(freezing our ….. off at Peggy’s Cove in the ’80s at one of the English conferences that took us from Newfoundland to Vancouver selling over a million books in the process; the Legendary Kirkland on the left)
The late Glen Kirkland, my educational textbook co-author from 1978 to 2000. We shared many overlapping interests, values, and views, partnering for many other projects, too, like 2 plays at the Edmonton Fringe and Spiritus–a memorable performance poetry trio (with the late Dean McKenzie for about 15 years).
I would never have written this poem if I had never met Glen and experienced his naughty, quirky subliminal takes on the sexes and male-female relationships. The metaphors and symbolism tended to spill over from his work to mine even for such simple scenes as a coffee shop line-up in this poem. We both played with words in our work and enjoyed double entendres–a lost art in the oh-so limited/literal, ultra-serious politically-correct public forums that no longer fully appreciate a love of word play or irony of olde.
Bonus: one of Glen’s oft-read poems
