Magazine - summer 03 - St. John's College

{Bibliofile} 29
The Man in the Moon-
Fixer’s Mask
by JonArno Lawson (A91)
Toronto: Pedlar Press, 2004.
In part, his diverse
interests explain
JonArno Lawson’s
two most recent
accomplishments
in the publishing
world. Not long after his
chapters on Chechen literature
and proverbs appeared
in Chechens: A Handbook,
Lawson’s third volume of
poetry, The Man in the Moon-Fixer’s Mask,
was published by a Canadian press.
The other explanation is a relatively new
audience for his work: his son, Asher, and
daughter, Sophie. “We had our first child,
Sophie, about three years ago and were
reading a lot more children’s poetry,”
explains Lawson (A91), who lives in
Toronto. Asher joined the family in
January 2004.
Lawson and his wife, Amy Freedman,
were reading books such as Shel Silverstein’s
Where the Sidewalk Ends to their
daughter, and Lawson found the musical
style of children’s poetry infectious.
Writing for children, Lawson adds, is
distinctly different and a little more
difficult than writing poetry for adults.
“In adult poetry now in English, most of
the time you don’t worry about rhyme, and
meter isn’t as important.
When you’re writing for
children, all those things
become very important
again—word play, timing.
I guess it’s the same with
an adult poem in that you
want the images to be
surprising.”
Children are a tough
audience to write for, he
adds. “Children are very
honest when they don’t like
something. We tried out all
the poems on Sophie first—
she was my first editor for
this project.”
Lawson began writing poetry as a teenager,
and by the time he got to St. John’s,
he was taking his craft seriously. He published
his first book of poems and aphorisms,
Love is An Observant Traveller,
tackling themes such as families and
relationships, in 1997. “One of the first
poems I wrote was when I was at St. John’s,”
he says. “It was based on the Odyssey. It
hasn’t made it into a book yet, but it has
promise.”
Since poetry doesn’t pay well, Lawson
also does freelance editing and teaches
poetry workshops in schools as part of
Ontario’s Artists in Education program.
He continues to explore other types of
writing, such as the chapters on Chechen
literature. “It all ties together because it’s
all language, and how people use language
Horses in Cities
Good and iniquitous,
they were ubiquitous:
Horses were everywhere
anyone looked.
But with cars, numbers dwindled,
and sightings diminished,
and then one day horses in cities
were finished.
I Spun
I spun
where I was told to spin
and while I spun
grabbed hold of him
who told me
where I had to spin.
I could tell
it startled him.
as a tool to say things in different ways and
as clearly as possible,” he explains,
adding, “I probably am a better writer
than a talker.”
Lawson has two volumes—one of
children’s poems and one for adults—
nearly complete and ready for a publisher.
“Children’s poetry is the most fun of anything
I’ve done,” he says. “It’s the most
fun, I guess, because there’s a better
chance people will read it.” x
(continued)
me to walk around. The other thing for me
was, when I came here I was blown away by
the architecture of St. John’s. Like, wherever
you are you know people take it for
granted, there’s all this glass and light.
We all know about the doors being painted
different colors, but in 1970 that just blew
me away. One wall would be blue and
another pink.
Some people think writing can’t be
taught. How do you feel about that?
A lot of those people who think that
writing can’t be taught are people who
can’t write themselves and have given up.
Writing can be taught, just like anything
else. When Writing Down the Bones came
out, across the culture, people wrote me
letters: Quarry workers in Missouri. Bluecollar
workers in Nebraska. Vice-presidents
of insurance agencies in Florida. Everybody
has a deep desire to write. And that
doesn’t mean they’re all going to become
Faulkner, but people have a need to
express themselves.
How did you make the transition to
being a full-time writer?
I just made enough money and I could just
make a living as a writer, so I quit doing
other things. Before that I was teaching.
My last full-time job was teaching fifth and
sixth grade, at Rio Grande. Writing Down
the Bones came out. It still sells, and is
taught in colleges and high schools, and so
I was able to just leave. After Writing Down
the Bones, I started a novel, Banana Rose,
and then I wrote Wild Mind. This book,
The Great Failure, is a memoir about my
father, who was a Jewish bartender, and my
Japanese Zen Master Katagiri Roshi, the
two most important men in my life…
looking at the wonderful things about
them, and also their darkness. I think it’s
the best book I’ve ever written. I’m very
excited about it.
Do you still have dark periods where
you hate everything you write or can’t
write? What do you do when that
happens?
Yes. And you just keep your hand moving.
Writing is a practice, and you do it whether
you like to or not, whether you feel good
about it or not. You’re in a good mood, you
go write. You lost all your money, you go
write. You just won the Nobel Prize, you
start a new book the next day. x
{ The College • St. John’s College • Fall 2004 }