Facts in the Case of the Banker’s Daguerrotype; The Peripatetic Numismatists; The Vampire of the rue du Bouloy; The Monster of Saint-Hillaire; A Major in the Aerial Army; Indiscretions of a Duchess; The Explosion in the rue Richelieu (Mazarine); The Financier of the rue du Four or The Banker of the rue Palantine.

Seabury Quinn: (In collaboration with Gene Christie from The Case Files of Major Sturdevant) The Washington Nights’ Entertainment: No. 2 Not seen? When V3#4; The Washington Nights’ Entertainment: V4#1; The Washington Nights’ Entertainment: V4#2; The Washington Nights’ Entertainment: No. 3 Not seen; “The Shrine of Seven Lamps” Real Detective Tales, V5#2 (September-October 1924; “No. 9. Voodoo” Real Detective Tales, V5#3 (November 1924)

Baroness Emmuska Oczy: The Miser of Maida Vale (Doran, 1925)

Adventure Fiction Index Wants (For Philip Stephensen-Payne)
======================

• ACTION NOVELS: Oct-1929
• ADVENTURE NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES: any except Jul-1937, Apr-1939, Dec-1939
• ADVENTURES OF THE SEA DEVIL: 1932 (only issue)
• AIR ADVENTURES: Nov-1945
• AIRPLANE STORIES: Mar-1930, Nov-1930, Jan-1931
• ARMY ROMANCES: any except Spring 1946 & Autumn 1946
• AVIATION STORIES: Jul-1930
• CANADIAN WAR STORIES: any except Jun-1929; 1-Oct-1929; 15-Oct-1929
• EAGLES OF THE AIR: Oct-1930
• EXCITING NAVY STORIES: all after Winter 1942
• FIFTH COLUMN STORIES: Aug-1940
• FIVE-CENT ADVENTURES: any issues
• FIVE-CENT FLYING STORIES: any issues
• FLIGHT: any except Oct-1929
• FLYING ACES: Sep-1928, Jan-1929, Feb-1929, Jun-1929, Nov/Dec-1929, Apr-1930, May-1930, Jun-1930, Dec-1931
• FLYING STORIES: Jul-1930
• FOREIGN SERVICE: any issues
• GEORGE BRUCE’S CONTACT: Jan-1934
• GEORGE BRUCE’S SKY FIGHTERS: any issues
• LUCKY STORIES: Jan-1930
• MOVIE ADVENTURES: Dec-1924
• MOVIE THRILLERS: any except May-1925
• NAVY ROMANCES: any except Spring 1946
• PRIZE AIR PILOT STORIES: Nov-1929; Jan-1930
• RAF ACES: Fall 1943 & Summer 1944
• RAPID-FIRE ACTION STORIES: any issues
• SAUCY MOVIE TALES: Jul-1937, Sep-1937, Oct-1937, any after Jan/Feb-1938
• SCARLET ADVENTURESS: Feb-1936
• SEA STORIES: any after Nov-1953
• SEA STORY ANNUAL: 1943 issue
• SECRET SERVICE STORIES: Oct-1928
• SKY BIRDS: Aug-1930
• SKY-HIGH LIBRARY MAGAZINE: Feb-1930 (and any other issues)
• SKY RAIDERS: Dec-1943, Summer 1944
• SPICY MOVIE TALES: any issues
• TALES OF ADVENTURE: Jul-1930, Sep-1930
• 10 ACTION ADVENTURES: Jan-1939 (and any other issues)
• THREE STAR MAGAZINE/STORIES: most issues
• THRILLING STORIES: all except Dec-1929
• THRILLS: any 1925 issues, Aug-1927
• 12 ADVENTURE STORIES: Aug-1939
• VARIETY STORY MAGAZINE: Jul-1938, Oct-1938
• WAR STORIES: Apr-1927, Jul-1927, May-1932
• WAR STORIES MAGAZINE: Jul-1953
• WILD GAME STORIES: May/Jun-1926, Jul/Aug-1926
• WINGS: Dec-1928, May-1931, Jun-1931, Jul-1931, Sep-1931
• WORLD WAR STORIES: any issues
• ZEPPELIN STORIES: May-1929

