However, unlike the statuary prerogative that any Stats Can survey routinely enjoys, there were no legal inducements forcing local poets to complete and return the Ottawa Poetry Now survey. Arc could not threaten to impose a jail term (sewing mail bags for rejection letters), which might be commuted—contingent on the quality of remorse expressed—to endless hours of community service (licking envelopes in Arc’s nonexistent office), or simply avoided through payment of a fine (a subscription to Arc). Therefore, without the backup of the data cops, it is perhaps remarkable that even as many as 13 poets volunteered to answer at least a few of the survey’s cogent questions. Seen together (which poets seldom are), the Ottawa 13 represent an eclectic, if unscientific, sample of Ottawa-area poets ranging from the confirmed unknown to the allegedly renowned, from the barely postpubescent to the allegedly geriatric, from those willing to bare all to those who cagily chose to hide behind anonymity’s wimple. Whatever their scruples, they are upstanding. Arc applauds their sense of duty—or at least their sense of fun.

Methodology

Ottawa Poetry Now: The Questionnaire was broken down into four parts—The Profile, National Capital Poet, The Business, and The Prospects. The bait to entice local poets to complete the survey came in the form of a $100 gift voucher from Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeebar, but even this did not attract the anticipated droves of respondents that Arc thought would be eager to have their say. Perhaps locals prefer to borrow books from the library or from each another. The list teased out by Question 7, which asked respondents to identify their favourite books and authors, at least suggests that they are inclined to read.

The Profile

Nine questions sifted the shards of the capital’s poet’s fragile identity. The Ottawa 13 all indicated they had a gender: five are female; eight, male. Only one (a male) is under 30; four (three males, one female), over 50. Given the sample size, it is impossible to state definitively that the modal age of Ottawa’s poets would allow Arc to describe their literary output as symptomatic of boomer angst. Survey results also determined that Ottawa poets don’t stray far from their birthplaces. Eight were born in Ontario (though two came from the Prairies). Arc forgot to ask if anyone was born in Ottawa—though one respondent owed up to being a native, willingly.

The Ottawa 13’s places of residence are scattered thinly from Kanata to Vanier, from Luskville, Quebec, to Prescott, Ontario. (Though both the latter towns are outside the National Capital Region, the poets living in each were not dropped from the sample as this would further compromise its already questionable size. Also, the poets must have felt sufficient connection to the capital if they felt obliged to complete the survey. Arc salutes them.) That respondents are from so wide an area could give substance to the often voiced complaint that there is no heart vivifying the unhallowed corpse that is the local poetry community, but sadly it has to be acknowledged that 66% of those who answered Question 4 live within the now ghostly boundaries of pre-amalgamation Ottawa. Of those who identified their places of residence, 50% own them, 50% rent. This high level of home ownership among the economically challenged group that the poets are supposed to be, helps confirm the sample’s—if not the local poetry community’s—boomers’ status.

Perhaps the most interesting question (6) in the survey pertained to the shoes worn by local poets, the size of their shoes, and its implications. Of the eight who answered (often more than once), five favoured runners, which is an odd choice for so sedentary a profession as ‘poet,’ though perhaps Ottawa’s bards like to go for long reflective walks or fast-paced runs to ‘jog’ the Muse. Surprisingly, no one confessed to wearing loafers. Only 60% of respondents felt shoe size was not an indication of ego, ability, or reputation. Explain this to the nation’s sexologists and to the one respondent (male) who reported the largest shoe size (13). Seventy-five percent of those who answered affirmatively were men.

Question 8 revealed that seven of 10 respondents would write a poem in exchange for food, money or sex. Six out of nine admitted that one of their poems had either strained or ended a friendship or relationship. Both results seem to refute Auden’s contention that poetry makes nothing happen.

Finally in response to Question 9, “What is poetry to you?”, six poets indicated that for them it was a ‘neurosis’; four, either a calling or a vocation; three, a cult.

National Capital Poet

Now that the veil had been lifted, this section’s 11 questions folded back the collective skin from the face of local poetry to expose the bloody (or bloodless?) flesh beneath. What kept them here, Arc wondered, yet allowed them, despite everything, to “make it” in their chosen genre?

