William Hawkins - Review by Paul Gessell, Ottawa Citizen

Review by: Paul Gessell

Poet with a past: William Hawkins returns after long hiatus

The Ottawa Citizen, April 16, 2005

William Hawkins is not dead. The poet with a past, and possibly a future, was spotted recently, alive and well, in the almost respectable Chateau Lafayette in the Byward Market, cosying up to a blues-filled jukebox and sipping a glass of white wine that he declared, with great gusto, to be remarkably good.

This was neither a ghost nor an acid flashback, although one could be forgiven for thinking as much. Before doing his famous disappearing act about 30 years ago, Hawkins used to be a fixture at the Lafayette, once Ottawa's raunchiest den of iniquity, where it was always midnight all day long. He claims he rarely frequents the relatively genteel place now, despite the fact everyone there seems to know him and treat him like a favourite uncle.

During this recent Lafayette appearance, a rendezvous to publicize his first poetry collection in three decades, the 64-year-old Hawkins was undoubtedly sitting in the same seat where he was found daily in the 1960s -- hunched up in the protective V formed by the jukebox and the east wall. ("Always sit with your back to the wall," he still advises).

During the 1960s, Hawkins ruled Ottawa's small, incestuous music and poetry scene and not just from a table at the Lafayette. He managed the capital's coolest ever coffee house, Le Hibou, played in a series of disposable bands with the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Sneezy Waters, Colleen Peterson and David Wiffen and, of course, wildly experimented with mood-altering substances in poetry-writing adventures that would have impressed Jack (On The Road) Kerouac.Hawkins's Ottawa Citizen of the Year award, or somesuch prize he got in 1966 (he thinks), came with a plaque that was quickly turned into a cutting board for hash. Naturally, memories from that era are imprecise.

At the height of his fame -- and his infamy -- he woke up one day in 1973 at the Donwood rehab centre in Toronto and decided to go straight, or some version of straight. He was feeling "fragile." He was also feeling "paranoid" and perhaps with good reason: The police were "interested" in him and a certain shipment of Mexican marijuana. Hawkins calls this change of life "going into hiding," albeit in his hometown of Ottawa. He stopped publishing (but not writing or rewriting) poetry. He started driving a Blue Line taxi cab to become just another invisible, anonymous chauffeur eavesdropping on the squabbles and smooching of others in the backseat.

And as the years rolled by, he started surfing the Internet, with great satisfaction, to see the prices steadily rise on his out-of-print poetry collections. He did poke his head up, briefly, in 1996-97 in an attempted musical comeback but quickly disappeared again and focused on a poetry revival.

Hawkins says old fans, often of the female persuasion, track him down and send e-mails expressing surprise and relief that he is still alive.

Well, those fans are in for another surprise: A book of 100 of his poems from the 1960s to the present is to be launched April 20 at Library and Archives Canada as part of the spring half of the annual Ottawa International Writers Festival. The launch of Dancing Alone: Selected Poems from Broken Jaw Press has the potential to be the party of the year for all those folks who wish they could better remember the '60s. Dancing includes a few new poems and many old ones, including Hawkins's tortured wails from Mexico, his Louis Riel epic and his personal confessions, like the one in Suicide Note, from his last collection, The Madman's War of 1974:

My life has had
sordid details;
real associations
with things obvious,
dark and wrong.

Sneezy Waters and Sandy Crawley plan to sing a few tunes at the launch. Bruce Cockburn has promised to attend and, most likely, will be coaxed into serenading his old bandmate. If Cockburn doesn't sing a few bars, there will be grumbling from all the Hawkins groupies who will assuredly come out of the woodwork that night to demonstrate that they are by far the hippest grannies and grampas in Ottawa.

The writers festival, which runs from April 18-23, has the usual lineup of trendy Toronto authors with new novels, including Andrew Pyper, David Gilmour, Dionne Brand and Sheila Heti.

