No. 145 February 2007
John Pass Essay
Like every writer in Canada I've been aware of the Governor General's awards forever, but imagined little about what winning might be like beyond the prestige, and the cash. I hadn't at all anticipated the extraordinary, extended experience of receiving the prize: the thrill of nomination, the secret revelation some weeks before the official announcement, the frenzied excitement (and ensuing exhaustion) of the press coverage. And I had not an inkling of the award's most immediately rewarding elements: the wondrous events at Rideau Hall and the new friendships embarked upon, especially with fellow laureates.
Yes, they called us the Laureates. We were taken even the shortest distances (from our hotel, The Chateau Laurier, across the canal to the Parliament buildings, for example) by limo, or in a small luxurious bus with circular seating at the rear configured as if to accommodate, upon occasion, a hot-tub. My cohort and I (yes, they called my fellow winners collectively my cohort) were photographed signing our books at the Library of Parliament (described, with good reason, as the most beautiful room in Canada), gathered on the steps of the House, gathered about the Speaker on the floor of the House, reading at the National Library, and, of course, we were photographed and wined and dined and magnificently celebrated at Rideau Hall.
I had expected lots of dark oak and brass. Stately stone. The stone was stately except around the Hall's main entrance, draped in plastic tarp to protect refurbishing work. But inside, 1 Sussex Drive was a splendour of light and air and Canadian art inhabiting charming rooms of richly various styles and furnishings. At a luncheon for Art Matters, an initiative of His Excellency Jean-Daniel Lafond's, we discussed freedom of expression with representatives from PEN under the rubric, "There are all kinds of prisons, and literature can help break down the walls . . ." When I wasn't savouring the five-spiced acorn squash veloute or struggling to keep up with a fraction of what was being said in French, I caught glimpses of the long room in russet and gold surrounding the long table laid in silver and crystal, and the floor to ceiling windows looking onto park-like grounds. I tried to think like a poet, and say sensible things about free speech, mentioning that one of the "prisons" from which poetry might attempt to free us was the tyranny of the topic, contemporary journalism's narrative and didactic imperative.
A magnificent if somewhat ominous Lemieux (three slender, dark, top-hatted figures against a pale landscape and paler sun) graced the Ballroom wall behind us that evening as we were presented to their Excellencies and presented with beautifully crafted leather-bound copies of our winning books inscribed by Michaelle Jean. In Stumbling in the Bloom she wrote, "a garden of delight." At the banquet following the ceremony I mentioned to Her Excellency that I was member of Alcuin (ok, ok, I'll pay this year's dues . . .) and how much we appreciated her patronage. She replied that she hoped to be able to visit the Society on her next trip to B.C. Something to follow up there Executive members! Their Excellencies were superb hosts, gracious and warm. In their presence I felt not only honoured as a writer, but proud to be a Canadian.
Among fellow Canadians. Although a surprising number of we winners were born, or now live, elsewhere. Ross King, non-fiction winner, is from Saskatchewan but lives near Oxford, England. I was born in England but grew up on the prairies. Hugh Hazelton, winner for translation from French into English, is U.S. born but teaches at Concordia; fiction winner Peter Behrens is from Montreal but lives in Maine. Does this say Canadian literature really is, at last, world literature? When you see that this trend extends into francophone Quebec, that the winner for translation into French, Sophie Voillot, was born in Marseille and that well-known novelist Dany Laferriere, who won for his first novel for children, hails from Haiti, you can't help shouting YES. I've asked Hugh and Sophie to contribute translations for my High Ground Press broadsheet project in progress, The Companions Series. Now I just have to find some decent French fonts and a better bilingual dictionary to begin doing my bit for national unity. It'll be a pleasure!