Forgetting that poets could be born and raised in Ottawa, Arc asked how respondents came to reside in the Nation’s Capital. Reflecting trends observable in the general population, four of the nine respondents identified “work reasons” as the lure; only one settled in the region for love. This imbalance supports the claim that Ottawa is the capital of shredders, not of romance. Five respondents indicated they would describe Ottawa as “Poetry City”; five would not; two answered both yes and no. Arc was struck equally by the bipolar response and the undercurrent of ambivalence. Have local poets succumbed to the Ottawa-bashing pandemic that sickens and unites the hinterland?

Fortunately, the answers to Question 12 shed a more positive light on this ambivalence. Nine of 12 respondents felt living in the Nation’s Capital nurtured their poetic gifts; three described the city as ‘supportive’; two that it had ‘good resources’; and one each that it had ‘good events,’ was ‘inspirational,’ and even ‘quiet.’ Two respondents felt it thwarted their development as poets. “Why, therefore, do they remain here?” Arc opines.

Seven of 10 respondents confirmed that the region figured in their poetry and had been inspired to write about Parliament Hill and the Gatineau Hills; the National War Memorial and Beechwood Cemetery; Bank, Elgin, and Sparks streets; local restaurants and parking lots, cycle paths and the O-Train; Elizabeth Smart and Bill Hawkins. Whether these references constitute a progression from the halcyon nature poems of Archibald Lampman is open to conjecture. Certainly, in this globalized world, it is interesting to note that among the local events the Ottawa 13 termed worthy of their aesthetic attention, they included the Iraqi War.

In Question 16, respondents were asked to pen couplets that enshrined their deepest feelings about the city as well as a haiku about an Ottawa senator, parliamentarian or hockey legend. The best couplet, in this author’s suspect opinion, is “After smoking high for hours in the Ottawa market/ honest to goodness they stopped by, an eraless Pierre and Margaret” by a respondent who chose to remain anonymous. The best haiku is inarguably “Curtis Leschyshyn/ um, uh, Curtis Leschyshyn/ Curtis Leschyshyn,” offered by another lily in this city of shrinking violets. Praise diversity! May squirrels and orphans dig up the tulips.

Luckily, the Ottawa 13 found it in themselves to become more serious when queried about how they would change the capital to make it more poet-friendly. Nine offered the following: “introduce a three-day work week”; “give everyone eight-week holidays”; “start Question Period with a poem”; “put a tax on Beaver Tails and then give ‘it’ to poets”; “buy a place where poets can go”; “introduce dogfriendly coffee bars on every corner” (the Jungians among us may conjecture if ‘dog’ is a trope for ‘bard’); and “make names of the Mounties’ horses rhyme.” Some got truly delusional when they suggested that more money be made available to poets or an endowment for the publishing of poetry be established.

Finally, when asked where they like to hear poetry declaimed in public, Tree and Poetry 101 tied with three votes each, followed by the National Library of Canada with two. Afterwards, they are most often likely to move the audience along to the Manx Pub on Elgin Street, which they identified as the capital’s “poet’s bar.”

The Business

Eighteen questions got to the heart of the matter by teasing out the ‘truth’ about the respondents’ professional lives as poets. When asked what marked them to take up the pen, one said a girl; five identified another poet, confirming the role of lust and mentoring in the building of community and the poetic tradition. Seven of the respondents published their first poem during the mid-70s in small journals like Nodding Onion or U-Name It. Two non-boomer poets made their first appearance in ‘print’ on the web in the late 1990s and in 2002. Only one among the respondents had been paid for their first published poem, whatever the format. None cared. Two respondents, thank God, had yet to publish. Eight of 10 respondents had published at least one collection of poems; seven had published two or more. Their first books tended to appear in the 1980s and 1990s, 10 to 15 years after they first appeared in print in magazine form, at least in the case of the boomers. Only one of eight respondents expressed regret that their first book was ever published. Seven respondents shared their favourite rejection experiences, which ranged from being “to told to change my name” to being “asked to subscribe next year and reenter the contest.” One, however, was taken out to dinner and given the bad news. Nine also shared their favourite acceptance experience, including “having my work published n Spanish”; “receiving the cheque”; “meeting the publisher in a bar to accept the offer”; and “being published by a favourite poet.” One lamented never to have enjoyed a favourite acceptance.

