John Robert Colombo - biography, career, poetry
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John Robert Colombo |
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I am pleased that the University of Toronto is sponsoring this website because I regard Toronto as my home town and the University of Toronto is my alma mater. Although I was born elsewhere in Ontario, I studied Philosophy and English at University College, University of Toronto. I graduated in 1959 and spent one year enrolled in the School of Graduate Studies. I was lucky and privileged in my education. My generation (5T9) was one of the last generations of undergraduates to experience the four-year honours programs in the Humanities, and one of the last generations to be instructed by full professors rather than by teaching assistants. When I recall those years, the brilliant scholars Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan come to mind. When I arrived on campus, I had already enjoyed a short career as a private printer. On campus I blossomed as an editor of college and university publications. I was able to work part-time throughout the academic year and over the summer months as an editorial assistant at the University of Toronto Press where I observed closely the publishing spirit of Eleanor Harmon, Francess Halpenny, Harold Bohne, and Marsh Jeanneret. After that training I was able to move effortlessly into an editorial position at The Ryerson Press (still known as The Mother Publishing House!) and, after that, to work as an editor-at-large with half a dozen other publishing houses including McClelland & Stewart in its "glory years." While still on campus, I staged the city’s first organized series of literary readings at The Bohemian Embassy, founded by impresario Don Cullen, first at St. Nicholas Street and years later at The Harbourfront, the forerunner of its national and international reading series and festival. I also experimented with running a private press, issuing pamphlets and booklets under the imprint of The Hawkshead Press. I was the first newcomer to be added to the editorial board of The Tamarack Review, and for two decades I was associated with that professional, non-profit literary quarterly. One day in Toronto I met Gordon Sinclair, Lister Sinclair, and Nathan Cohen. Nowadays I take particular pleasure in proving Canadians to be a quotable people, in demonstrating the existence of a native fantastic literature, and in documenting the supernatural and paranormal heritage of the country. So far in this account I have contributed some three hundred words about my writing career, and I did it without once mentioning the word "poetry." As a high-school student I began to compose poems in an attempt to resolve the paradoxes of life. On campus the activity was encouraged by Robert Finch, James Reaney, Douglas Grant, and Milton Wilson, often in off-hand remarks. Throughout the 1960s I identified myself as a "poet and editor," but before the decades was out I grew weary of the connotations of the designation "poet." I gradually withdrew from reading circuits and writing circles, feeling I had little to say to students in high schools and community colleges, and growing weary of listening to fellow poets obsessed with shop talk or preoccupied with academic tenure. Instead I made a marked contribution to a wide reading--and browsing--public through the researching and writing and sometimes publishing a series of tomes of popular reference. The series began with Colombo’s Canadian Quotations in 1974 and continues to this day with Colombo’s Famous Lasting Words (2000). My professional motto as a Canadianist is the one uttered by a notable, turn-of-the-century Toronto editor who said, so succinctly, so memorably, "Canada only needs to be known to be great." The influence on my poetry of the insights and outlooks of many poets may be noted. Among them are A.M. Klein, F.R. Scott, and Louis Dudek on the national front; globally, the poets are Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Zbignew Herbert. Like so many other sentient beings throughout the world, I am much affected by the writings of the Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky and the teachings of the Greek-Armenian G.I. Gurdjieff. The poems I write are the ones that I most yearn to read--and rarely recite. Their themes include the paradoxes of life, a celebration of the novelties of Canadiana, the spirit of found poetry, neo-surrealism, the shift from ironic to mythic imagery, aphoristic utterance, etc. For me, at least, poetry constitutes an "early warning system" for those concerns that lurk around the corner, reside over the horizon, or threaten to impinge on consciousness.