Crime Fiction Index Wants (For Philip Stephensen-Payne)
===================

• Amazing Detective Stories: Mar-1931
• Black Bat Detective Mysteries: Jan-1934
• Cabaret Stories: Nov-1928; Feb-1929
• Detective and Murder Mysteries: Jan-1938; any issues between Jun-1935 & Sep-1936
• Detective Tales: Nov-1923
• Detective Yarns: Vol 2 #3
• Gun Molls Magazine: Mar-1931
• Midnight Mystery Stories: 20-Jan-1923; 27-Jan-1923; 3-Feb-1923
• Movie Detective: Feb-1942
• Murder Mysteries: Aug-1929; May-1935
• Murder Stories: Nov/Dec-1931
• Mystery Magazine: May-1927
• Off Beat Detective Stories: Mar-1963
• Real Detective Tales: Jul-1924; Aug-1924; Sep/Oct-1924; Dec-1924
• Scarlet Gang Smashers: Jun-1936
• True Gang Life: Jun-1935; Nov-1936; Jan-1937; Mar-1938; Jun-1938
• The Underworld: 20-Oct-1927
• The Underworld Magazine: May-1929

 

cardboard what-cha-ma-call-its?

The four items pictured below came from that pile of comic strip ephemera in a cupboard in the home of August Derleth that is, at The Place of Hawks in Sauk City, Wisconsin. They are 5″ x 5″ pink cardboard ads for comic strips to be used as advertisement to be run in the Newspapers before the comic actually appeared in the Sunday section. I am told they are quite collectible and rare, but the name associated with them is so far lost on me. The first three are for Toonerville Folks 11-27, 11-28 and 11-30. They appear to have been created by F. Rox for the McNaught Syndicate, Inc. The fourth (5″ X 7″) appears to be an add for “Cordell Hull” a strip for TRUE COMICS. There appears to be a space left for “name of newspaper” in the bottom right column.

 

“Dear Trixie” by Lisa Hammer

Dear Trixie

by Lisa Hammer)TPB 200 pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-939-2 @ $20.00

 

Visiting Raymond

I enjoyed the John and Ruth’s Colombo’s hospitality last Saturday night, but Sunday was an even more eventful day. John and I drove to High Park to visit a large private library which holds all the core writings and correspondence of Madame H.P. Blavatsky. It was originally assembled before the turn of the century, and moved from London England, to Victoria B.C, and now resides in Toronto. I look forward to looking through a complete run of Lucifer and The Theosophist later this fall. We enjoyed a cup of tea with the present custodian and we both received an inscribed book of her poetry.

We drove along the Greandier pond to visit Raymond Souster at The Grenadier Retirement Residence. Ray was in fine form, and I presented him with his Battered Box Medallion for publishing Millenium Madness (2010) I took the coin out of its acetate sleeve, so Ray could feel the surface of the coin because is blind, and accidently dropped it on his bedside table, it produced a rolling, bobbly, sonorous sound, which was impressive, and I must purposely do that in the future when other coins are presented. The conversation went back and forth between all three of us. Raymond talked of his projects scheduled for publication — Big Smoke Blues and Rags, Bones and Bottles and Not Counting the Cost (2011) and Easy Does It (2011). I discussed James Deahl’s introduction to the former volume, and we also discussed what to use on the cover. We discussed the founding events of The League of Canadian Poets, and these two fellows were two of the founding members. I took a picture of John and Raymond and both photos are included below.

At mid-day John had to get home for a visit with his grandchildren, and I travelled south to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to attend the 2010 Toronto Resource Investment Conference. It was a good conference, and I came away with a bag full of squeeze balls, hats, pens, night lights, water bottles and great USB memory sticks.