National Capital Narcissism

Arc devoted five questions to determine if local poets had any tendency for self-aggrandizement. Five poets boasted that they had received sufficient recognition for their brilliance as a poet; six admitted that they had not. Only one suggested that recognition was ‘not important.’ Four of 10 respondents acknowledged that they had either won or been nominated for an award; only four of 10 respondents admitted that they envy other poets who have been so elevated. The results are perhaps inconclusive, but the overall impression of false modesty emerging from the data causes Arc to suspect that a healthy and routine perfidy is deliciously at work locally. In the Nation’s Capital at least, the narcissus may yet supplant the tulip and the maple leaf.

Arc’s Own Navel

Arc is narcissistic enough to wonder idly about how it is perceived by its local base, so devoted seven potentially self-aggrandizing questions to ascertain if the way it is regarded affected how members of the community went about their ‘business’ of being ‘famous’ or ‘infamous’ poets. Seven of 10 respondents had published at least once in Arc; six of them claimed that it was a good experience (no one suggested that it was not) and that their poems had been printed without mistakes (which this author considers remarkable). Five of the seven had published in the magazine more than once. Four among the Ottawa 13 also considered it an honour to have had their books reviewed between its covers. Whether or not the reviews were favourable apparently was not a factor.

Eight of nine respondents expressed gratitude that Arc exists; one was undecided if he should feel grateful. Seven were amazed that Arc had lasted 25 years; two were not. None thought the magazine should move to Toronto in order to be truly national (though when asked elsewhere what they would do if appointed co-editor, one respondent let it slip that he would exile the magazine to T.O.). Eight felt Ottawa would be diminished if Arc were to move away. The praise was not unanimous, however. One respondent disputed that Arc was not truly Canada’s national poetry magazine and should consequently drop this falsehood from its subtitle; another was very emphatic that Arc’s editorial board, as a group, should resign. All this author can say is: “Stay tuned.”

When asked what they would ‘accomplish’ should they ever ascend to the august position of co-editor of Arc, one respondent envisioned being exempted from writing poetry “for two years.” Only two? It is up to the present and future readers of Arc to decide—no matter who the current co-editors’ heirs apparent happen to be—if such a sacrifice would be fortuitous.

The Prospects

This section was composed of two questions. When asked if becoming a poet was a mistake, all members of the Ottawa 13 answered, perhaps foolhardily, in the negative. Five predicted that if they had decided to become something (someone?) else, they would have chosen to be ‘another kind of creative worker,’ a musician, an interior designer, or a labourer. One suggested that if she were not a poet, she would be “more neurotic than I am.”

Final Remarks

Arc acknowledges that the sample size the Ottawa 13 represents is perhaps smaller than required to generalize confidently about the community of poets living in the Nation’s Capital. Still, could Arc be considered a touch too cynical if it were to admit to suspecting thatat least one or two of the 13—out of a modest, hortatory desire (yes, even need) to represent the plurality—would quite happily and unselfishly allow their ‘life’ experience, by itself, to stand for all poets (inside of Ottawa and out), unblemished and unbiased by the more over-the-top and unreliable ‘experiences’ of the other 12? Perhaps Arc protests too much. The data set is much too tiny to be massaged effectively into a support for such irritable editorial pique.

Though Arc’s lacklustre sampling techniques are perhaps much to be desired, it is hard to ignore that 87% of the 100-plus poets who submitted poems for consideration for inclusion in Ottawa Poetry Now are conspicuous by their absence in the data. Their silence no doubt has prejudiced the results of what should have been acclaimed as a well intentioned survey of their collective civic raison d’etre. Instead, with mute gusto, they prefer to embrace being part of that ever popular, isolationist poetic category: the statistical ‘unknown.’

But, hey, it’s a free, fallow, and tulip-optional country. The judiciary by now must have read in ‘unknowability’ (even in this, its most generic of forms) as a protected category into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All poets, especially those living at the heart of the federation, would comprehend the unknowable’s very alien feel deep in their essential ‘selves’ and should therefore be allowed to exercise their inherent constitutional right never once to be understood. After all, Bruce Hutchinson once described Canadians as citizens of an “unknown country.” The question is: would Margaret Atwood allow that the “unknowability” of poets inside the Nation’s Capital and out is a tactic signature of the most cagey of survivalists?

Survival be damned—even if they should, when have poets anywhere and at any time ever humbly or routinely opened themselves up to being known through probabilities and mere statistics?

Appendix

For a more comprehensive tabulation of the raw data Arc has on the Ottawa 13, see the raw data of the Arc Readership Survey 2003.

⁰ from the Ottawa Poetry Now special issue
Arc 51, Winter 2003