Cobourg Poet Laureate Reviews Textual Artivity

TEXTUAL ARTIVITY by TED AMSDEN

Artist and poet-vocateur, Wally Keeler is having an art/poetry show at the Human Bean during the month of September.

        Talking to Wally Keeler, well, you need patience. The man is his own entertainment centre. He remakes the basic nuts and bolt words of daily usage into ammunition for his Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. 

        You have to be careful how you throw words around in his presence because they will be re-born, - on the spot - as poetential building blocks for use in the uni-verse according to Wally. All is fodder in his galaxy. You need to give yourself a little time to catch up to his way of thinking. The patience isn't for him, it's for you as you get up to his speed.

        Spoiler alert for Keeler's upcoming show at the Human Bean during the month of September. Keeler's uni-verse is humorous. Keeler definitely doesn't think the way the rest of us do and that is part of his charm. Keeler is a senior who enjoys playing at the child's level while ensuring that the resulting images and words are very much for adults.

        "I utilize poetic licence to achieve poetic justice. The enemy of the Imagine Nation is mediocrity. This bloated bland gland debris culverts out of the mouths of politicos and bureaucrats and gets distributed by the plainstream media."

        Clearly, Keeler has a bit of edge leftover from the seventies when he accomplished some impressive feats of street and political performance that prefigure today's flash mobs. Keeler's, "1st Interm Report of the Commission of the Causes and Manifestations of Divergent Think Procedure Concerning the 1st 10 years of the History of the Peopls Rpublic of Poetry" book document's those days. Written, or rather assembled in Cobourg, it is an amazing record of Keeler's ability to manifest his poetic universe.

        Keeler is a free speech advocate, no doubt due to experiences like these, "During the 1970’s I experienced interference in my freedom by the Security Service of the RCMP intercepting and withholding my mail, wiretapping my residence, interfering with my employment and tenancy…Interestingly this led to connections being developed with the creative, dissident class in Eastern Europe during the cold war. It was an exhilarating pleasure to contribute to the subversion of totalitarianism by smuggling the manifestations of creativity in and out."

        Now Totalitarianism hasn't been seen on this side of the Atlantic, officially, for as long as anybody can remember but there is still an enemy out there according to Keeler. He says language and poetry in particular is "under attack by mediocrity". Society's obsessive concern with correctness has "commissions watching everyone’s words and enforcing nicespeak. Nicespeak is the new Newspeak, which is Nospeak at all." Engage Keeler deeper on this topic and it's plain he has much to say.   

        Older, wiser, but still playful, these days Keeler's stage is smaller. There are images in this show from his series: Child's Play. They "consist of configurations of children's wooden alphabet blocks on mirrors and other surfaces." that spell out the words liberty and freedom in English and other languages. In large prints, toy trucks, soldiers and lettered building blocks have been Photoshopped into Cobourg images. There are also Freedom of Speech posters.

        In other images, Keeler uses material objects like Scrabble letter tiles and again children's building blocks and arranges them according to the rhyming scheme of Shakespearean Sonnets which makes for some interesting non-literary understanding of the Bard's craft.

         Other images consist of ‘news’ stories from the series: All the Muse That’s Fit to Print. These stories represent some of the news coming from the Image Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry. Satirical and poetic, the stories are a careful blend of literary fact and fiction and are probably the most accessible productions of Keeler's show for those who find Keeler's universe and bit unusual.

        This show will be a bit of a home coming and a premiere event for the poet. "I have exhibited or performed in Poland, Hungary, England, Germany, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, but never in my poemtown. Only a handful of close friends and acquaintances from Cobourg knew the kind of poetic work I manifested in Toronto since the early 70s." He has been active in the poetry scene in Cobourg since returning to Cobourg and regularly incorporates it into activities at Cobourg's Ecology Garden where he is the Chair.

================

The image below was sold. I miss it already. It was one of my favourites and graced my wall for the past three years. It now has a wonderful home with a hot-sauced poet.