Then off to 2010 Toronto Word on the Street at Queen’s Park. I did the rounds, and it was my subjective opinion that attendence was down for the year. I talked with all the usual suspects, gave and received much information, useful only to me, but essentially not gossip. Got a lead for Souster’s covers.

Adjourned to Charles Pachter’s studio on The Grange Avenue and presented him with a Battered Box Medallion for his cover art “Oscar Wilde Moose Kiss,” and passed along one of those USB memory drives. Charles has a busy fall and we discussed new projects in the abstract. Charles is hosting an open house at his Ice House on Lake Simcoe over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Retired to Chinatown for dinner … and home.

 

4 Macabre Poets: Alive or Passed over?

I have a question — in fact four questions. I have been working on the 1947 edition of Macabre Poetry entitled DARK OF THE MOON edited by August Derleth for a new 2012 edition for Arkham House Publishers. One of the items that needed updating was the series of death dates by a number of the authors including Derleth and Wandrei the
founders of Arkham House. There were four authors that I was unable to establish death dates, and it is plausible that a couple are still alive. Can anyone assist me in this quest? The four poets are: Yetza Gillespie, Duane W. Rimel, Harvey Wagner Flink and Coleman Rosenberger. What say you the reader?

 

“Er … what’s up, Auggie?”

Here’s an item from Auggie’s scrapbook it is undated, but the caption reads “Er … what’s up, Auggie!?” and it signed JC Melendez. Melendez was an illustrator at the Disney Studio and also did work on Charlie Brown. There is no record of correspondence under ‘M’ or Melendez in the Archives, nor Disney nor Warner Brothers. The item is undated. Perhaps it was a Christmas Greeting? It certainly is the Bugs Bunny I remember in my youth in the cartoons that accompanied Saturday afternoon at the movie theatre.

– by J.C. Melendez

 

Mr. Chang and Mr. Rafferty

E.A. Apple created these two characters to run in the pages of Detective Story Magazine (1919-1931) and reprinted in Best Detective Magazine (1933-1936). Mr. Chang is a Fu Man Chu equivalent; Mr. Rafferty is a Raffles equivalent. Mr. Chang has his headquarters in Montreal with a secret entrance, and travels in Eastern Canada to find his victims and accumulate his stolen fortunes in Quebec. Mr. Rafferty has his submarine-only accessible headquarters on an island off the east coast of America. His headquarters is a repository of vast amount of stolen wealth – cash, gold, precious gems and art. I have been gathering these stories together for the past 4 years with the able assistance of the members of the Sacred Six. I even received 3 stories and covers from Norway late last year; these had previously eluded me. Chang and Rafferty clash with lethal methods and wits in a couple of the stories with no definitive outcome, and certainly no Reichenbach Falls. The entire batch is now off to the proof reader, and the series of covers, including the reprints is off to Pat who will design the Dustjackets for the four folio sized volumes each with >400 pages double column format. After all there is 1.3 million words to deal with. You can find a complete bibliography at my web site, and the proposed covers to be retouched on the DJs. I will not supply the link, othereise WordPress will capture the entire series of covers listed there, and that’s alot of Megs to duplicate.

The son (Barny), the granddaughter (Heather) and grandson (Derek) of the author will contribute an introduction based on their memoris of the author, and the entire collection should add a significant brick in the Canadian Pulps Fiction story, since Elmer Albert Apple (not A. E. Apple, that was his pen name, and he also had others) was a Canadian who lived in Toronto.

And so the beat goes on! A dinner tonight with a special Coeliac Disease compatible cake to consume. Dim-Sum in the morning with a poet who spells his words the way they sound without capital letters. Dinner tomorrow night with an author celebrating his 88th birthday with friends, and he will have a new book to contemplate, and all his friends there to ask him to inscribe their copy, and finally a return Monday to the view of the windswept frozen lake, and the fireplace where I am methodically sorting and burning my friend Bill’s papers.

