Ron Romanowski’s Book Chat – 10,000 Dancers Working Off Broadway
By David Yerex Williamson
On Wednesday, November 12th, Ron Romanowski delighted a small but enthusiastic audience during a reading and book chat about his most recent poetry collection, 10,000 Dancers Working Off Broadway. Hosted by the incomparable Susan Rocan, former Guild president, historian and general doer of things needing to be done, Ron connected with old friends, new fans and supportive artists. Following a short humourous reminiscing about the poetic and musical hauntings of Tache Hall, Ron led us through a rhythmic journey which threaded music, dance, art and era into the craft of poetry.
Beginning with an homage to the colours of November which celebrated “the last great gifts of the oaks,” steering us through those “fluttered spaces” of grief and loss and landing with the question: “do architects plan for angel”, Ron’s infectious reading style, self-deprecating humour and whimsical style enchanted us all. During one reading, he even broke into a gentle alto singing voice which really captured the essence and “potency of prayer.”
Grief and loss play into many of Ron’s poems, but he expresses grief not as a monolithic emotion to be tackled but rather as a “thread of breath” and woven memories to carry us through. In an elegy to his mother, “Will we leave this funeral?”, Ron paints a poetic visual of the funereal ashes worn as make-up to awaken the blood of memory.
As a trained singer with a connection to dance, musical genres play an important theme in Ron’s verses. Honouring the rain at a recent reading, Ron underscored the syncopated beat of jazz in a rainfall and then adeptly turned to operatic aria without missing a beat. Quickly but seamlessly switching poetic gears to his experiences as a backyard astronomer, Ron encouraged the audience to ponder during the occultation of Mars by the Moon: what do you learn by inhabiting each other’s light.
In the Q and A session led by Susan, Ron stressed the importance of a poetic and cultural community for support and sustenance. He credits Governor General Award winning poet, Erin Moure, for welcoming him into a writing circle where he could draw from the poetics of Ginsberg’s Howl. When asked about his changing writing processes over the years, he described playing with different literary and poetic styles (like W.H. Auden) and drawing from his North End upbringing in the legacy of the Polish diaspora and the Labour movement.
In a candid account of his experiences with a Humber College creative writing class, Ron noted the importance of staying true to your own voice and to advocate where and how you want your art to exist. He also credited the Guild for its support of writing circles and an extended cultural community.
As the evening moved to memory, Ron and I touched on the nostalgia of a former local arts and culture establishment, The Heaven Art and Book Café, run by Tim Brandt in the Corydon Village in the 90s. It was venues like this where spoken word and poetry readings came alive in an intimate space where secondhand literature, acoustic music and cinnamon coffee underscored a backdrop for readings. I don’t know if Ron and I met there but we certainly were shaped by the same space.
Ron closed the evening by drawing the primary focus of his works back to the intersections between movement (dance), sound (music/reading) and image (poetry) where history, culture and community can be shared. Ron is a gifted reader and performer and his eleventh book, 10 000 Dancers Working Off Broadway is a wonderful culmination of a thirty-year career across various art forms.