Church

Church
It has stood at 83 Essex Street Guelph since its base stones were set in late June 1880. Its cornerstone was set on September 17 1880 as recorded in the Guelph Mercury and Advertiser. The contents of the cornerstone were described in that article, "Copy of the Holy Scriptures, Hymn Book of the BME Church, copy of the Missionary Messenger - the organ of the church; and copies of the Mercury and Herald." Presumably, the contents had already been placed inside a tin box, hermetically sealed and then painted over before being placed in a carved-out section of the cornerstone, then covered with sand and mortared under the stone above it. The Mercury report noted that the structure was already twelve feet high, with half the basement four feet in the ground and the other four feet above it. The base stones of the church could well be mortared directly onto the same ridge of limestone that extends across the road to where the ground drops behind the southside homes and into a remnant of the quarry from which many of the nearby stone houses had also come. The Guelph BME was, by the 1880's, one of the last stone structures erected in the neighbourhood. The quarry had been owned by the man who had been awarded the contract to raise the church, William Slater, listed in the 1881 city directory as a stone cutter.

Friday, December 19, 2025

Joined the League of Canadian Poets

... a few months back, having qualified via my works published by others

and by my own self-published works. Moving to Stratford ON in a month, since life in Elora is too much like being a retired serf in a town now run by oligarchs who showed up during COVID intent on buying up all the downtown property as their private fiefdom, nothing here for my gal and I beyond the Elora Poetry Centre which is itself winding down via the olding ages of its founders.

Morvern and I hope to become involved in the poetry scene there, and my early years on Toronto's alternate theatre from which I wandered into dance and out of the city once married into rural journalism the writing and self-publishing of six history books, while making a living as a cook and then a stone worker, never harmed the process of writing poetry.

When we moved to Kingston ON during Covid we became part of Bruce Kaufman's poetry community and we both loved being part of his world, a gentle giant, and a consummate poet and the 'dean' of Queen's Radio poetry.

He is is to Kingston what Jeremy Luke Hill and Vocamus Press are to Guelph and Wellington County. Noble souls who serve others. Morvern and I have been exception fortunate in those two connections.

The Playwright in me however, intends on making a last stand in a town with actors and dancers and practitioners of all the theatre arts. 

Having entered into league with Canada's oldest poetry circles, and slowly learning my way around all the minefield issues of aging poets and rapidly changing performance venues and modes, I am angling for a role as a wise man this Christmas, having healed the damaged child within, and survived the passionate intensities of the young man's opinion's and impulses, and with 23 years of life with the same woman, and her son and mine now in their thirties, gave up drink  nine years ago, and pot a year and a half ago, the fine balance of my mind and soul have been restored, I think I may have finally matured, and am ready to see what becomes of me.

I intend on aging out well. 





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cover for Laying the Bed

cover for Laying the Bed
designed by Brenan Pangborn