As usual the old man has
been struggling for an excuse to keep at least some part of his anatomy moving
at a time when age and health issues have placed him and his partner both into
a state of nearly total enforced physical inactivity. Current events and
television being largely unrewarding, he often reverts to nostalgia.
This spring I determined
to try putting together a collection of personal versifying as well as many of
the greeting card verses I saved from cards sent to a few friends and
relations. The latter didn’t happen till computer technology made the
combination of pictures and words on cards for special occasions so easy. The
result is now bound into a booklet under the cover shown at left above of which
I now have a limited number of good copies professionally printed and bound.
I intend to offer copies
to a number of family members and one or two others I feel might be curious and
a few I will reserve for those I intend will get one whether they want it or
not. To everyone else, I beg you not to try doing me a favour by requesting a
copy and just ignore this issue of the Post. If you seriously would like
a copy for your library, please send a request to me at 83rdplus@telus.net . If you can pay a
short visit to pick up your copy please do that. If not, please include your
proper snail mailing address and postal code and I will send it to you by
ordinary post. My preface in the volume is printed below and explains the
contents in a bit more detail.
Preface to Silhouettes,
a Collection of Verse
Five years ago I completed my last printed
and bound book project in the form of the second edition of A Minority of
One, my personal memoirs. I vowed to myself and others that it would
definitely be the last time I would bore my few readers in that way. I lied.
Of course, I did not expect
to be here five years later. Certainly not in any kind of condition to do the
dog work involved in choosing and compiling a selection of the countless words
that have strewn my conscious and subconscious reality during a long life.
In a way readers can blame my
niece, Linda Ewart, to whom I have dedicated this volume. She is a lover of
words. Like her artist father, Peter Ewart, did for me many years ago, Linda
has a way of feeding my egoistic tendencies. Also, at this old man’s advanced
years when more passive undertakings are restful for many, I find the challenges
necessary to keep my grey cells exercised.
As for the collection itself,
except for most of Part One and a few of the Part Two selections,
Part Three and the rest are generally in random order related to
greeting card photo designs. Readers will have to imagine the picture design
from the imagery used in the verses.
Poetry is by its nature, an
intensely personal form of expression, going back to the
Homeric epics of ancient Greece. In reviewing my personal collection,
especially in Part One, some of it can be considered much too
self-conscious and navel-gazing in nature. Much of the work is the result of
thoughts developed during a half asleep dreamlike state through the many nights
without any restful deep sleep. In that state the words and rhythms seem to
come together perfectly, much of it then missing when I get around to writing
it down. The final product can then be worked out, often with the help of a
private hour or two surrounded by nature.
Except for about four
intended gifts and one to keep I propose to offer one of the limited number of
properly bound volumes of these random verses as a gift to any who receive
notice and may request one, especially the relations and friends to whom the
personal greeting cards were sent on special occasions in the first place, as
long as they last..
Bill
Nickel,
Abbotsford, BC
April 2012
