---

The poems are based on this book, Scouts are Cancelled, first published by Insomniac Press in Toronto, Canada. The book examines in comic and tragic human terms what happens to a rural community when a small farm is auctioned off to make way for a subdivision. However the story of the poetry begins in Toronto, with the author John Stiles. John lived in Toronto for eight years trying to make it as a writer, and in between stints travelling on the road with Edmonton rock band the smalls, did many crappy odd jobs to make ends meet. Telemarketting, door-to-door sales, dishwashing, labouring, and so on. Five of those were on the fringes of society, cut off from friends, family and hope. Penniless, heartbroken and lost Stiles develops a voice from his childhood and tells stories at poetry cafes and in Toronto bars which changes his life dramatically. And the literary community listened. Now get the poems here.

(*NB for those wondering where the smalls...er whatever, Canadian Writers on Writing, or the Book Review section went, fear not, it all starts (and ends) here. The Toronto Readers are still available, all for free. Lucky, ducky.

EXCLUSIVE: THE AUDIO CD!

Fer the Pardy:

A poem for my Mom. She used to make money by picking apples and encouraged me to pick bins in the orchard with her. She taught me to man the back of the scouts truck during pop bottle drives and walk in the local walk-a-thons. She also taught me how to fight (tip: don't close your eyes), rummage through the road side sales and most importantly how to listen. Later on in life my parents got involved in the Amway business to make extra-money, which didn`t go down so well with us kids. The odious 'insurance' in this poem references this hell-on-earth called 'sales.' The only good thing about that time was that we got to go down to the states to see the rallies in North and South Carolina and the entertainment was good. The MC`s - fat, bald white guys used to stand in front of the crowd and say: "You must know, this feller. His name is Johnny Cash..."And he was, too. And Pat Boone. Also Sammy Hall, and The Goads, but I doubt you know who they are...

Monkey's Island Song:

An actual place in in the valley, a favourite for the neighbourhood kids. An acoustic version of this poem exists with the country singer Corb Lund on guitar. This acoustic version was recorded in Toronto in 1999 or 2000 at about 3 a.m.

How Yah Doon a'night?:

Was recorded in Toronto after seeing a fellow poet perform upstairs at the Imperial Library Pub, off Dundas Street and Yonge. The poet, a local character, performed a poem called The Wave, which captivated the noisy crowd, held over sixty-people rapt. Later on that night in my room on Shaw Street I wrote How Yah Doon a'night? complete with Town Hall siren, thinking that I needed to up my game. The poem came to me quickly and effortlessly, a very rare occasion. I thought of being with my brother down the Port and laughing about the Town Clowns who patroled Main Street in "Wooval" in ghost cars targetting the grubs on the steps of Nova Scotia Power. It was a hit, my very first one.

Little Buggers My Mom:

Was first performed at the I.V. lounge in Toronto for the publication and launch of the I.V. Lounge Reader, which Paul Vermeersch edited. It was also perfomed at Acadia University during a book tour and during the Scouts are Cancelled, down east tour. At a performance at The Attic Owl Reading Series in Moncton N. B. the daughter of the next door neighbour said: "That`s about us, isn`t it?"I can`t say for sure but we did live next door to a dog named "Ginger"who used to rub her hind end across the lawn.

Scouts are Cancelled:

This poem is self-explanatory though I was always captivated, as a small boy by one of the scout leaders, a photographer for the local paper, who had guard dogs penned up outside the local Petro Can. We took photography classes from him and he had pictures of the dogs. I wondered why the dogs were penned up, not running free on the farm.

All She Wrote:

I had a friend who had a Ski-Doo which ran out of gas on a corn field and sat there, through the winter till spring. It was there in plain site of the school bus that passed everyday, in plain site of the school kids too.

My mother used to stand on top of the dog kennel and hang clothes on the line. This was because the clothesline stoop had rotted into the ground and my father wasn`t handy at all.

ANECDOTES

tid bits, this n that...

Some anecdotes about the filmmaker John Scott, who has plenty to say about me.
We both went to college together, played on the soccer team there and used to work for College Pro Painters in Halifax. John was the foreman, with clipboard and I was the entertainment, with another painter was a jock on the softball team, Jeff Snarr. Snarr must have thought we were crazy, we never shut up yapping at the top of ladders. But to be fair, he put his two cents in now and again. Every now and then we`d brawl on the grounds of someone`s house. We called ourselves The Whining Wailers and we used to work very fast and hard on those houses in Halifax. We used to work fast - wail. And complain - whine. It was a lot of fun and we once went to John's cottage on the south shore and went out on his sail boat, The Boston Wailer. The first time was great, sunny and we had so much fun. The second time we went out late at night and got lost in the fog. There was a helluva ballyhoo on the boat in the bay as we both struggled to come back to shore as dusk approached. We bitched and whined and complained the whole time in the dark. We did make it but we had both panicked that was the last time we went on that boat.

CKDU 97.5 fm.

During the time that we were at College Pro Painters, John used to talk about the radio show that he had on Monday mornings at the local university Radio station at Dalhousie - CKDU. I can`t remember what it was called but it was sixties-themed and mainly the old classics like Weeping Widow by April Wine Baraccuda by Heart and so on. I convinced John that the show needed some seventies entertainment and so I did a radio voice that me and my brother used to do mimicking a radio DJ from down the valley. I decided to call the persona Freddy Wheeler, and I got the last 30 minutes of the show. The highlight of the show was a "call in "show called "Duelling Decades "with listeners encouraged to vote for their favourite track. We recorded intros and so on for the show and one of the guests was an opinionated 80`s era DJ called: Vin the Spin. It was the beginning of a sometimes up and down creative relationship with John. Later I was making a film about a rock band, (the smalls) and asked John to help teach me editing. I went to see him in Morningside College in Iowa where he took his first position as a professor of media or filmmaking. He was screening a film called "Almanac" about a printing press there. He was interviewed on the local Iowa television. To be fair he gave a decent interview, but he didn`t look like he was enjoying it much. It was weird to see him interviewed on a small Midwestern news programme, as he had left me in the house with the with the cats just an hour before. I realized then that there was a lot more to the of business of art than I had ever wanted or imagined.

SEND CHEQUE OR MONEY ORDER (10 bucks or 5 quid) TO:

John Stiles, 35B PARK GROVE ROAD

LEYTONSTONE

E11 4PT

U.K.