As well, there will be a few old harrumphing warriors, such as Patrick Watson and John Metcalf, and a dozen or so visiting Europeans, including Liviu Maior, the history-writing Romanian ambassador to Canada. The smart money, however, is on Hawkins as the true star of the festival. His story is certainly the most interesting and most worthy of a novel, something perhaps along the lines of Malcolm Lowry's brilliant, horrifying, booze-soaked masterpiece, Under The Volcano.

No one tells the story of Hawkins better than Perth author Roy MacSkimming, who has written an introduction to Dancing Alone and an insightful analysis of "Bill's peculiar genius." As MacSkimming notes, Hawkins was a real-live poet and a dangerous one to boot when the two met in 1962.
"He took drugs, drank too much, insulted important people."

Hawkins had also just been released from Quebec's Val Tetreau correction institution "for some misdemeanor involving other people's cars." He even had the tattoo to prove it -- the institution's trademark five bluish-black dots on the back of the left hand.

As Le Hibou manager, Hawkins got to play host to the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. Jimi Hendrix dropped by one night. Richie Havens came to party. Musically speaking, Le Hibou was the only place between Montreal and Toronto.

During those days, Hawkins was the driving force behind several bands. One was Heavenly Blue. Cockburn played harmonica. Hawkins sang.

Back at the Lafayette -- and perhaps for no reason other than he could -- Hawkins hands a visitor an amateur recording of a 1966 live performance of Heavenly Blue at Le Hibou. Despite the poor quality of the recording, most of the tunes, including a bluesy interpretation of C.C. Rider, are electrifying, the energy and passion spellbinding. An exception is a dreadful, twangy, countrified rendition of Blowin' in the Wind

Hawkins wrote the lyrics for a parcel of songs, including It's a Dirty Shame, which went No. 1 when recorded by The Esquires in 1965. He also wrote considerable poetry. Five collections alone were published during 1964-71. He appeared in various poetry anthologies and was starting to be mentioned in the same sentences as Leonard Cohen (the two tripped acid together in Montreal), Irving Layton ("my mentor") and Allen Ginsberg (another mentor).

And then Hawkins packed it all in. He disappeared. Went into hiding.

MacSkimming calls that startling change of pace for Hawkins "just wandering off and subsiding into other obsessions."

Along the way there was a marriage, a divorce and three children. He is on good terms with them all, he says, except for one daughter.

There are various stories as to how Dancing Alone came into being. When asked, Hawkins starts telling a story about a friend, Noel Evans, initiating a painstakingly long process in 1996. Another version making the rounds is that Ottawa poet and poetry impresario rob mclennan hopped into a taxi one day, looked at the driver, exclaimed: "Are you William Hawkins?" and soon contacted with his frequent collaborator, Joe Blades at Broken Jaw Press in Fredericton, with a proposal to relaunch Hawkins.

"Maybe that's the way it happened," Hawkins says, when told the mclennan anecdote. The truth, apparently, is not important.

"The poems in this book are undeniable evidence that here is a distinctive, inimitable voice in Canadian poetry," MacSkimming writes. "Taken together, Hawkins's work is almost unbearably poignant in its existentialism verging on nihilism. It expresses a felt beauty and innocence that must remain unattainable, insisting on the ultimate certainty of loss, emptiness, death. Yet somehow the poet can't help betraying a mordant love of the whole ironic process.

Although his poems often appear casual, constructed of throwaway lines and impromptu endings, the best of them are spare, stark, unadorned gestures, brought off as swiftly and unerringly as a Zen painting."

Hawkins says he "alternates between terror and optimism" as he contemplates the book launch. The terror is not because of stagefright.

"I like being on stage," Hawkins says. "The problem is when you go off the stage."

He doesn't seem to want to elaborate. He has another engagement, appears eager to leave and quietly slips out of the Chateau Lafayette.

The Ottawa International Writers Festival will be held at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington St. For information and tickets, call 562-1243.