 

 

Leacock at the Bat

I just received my invitation in the mail to the annual Stephen Leacock Medal Awards Dinner. It is scheduled for June the 12th in Orillia at Geneva Park, and promises to be a worthwhile event. Over the past number of dinners I have prepared pamphlets with content which may be of interest to Leacock Fans, and distributed to each attendee at their place setting for dinner.

   There are presently four in the series: Two Elegies (2005); Random Rhymes (2006); The Shannon and the Chesapeake (2007); and A Scandal in Montreal (2008).

   I took 2009 off as I was simply too busy being retired to prepare one. I had planned to do one discussing the poem “Casey at the Bat.”  Now I’m glad I didn’t get around to it, because I now have new cover art by Charles Pachter.

   Carl Spadoni mentions in his Bibliography of Leacock, that he found an unattributed newspaper clipping from Montreal relating that Leacock had regailed the audience at a dinner speech with his own personalized version of “Casey at the Bat.” It was unclear from the article whether Leacock had recited E.L. Thayer’s version of the poem, or personalized it for Mariposa.

If you google “Casey at the Bat” you find and audio version with De Wolf Hopper reciting the poem, as he did 1,000′s of times in his acting career. I would speculate that Leacock undoubtedly heard Hopper recite the poem, and was inspired to do it himself.

Leacock was not known to play baseball, but he did pay Cricket, both in school and as a young adult.

Shortly after I retired I received a letter from Martin Gardner, of Annotated Alice fame, in which he congratulated me for the publication of The Complete Annotated Father Brown. I called him to discuss the project and compare notes, and he was also interested about republishing a number of his out of print books. One of these was a fourth edition of his The Annotated Casey at the Bat.

It seemed like a natural next step then for me to work on a Mariposa version of “Casey at the Bat” titled “Leacock at the Bat.”

Next, I was working with Charles Pachter, a Toronto pop culture artist, essentially Canada’s Andy Warhol to develop an image of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson, and this project is still very mcuh a work in progress. But in any case during the preliminary conversation, Charles mentioned that he had a cottage studio on Lake Simcoe located  a 20 minute drive from Orillia. I invited him to do an image of Leacock at the bat, but not baseball, but rather cricket, and I attach his creation for your consideration.

During the same visit, I also spotted two other Pachter images in the studio, and obtained permssion to use them as well. The one is for Raymond Souster’s next collection of poetry entitled Big Smoke Blues. The image itself is entitled “Tour de Force.” and it is neat image of a Moose on a tightrope in the shadow of Toronto’s CN Tower. The other is entitled “Bon Echo.” and it is illustrated elsewhere in this blog as the cover for Walt Whitman’s Canada.

So that’s the background, and now, all is left to me to redraft Thayer’s poem change Casey to Leacock, change the other characters to the Mariposa Rogues’ Gallery, and of course change the sport from Baseball to Cricket.

I also plan to include the revised version of Thayer’s poem as well as Martin Gardner’s introduction and footnotes in the pamphlet as well.

As far as 2011 Dinner goes, that’s already allocated — “The Innocence of Stephen Leacock” in which Stephen Leacock meets Father Brown, a pastiche by John Peterson.

A mysterious phenomenon, toward which Professional critics are usually oblivious, recurs constantly in the literary history of the United States. A man or woman, with no special talent for poetry, will put together some apparently run-of-the-mill stanzas and manage to get them printed in a newspaper or magazine. The poem is read and talked about. It is reprinted here and there. People cut it out to carry in a billfold, or pin on a bulletin board, or put under the glass top of a desk, or frame and hang on a wall. Thousands memorize it. Eventually it becomes so well known that it is hard to find a literate person who hasn’t read it. (Martin Gardner in his intrroduction to The Annotated Casey at the Bat)

  Just to recall to your memory I include E.L. Thayer’s originally published version of the poem here:

Casey at the Bat

A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows3 did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;4
They thought if only Casey5 could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn6 preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,7
And the former was a lulu8 and the latter was a cake;9
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;10
And when the dust had lifted, and the men11 saw what had occurred,
There was Johnnie12 safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt ‘twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher13 ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.14

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire15 said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.16
“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;
And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.17

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville18—mighty Casey has struck out.

