Fertig’s new poems
July 16th, 2024
“After decades of publishing other writers, I decided there was still one more book of poetry in me,” writes Mona Fertig (at right) in the Afterword of Islander: New Poems (Mother Tongue $22).
The title of Islander refers to Fertig being a resident of Salt Spring Island since 1990 and also the “mythopoetic seasonal life of islanders and their love of being islanded,” says the book blurb. Fertig’s new poems illustrate her passion of the natural world and folklore, mixed in with the personal, as well as reflections upon other significant stages in her life.
“Intimate and tap-rooted in the stories of love, wilderness, communities together, these pages speak with vivid clarity of the pasts that shape us, the love that binds and liberates us,” says fellow poet Shauna Paull.
Between 1995-2007, Fertig operated (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Press that produced limited edition chapbooks of Canadian poetry for writers such as Lorna Crozier, Kate Braid, Cathy Ford, Robert Kroetsch, Daphne Marlatt, Susan McCaslin, P.K. Page, Phyllis Webb and Patricia Young. Then, between 2008 – 2021, Fertig operated her own trade publishing company, Mother Tongue Publishing, producing fifty-two titles by BC authors. While she still prints and sells some of Mother Tongue’s backlist, Fertig is no longer taking on new writers.
Not only has Fertig been a busy publisher of other writers, she has also been heavily involved in supportive groups with activities such as being: a founding member of the B.C. Federation of Writers, a member of the Femininist Caucus-League of Canadian Poets, a B.C. Book Prize Committee member, B.C./Yukon representative for the Writers’ Union of Canada and B.C. representative for P.E.N. Canada.
Going further back in history, others will remember Fertig as the founder of The Literary Storefront in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood when two hundred people attended the opening on May 13, 1978. Over the next four years, Fertig organized more than 600 literary readings and events. In 1982, Fertig handed over management of TLS to four committees, which kept The Literary Storefront going for another three years before closing it permanently. 9781896949895
*
[The following poems by Mona Fertig are published courtesy of Mother Tongue Publishing.]
Chocolate Lilies on First Island
Our family went on a trip out-of-the-city one day
the summer I was twelve and my sister almost nine
we climbed into a trolley bus in Burnaby and rode down Kingsway
to the big bus loop across from the Main Post Office in Vancouver
then caught another bus to Horseshoe Bay
to ride the ferry to my first island
We were off to visit Alan / a friend of my dad’s
who worked at the Bau-Xi Gallery in Vancouver
When we arrived at his parents’ cottage in the woods
I immediately loved the curtainless windows
and the warm wood walls floors and ceiling of the A-frame
–light pouring through
I could look down into the living room from the loft area upstairs
–and loved the perspective!
In the afternoon we went for a walk by the sea
I remember spying chocolate lilies
along the sunny dirt road
they stood out amongst the grasses and wildflowers
my dad told me their name / or was it Alan?
auburn and bell-shaped they grew tall against the Garry oaks
that day / I think / was the first time I saw an arbutus tree
its deerskin-leather-smooth trunk curving
For supper we had Alan’s bachelor special
he opened a couple cans of chili con carni / medium hot
and made some fluffy white rice
I thought the meal was delicious
I’d never had canned chili con carni before
–for dessert we had ice cream
That day on Bowen Island felt so dream-like and perfect
I felt my parents’ happiness too
In 1967 a dark slender dry chocolate lily emerged
in one of my dad’s small treasured oil paintings
with three pink Nootka blooms / two slender blades of grass
tiny beautiful violets
Painted against a gold-leaf full moon
–from the Persian Garden series
I saw chocolate lilies a few times in my life
and only on an island
They were as rare as our adventures out of the city.
*
Honeymooners
After their summer backyard wedding in Beach Grove
the newlyweds packed their dusty yellow ’68 Valiant
with tent / oars / fishing rods and food / Coleman stove / cooler and guitar
while the bride carried her wedding bouquet like a star
and settled its radiance in a jug of clear water in the back seat
–the groom tied a little blue rowboat on the roof
They drove onto the ferry at Tsawwassen and island-hopped like hippies
in those days it was free to travel between the Gulf Islands
even with a car
Wedding rings shone with hieroglyphs
seven gold symbols pinned in ivory / made in Gastown
They visited Maxine in her beach hut on a midden in Montague Harbour
camped / hauled water from a well / drank champagne / played guitar
rowed out to Wise Island / a tiny islet past Sphinx
After a siesta in the heat in the hand-built little cabin perched over the ocean
shiny with waves of light / ravens clicked / seagulls glided / going nowhere
in the evening they lit a small beach fire / ate fresh oysters off the rocks
Every day the sun beat down on their wild hair
bare brown shoulders / young bodies
they cracked fresh crab with friends on Mayne Island
drank champagne at Dinner Bay / explored low tides and trails
sailed on the “Long Gone” / ate summer corn / talked into the night
made campfire coffee at St. Mary’s Lake
–the bride dreamt of a daughter / tiny as Thumbelina in her palm
They booked a room at the Fulford Inn
devoured roast Salt Spring lamb / new potatoes and peas
drinks afterwards with Phyllis at her home in Fulford village
On the last day of their honeymoon
the couple fished off the East Point sandstone rocks on Saturna Island
and like magic / caught two coho at the same moment
When the young woman finally tossed her bridal bouquet
of baby’s breath and soft yellow roses / into the ocean
they floated free / lazy as water lilies
How luck they were to experience Eden
How lucky we were to have known them.
thank you mona for this lovely book & for all your amazing work for poetry and the ones who make it – across all these years. congrats – I love Islander –