	-- home / who's talking / review by Paul Gessell
	Review by: Paul Gessell Poet with a past: William Hawkins returns after long hiatus The Ottawa Citizen, April 16, 2005 William Hawkins is not dead. The poet with a past, and possibly a future, was spotted recently, alive and well, in the almost respectable Chateau Lafayette in the Byward Market, cosying up to a blues-filled jukebox and sipping a glass of white wine that he declared, with great gusto, to be remarkably good. This was neither a ghost nor an acid flashback, although one could be forgiven for thinking as much. Before doing his famous disappearing act about 30 years ago, Hawkins used to be a fixture at the Lafayette, once Ottawa's raunchiest den of iniquity, where it was always midnight all day long. He claims he rarely frequents the relatively genteel place now, despite the fact everyone there seems to know him and treat him like a favourite uncle. During this recent Lafayette appearance, a rendezvous to publicize his first poetry collection in three decades, the 64-year-old Hawkins was undoubtedly sitting in the same seat where he was found daily in the 1960s -- hunched up in the protective V formed by the jukebox and the east wall. ("Always sit with your back to the wall," he still advises). During the 1960s, Hawkins ruled Ottawa's small, incestuous music and poetry scene and not just from a table at the Lafayette. He managed the capital's coolest ever coffee house, Le Hibou, played in a series of disposable bands with the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Sneezy Waters, Colleen Peterson and David Wiffen and, of course, wildly experimented with mood-altering substances in poetry-writing adventures that would have impressed Jack (On The Road) Kerouac.Hawkins's Ottawa Citizen of the Year award, or somesuch prize he got in 1966 (he thinks), came with a plaque that was quickly turned into a cutting board for hash. Naturally, memories from that era are imprecise. At the height of his fame -- and his infamy -- he woke up one day in 1973 at the Donwood rehab centre in Toronto and decided to go straight, or some version of straight. He was feeling "fragile." He was also feeling "paranoid" and perhaps with good reason: The police were "interested" in him and a certain shipment of Mexican marijuana. Hawkins calls this change of life "going into hiding," albeit in his hometown of Ottawa. He stopped publishing (but not writing or rewriting) poetry. He started driving a Blue Line taxi cab to become just another invisible, anonymous chauffeur eavesdropping on the squabbles and smooching of others in the backseat. And as the years rolled by, he started surfing the Internet, with great satisfaction, to see the prices steadily rise on his out-of-print poetry collections. He did poke his head up, briefly, in 1996-97 in an attempted musical comeback but quickly disappeared again and focused on a poetry revival. Hawkins says old fans, often of the female persuasion, track him down and send e-mails expressing surprise and relief that he is still alive. Well, those fans are in for another surprise: A book of 100 of his poems from the 1960s to the present is to be launched April 20 at Library and Archives Canada as part of the spring half of the annual Ottawa International Writers Festival. The launch of Dancing Alone: Selected Poems from Broken Jaw Press has the potential to be the party of the year for all those folks who wish they could better remember the '60s. Dancing includes a few new poems and many old ones, including Hawkins's tortured wails from Mexico, his Louis Riel epic and his personal confessions, like the one in Suicide Note, from his last collection, The Madman's War of 1974: My life has had sordid details; real associations with things obvious, dark and wrong. Sneezy Waters and Sandy Crawley plan to sing a few tunes at the launch. Bruce Cockburn has promised to attend and, most likely, will be coaxed into serenading his old bandmate. If Cockburn doesn't sing a few bars, there will be grumbling from all the Hawkins groupies who will assuredly come out of the woodwork that night to demonstrate that they are by far the hippest grannies and grampas in Ottawa. The writers festival, which runs from April 18-23, has the usual lineup of trendy Toronto authors with new novels, including Andrew Pyper, David Gilmour, Dionne Brand and Sheila Heti. As well, there will be a few old harrumphing