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Wednesday. April 25, 2001 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER C1 Arts & Entertainment Oufoflfe BewxrA&E Editor: Carol Baldwin 845-3824 (Ext. 254); Fax: 337-5567 E-mail: teldwin@haltonsearch.com Sharing life through po By Carol Baldwin ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Catherine Graham is poetry in motion motion in her poems and in her life. And you can hear som e o f her published and unpublished poem s at a reading tom orrow night at Bookers Bookstore, 172 Lakeshore Rd. E. Graham has translated into poetry her life expe riences, from the shores o f Lake O ntario to the waters o f the North Channel. Bom and raised in O ntario, the 36-year-old remembers sw im m ing, as a child, in a lim estone quarry that was filled with w ater and stocked with fish. This quarry-cum -lake in Ridgeway, Ontario, where she grew up, w as also her skating rink and cross-country ski trail in the winter. W hen G raham was in her first year o f universi ty. her m other died o f cancer, and during her last year at M cM aster, w here she studied psychology, her father died in a car crash. This double traum a was so painful for the only child that she ultim ate ly found solace in Ireland where she could express her feelings in verse, learning from the masters. "In my m id-tw enties I started keeping a journal and started playing w ith w ords and language," she says, adding that on the advice o f friends, she joined a w riting group. She then w ent to Robert Frost Place in New H am pshire w here she met an Irish poet w ho told her about the poetry program in Ireland. `T h a t brought me to N orthern Irelan d ...T h at's where I really learned the craft - over in N orthern Ireland - studying it and being exposed to such am azing poets over there," she explains. "It was quite in cred ib le...I've been over there since '93, and I consider that my hom e." However, despite that Irish connection, G ra ham has been re-establishing herself in O ntario for alm ost a year now and prom oting her book. The Watch, w hich w as published in N orthern Ireland in 1998. M ost o f the poem s in that particular chapbook deal w ith her experiences surrounding the death o f her parents. `T h e y m ark certain childhood events, events w ith my parents. So they start off with a sequence dealing with my m other and then go on to poem s about my father. And in the end they go through poem s relating to both o f them, and my getting over the loss," she says, explaining that her poems, w hich have evolved over the years, w ere cathartic. "B ut they're a celebration, too. It was my w ay of dealing with it (death) and giving trib u te...! think because I'm a person who needs to make m eaning out o f things, this was m y w ay o f dealing with it." The irony is that, while she was in Ireland, G ra ham w rote poem s about her experiences in C ana da, and now that she is back in Canada, her poem s tend to focus on her adventures in Ireland. The hard part now will be to find a Canadian equiva lent to her Irish publisher, so that her m ost recent poem s can find their way into Canadian book stores and homes. The title poem from The Watch is not only in her first book, it is one o f about 100 different vers es printed on "poem postcards" by the League o f C anadian Poets to prom ote N ational Poetry M onth. These cards can be found in bookstores and libraries across the country during April. That popular poem is also included in The White Page: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets, a book featuring a collection of poems by "high cali bre Irish women poets," says Graham. "It's quite an honour to be included in it. It's a double honour because I'm Canadian. It was really neat." D espite the "culture shock" that she felt when she returned to Canada, G raham seems to have settled into her new, or is it her old, home. She is currently w orking on a sequence o f poem s on dolls. "I 'm fascinated by d o lls ...I 've been researching dolls and finding stories about dolls," she explains. "I 've got poem s about Kewpie dolls and paper d o lls...T h ere's so m uch there." G raham 's poetry reading, w hich begins at 7:30 tom orrow evening, is also part o f N ational Poetry M onth celebrations. D uring this inform al reading, the Burlington poet will not only share her poems, but will discuss their origin and/or the storyline behind them. And, she says, she will be more than willing to answ er any questions after the reading and to autograph copies o f her book. Regular copies, as well as some o f the 250 signed and num bered copies, will be available. G raham is hoping her poem s, read aloud, will turn people on to poetry. "It makes it real. It makes it alive," says the teacher at Chisholm Education al Centres. "The thinking that poetry gives you that's w hat I love about it - the celebration o f lan guage and the w ay it's so concentrated." A nd although tom orrow night's reading is free, Graham , w ho volunteers for the W om en's Infor mation and Support Centre o f Halton, is also hop ing that her poem s will inspire audience members to offer a donation to the W om en's Centre. The Watch is available at m ost local indepen dent bookstores. Photo by Peter C. McCusker C atherine G raham will read som e o f the poetry that is in her first book, titled The Watch , at Bookers B ookstore tom orrow (T hursday), beginning at 7:30 p.m. RUB & ROLL Beetle Bonus A n E vening W ith Eugene Amaro · P eter A p p ley ard · Brian Barlow · Guido Basso ` Russ Little · joe Sealy inuncs ^ T r a w h i t s im # * 1 W h a t A n E v e n i n g It W i l l Be The concert is being held at A ppleby C ollege, O akville in Willis Auditorium an acoustic masterpiece. It was designed b y architect G ren Weiss with assistance from Swallow one of the top acousticians in the business. F r ie n d s o ff y o u r p aint o r stain p u rch a se * 1S ° © S O % m a tc h y o u r n e w ro o m | · Dave \bung · Moe Koffman Hostess for the evening is Shelly Robertson o f Perform ance M agazine. Proceeds from the evening are going to the O akville Trafalgar M em orial Hospital. Willis Hall an d all o f the services are being provided by Appleby C ollege. 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