Memo to Yann Martel: Now THAT’s how it’s done

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By Steven W. Beattie
August 10, 2009
2:43 PM

Filed under: Quillblog, James Moore, Rob Taylor, Stephen Harper, Yann Martel

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Dedicated readers of Quillblog (among others) are no doubt aware of Yann Martel’s painfully earnest campaign to get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to inject a little stillness into his life. Every two weeks for the last two years, Martel has been sending an autographed copy of a recommended book to Harper, along with a letter. These letters – which are compiled in the upcoming collection What is Stephen Harper Reading? Yann Martel’s Recommended Reading for a Prime Minister and Book Lovers of All Stripes (the subtitle of which confusingly conflates Harper and book lovers, but never mind) – are literate, somewhat pedantic, and almost completely devoid of humour.

Not so Rob Taylor, a Vancouver-based poet who is engaging in a less well-publicized campaign to get James Moore, Canada’s minister of cultural heritage and official languages, to reverse an impending policy that would see funding cut for magazines with annual circulations of under 5,000 copies – which would include virtually every literary magazine in this country. On March 13 of this year, Taylor sent Moore an open letter protesting the proposed funding cuts to small magazines. Taylor attached a poem he wrote for Moore, which he suggested the minister might print in his constituency newsletter. The poem read, in part:

You’re a few bricks short, a ten-second minute,
You’ve got a nice house, but there’s nobody in it.
You’re as thick as molasses, as sharp as a ball,
Your car’s cylinders just won’t fire at all.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Taylor never heard back. So he’s written to Moore again, and appended a second poem. His letter, posted to his blog, is a small satirical gem and includes Taylor’s thoughts on why he might not have received a response from Moore’s office:

I forgot to include a SASE with the submission. Maybe that’s the problem. I understand that budgets are tight everywhere, and it may be too costly for you to mail the reply (when automakers are only getting $4 billion in bailout money, you know times are tough!). So if that’s the case, I’ve attached a SASE with this letter.

It’s doubtful that either Martel or Taylor will have much effect on their respective targets, but at least Taylor is able to laugh a little while stirring his pot.

Barryfitz McMorleyoconnellcuddy

Nice new poem, Rob. I really like “Whose waistline declared him a foody / . . . doody”–’cept that could easily be referring to other well-fed airheads like Jason Kenney, etc.

Recall the Vintage catalogue . . . There’s still time to retitle Yann’s surprise book (the one which no one had any idea would wind up being a Canpub widget) to “What is Stephen Harper Reading? Yann Martel’s Recommended Reading for the Ten Gushing Culturati Wannabes Who Think His Sanctimonious Spewings Matter”–it’ll be guaranteed to sell forty or fifty copies before the dust bins head over to Value Village.
Tom Bewley

I back off to nobody in my commitment to the importance of literature and story.
I also like a good belly laugh, when I can get it.
But the four lines of Taylor’s ‘poem’ printed here aren’t funny.
They constitute a cheap personal attack on a person that Taylor presumably does not know, in pursuit of his own self-aggrandisement. Anybody receiving such a poem would immediately bin it.
I have no axe to grind for this culture minister bloke – I’ve never heard of him. But if this is the best that ‘poets’ can do, small wonder that literature is on its knees. How does his attack help the magazines he claims to be trying to protect?
Martin Tomlinson

I’m astonished that small circulation mags can get cultural funding in this way. It’s not as if Canada is a small country whose culture needs nuturing, or where the national languages (English and French at least) need special protection.

It always used to be the case that the UK published more magazines than other countries, even the US, and though I’m not sure that’s still the case, it’s still a massive number. No funding is given for these magazines, and, it hardly bears saying, we Brits are not the most culture-loving people around. Forget the funding – it probably does more harm than good.

Yann Martel’s efforts would be fun if the book selections were interesting, eclectic, different – but above all if it was done with a sense of fun. Taylor’s poems are just insulting. Not at all to the point, and could have been written about anyone. They do the cause no credit at all.
Barryfitz McMorleyoconnellcuddy

Um . . . it’s supposed to be doggerelish, not A.M. Klein. And if you don’t know the bloke, you shouldn’t o’ spoke.

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