warriors, such as Patrick Watson and John Metcalf, and a dozen or so visiting Europeans, including Liviu Maior, the history-writing Romanian ambassador to Canada. The smart money, however, is on Hawkins as the true star of the festival. His story is certainly the most interesting and most worthy of a novel, something perhaps along the lines of Malcolm Lowry's brilliant, horrifying, booze-soaked masterpiece, Under The Volcano. No one tells the story of Hawkins better than Perth author Roy MacSkimming, who has written an introduction to Dancing Alone and an insightful analysis of "Bill's peculiar genius." As MacSkimming notes, Hawkins was a real-live poet and a dangerous one to boot when the two met in 1962. "He took drugs, drank too much, insulted important people." Hawkins had also just been released from Quebec's Val Tetreau correction institution "for some misdemeanor involving other people's cars." He even had the tattoo to prove it -- the institution's trademark five bluish-black dots on the back of the left hand. As Le Hibou manager, Hawkins got to play host to the likes of Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. Jimi Hendrix dropped by one night. Richie Havens came to party. Musically speaking, Le Hibou was the only place between Montreal and Toronto. During those days, Hawkins was the driving force behind several bands. One was Heavenly Blue. Cockburn played harmonica. Hawkins sang. Back at the Lafayette -- and perhaps for no reason other than he could -- Hawkins hands a visitor an amateur recording of a 1966 live performance of Heavenly Blue at Le Hibou. Despite the poor quality of the recording, most of the tunes, including a bluesy interpretation of C.C. Rider, are electrifying, the energy and passion spellbinding. An exception is a dreadful, twangy, countrified rendition of Blowin' in the Wind Hawkins wrote the lyrics for a parcel of songs, including It's a Dirty Shame, which went No. 1 when recorded by The Esquires in 1965. He also wrote considerable poetry. Five collections alone were published during 1964-71. He appeared in various poetry anthologies and was starting to be mentioned in the same sentences as Leonard Cohen (the two tripped acid together in Montreal), Irving Layton ("my mentor") and Allen Ginsberg (another mentor). And then Hawkins packed it all in. He disappeared. Went into hiding. MacSkimming calls that startling change of pace for Hawkins "just wandering off and subsiding into other obsessions." Along the way there was a marriage, a divorce and three children. He is on good terms with them all, he says, except for one daughter. There are various stories as to how Dancing Alone came into being. When asked, Hawkins starts telling a story about a friend, Noel Evans, initiating a painstakingly long process in 1996. Another version making the rounds is that Ottawa poet and poetry impresario rob mclennan hopped into a taxi one day, looked at the driver, exclaimed: "Are you William Hawkins?" and soon contacted with his frequent collaborator, Joe Blades at Broken Jaw Press in Fredericton, with a proposal to relaunch Hawkins. "Maybe that's the way it happened," Hawkins says, when told the mclennan anecdote. The truth, apparently, is not important. "The poems in this book are undeniable evidence that here is a distinctive, inimitable voice in Canadian poetry," MacSkimming writes. "Taken together, Hawkins's work is almost unbearably poignant in its existentialism verging on nihilism. It expresses a felt beauty and innocence that must remain unattainable, insisting on the ultimate certainty of loss, emptiness, death. Yet somehow the poet can't help betraying a mordant love of the whole ironic process. Although his poems often appear casual, constructed of throwaway lines and impromptu endings, the best of them are spare, stark, unadorned gestures, brought off as swiftly and unerringly as a Zen painting." Hawkins says he "alternates between terror and optimism" as he contemplates the book launch. The terror is not because of stagefright. "I like being on stage," Hawkins says. "The problem is when you go off the stage." He doesn't seem to want to elaborate. He has another engagement, appears eager to leave and quietly slips out of the Chateau Lafayette. The Ottawa International Writers Festival will be held at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington St. For information and tickets, call 562-1243. © The Ottawa Citizen 2005