Poetry
* Lines for the Last Day (1960)
* The Mackenzie Poems (1966)
* Miraculous Montages (1966)
* The Great Wall of China (1966, 1996)
* William Lyon Mackenzie Rides Again! (1967)
* Abracadabra (1967)
* John Toronto (1969)
* Neo Poems (1970)
* The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire (1971)
* Leonardo’s Lists (1972)
* Praise Poems (1972)
* Translations from the English (1974)
* The Sad Truths (1974)
* The Great Collage (1974)
* Proverbial Play (1975)
* Mostly Monsters (1977, 1995)
* Variable Cloudiness (1977)
* Private Parts (1978)
* The Great Cities of Antiquity (1979)
* Selected Poems (1982)
* Selected Translations (1982)
* Recent Poems (1982)
* Off Earth (1987)
* Luna Park / One Thousand Poems (1994)
* Space Poems (1995)
* Contrails (1996)
* Earlier Lives (1996)
* Ether / Rewords (1997)
* What Is What (1998)
* Interspaces (1999)
* Impromptus (2000)
* Half a World Away (2000)
Poetry Anthologies
* The Varsity Chapbook (1959)
* Poetry 64 / Poésie 64 (1963)
* Shapes & Sounds (1968)
* How Do I Love Thee (1970)
* New Direction in Canadian Poetry (1971)
* Rhymes and Reasons (1971)
* Trio (1975)
* The Poets of Canada (1978)
* We Stand on Guard (1985, 1998)
* Master of All Poets (1996)
* Worlds in Small (1992)
* Small Wonders (2000)
Aphorisms
* Uncommon Knowledge (1996)
* Semi-Certainties (1998)
* Open Secrets (2000)
Canadiana
* Colombo’s Book of Canada (1978, 1998)
* Toronto’s Fantastic Street Names (1982)
* Colombo’s 101 Canadian Places (1983)
* Colombo’s Canadiana Quiz Book (1983)
* Canadian Literary Landmarks (1983)
* 1001 Questions about Canada (1986)
* 999 Questions about Canada (1989)
* Writer’s Map of Toronto (1991)
* Writer’s Map of Ontario (1992)
* QuasiBook Edition of the Writer’s Map of Canada (1995)
* Quotable Canada (1998)
Quote Books
* Colombo’s Canadian Quotations (1974)
* Colombo’s Concise Canadian Quotations (1976)
* Colombo’s New Canadian Quotations (1987)
* The Dictionary of Canadian Quotations (1991)
* Colombo’s All-Time Great Canadian Quotations (1994)
* Colombo’s Famous Lasting Words (2000)
Reference
* Colombo’s Names & Nicknames (1974)
* Colombo’s Canadian References (1976)
* The Canada Colouring Book (1980)
* The Canadian Global Almanac (1992+)
* Omnium Gatherum (1994)
* Shapely Places (1996)
Compilations
* Richard Maurice Bucke: Catalogue (1963)
* Probings (1968)
* Colombo’s Hollywood (1979)
* Walt Whitman’s Canada (1992)
* The New Consciousness (1994)
Fantastic Literature
* CDN SF&F (1979)
* Other Canadas (1979)
* Blackwood’s Books (1981)
* Friendly Aliens (1981)
* Not to Be Taken at Night (1981)
* Years of Light (1982)
Humour & Lore
* Colombo’s Little Book of Canadian Proverbs (1975, 1997)
* 222 Canadian Jokes (1981)
* Colombo’s Last Words (1982)
* Colombo’s Laws (1982)
* Ren‚ L‚vesque Buys Canada Savings Bonds (1983)
* Great Moments in Canadian History (1984)
* The Toronto Puzzle Book (1984)
* Canada First Quiz (1984)
* Quotations from Chairman Lamport (1990)
* Ogdenisms (1994)
* Metro’s Goldwyn Mayor (1995)
* Erotica Canadiana (1995)
* 666 Canadian Jokes (1996)
* Slightly Higher in Canada (1996)
* Colombo’s Doublebook of Laws & Last Lines (1996)
* The Stephen Leacock Quote Book (1996)
* Iron Curtains (1996)
* Kidstuff (1996)
* All About Us (1998)
* More Iron Curtains (1998)
* Yet More Iron Curtains (2000)
* Canadian Capers (2000)
Surveys
* Colombo’s Book of Marvels (1979)
* Mysterious Canada (1988, 1998)
* The Little Blue Book of UFOs (1992)
* Ghost Stories of Ontario (1995)
* Haunted Toronto (1996)
* Mysteries of Ontario (1999)
* Ghost Stories of Canada (2000)
Personal Accounts Series
* Extraordinary Experiences (1989)
* Mysterious Encounters (1990)
* Mackenzie King’s Ghost (1991)
* UFOs over Canada (1991)
* Dark Visions (1992)
* Close Encounters of the Canadian Kind (1994)
* Ghosts Galore! (1994)
* Closer than You Think (1998)
Stories Series
* Strange Stories (1994)
* Marvellous Stories (1998)
* Singular Stories (1999)
* Weird Stories (2000)
* Ghosts in Our Past (2000)
Monograph Series
* Conjuring Up the Owens (1999)
* The Occult Webb (1999)
* Lambert’s Day (2000)
Native Studies
* Poems of the Inuit (1981, 1997)
* Windigo (1982, 1997)
* Songs of the Indians (1983, 1997)
* Songs of the Great Land (1989, 1996)
* The Mystery of the Shaking Tent (1993)
* Voices of Rama (1994)
Translations: Bulgarian
* Under the Eaves of a Forgotten Village (1975)
* The Balkan Range (1976)
* The Left-handed One (1977)
* Remember Me Well (1978)
* Depths (1978)
Translations: Spanish
* 152 Proverbs Adapted to the Taste of the Day (1975)
* When the Animal Rises from the Deep the Head Explodes (1976)
* Mirages (1977)
Translations: Polish
* Dark Times (1979)
* Evenings on Lake Ontario (1981)
* Far from You (1981)
* Such Times (1981)
Translations: Romanian
* Sorescu: Selected Poems (1982)
Translations: Hungarian
* From Zero to One (1973)
* East & West (1978)
* Beyond Labels (1982)
* Learn This Poem of Mine by Heart (1983)
* Some Hungarian Poets (1995)
About the author:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca
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