 

Full Moon Rising

Last Friday travelling East on the Highway 401 from Kitchener to Toronto in the late afternoon I saw a pale moon in a clear light blue sky. It was over-sized, and I had to study it, framed  in the windshield to confirm that it was indeed The moon. There was heavy traffic exiting Toronto, and the setting sun was on my back. Next I noticed illuminated orange, Halloween diamond shaped objects along the side of the road in the distance. As I approached them I confirmed that they were only constuction signs reflecting the setting sun.

   The traffic deteriorated to stop and go as I entered Mississauga, and the sun set. The sky then was a blue colour, the moon had risen a little and somehow shrunk but the white colour was much  brighter, and the face of the moon was apparent. I would have liked to study it, but traffic precluded this activity, and I couldn’t pull off to the side of the road! I kept an eye on the moon as I travelled, and noted that it shone through a number of metal grates of hydro Hydro and wereless towers.

   I turned south at Keele Street, the skyw as a darker blue, and the moon was a brighter white. I stopped and tried to fathom the features of the moon’s face, and alas I needed binoculars –  not in the car!

   The next night Ethel and I were guests for dinner at the Rosedale Lawn and Tennis Club in Toronto. We sat at a window table on the second floor. After dinner, my mind’e eyes remembered the visions of the night before, and I peered out the window to see a bright full moon in the Western sky. This confounded me, wait a minute it should be in the eastern sky! I must have got my directional bearing in the parking lot and coming upstairs on the elevator.

   The day I returned to my cottage at Lake Eugenia which faces east on the lake. After sunset I looked for to moon on the eastern horizon, past full, like the shape of an ellipse, yellow-ochre sitting just above the tree line in a clear sky. No construction signs here, only windswept ice with some snow mobile tracks.

   Why will I remember this? well, the car was full of books, in fact four new publications, and during the days I delivered them to their authors and illustrators. Thesse are the high points for me in publishing books, but that moon in its various disguises certainly contributed colour to the memory.

   Now will that be an English (abab) or Italian (abba) Sonnet? with 14 lines and 14 syllables. The work of another day.

 

Toronto Railways Lands on Souster’s Book

I was first introduced to Raymond Souster in January 2006 by John Robert Colombo. Ray had written alot of unpublished poetry since his “fall from grace” from Oberon Press. John Robert Colombo first introduced Raymond to Oberon in 1969. Raymond was now blind and still living at home with his wife Rosalia. He wrote his poe…ms at the kitchen table with the assitance of a CNIB writing tablet — a thick black piece of cardboard and a spiral bound exercise book which were all carfully numbered and set aside for his Archives at McGill University.

His first series of 3 volumes was entitled “Catching Up,” his second series of 4 volumes “Up To Date,” and his third series of 4 volumes entitled “Getting Ahead.”

The latest single volume of poetry entitled “Millennium Madness” There are over 600 poems with an index.
Raymond style has evolved over the years, but he now predominately write a 20-second poem — a poem of from 2 to 8 short lines. The reader can read a couple and its like rain off a duck’s back, but then the next one is a zinger.
Raymond published and was paid for a poem that appeared in “The Toronto Star” in 1936. It is collected in Volume 1 of the Collected poems published by The Oberon Press. Now this means that Raymong has been published in 9 (that’s nine) decades! If you don’t believe me count them on your fingers — I just did to double check that the figure 9 was correct. Not many authors can make such a claim.

The cover is a wrap around with French flaps featuring “The Toronto Railway Lands” by Geoffrey James. The tall towers are reflected in a mud puddle, and the condo towers are under construction with cranes with a view of the Rogers Centre before it was so named, formerly The Sky Dome I think.