Mississauga's Bookmark: Jeff Latosik

Q and A with Jeff Latosik

Before the big unveiling (the first of 2011), Jeff agreed to answer some question posed by the ever-curious Ontario: Read It Here team. Read on to find out what he likes about Mississauga, the process of writing poetry and Ontario's writing and reading scene.

When did you write “Song for the Field Behind Mississauga Valley Public School”? How long did it take?

I wrote it in 2007. I don't remember exactly, but probably a few days.

What inspired it?

The poem riffs on the familiar motif of finding things in fields (think Jeffrey finding the ear in "Blue Velvet") but inverts that to describe finding fields in other things. So, it's a poem about scale but also about internal experience -- how perception and emphasis change our relationship to what is perceived. In this way "a little scar on your neighbour's forehead" can become "a field." That's how inner life works: the same proportions of scale that are restrictive in the physical world (you can't walk across a field in the same time it takes you to walk across your room) don't apply in mental life. A tiny scar can be a field depending on how you attend to it. This strikes, to me, at the blessing and burden of having a mind.

What does Mississauga mean to you?

I'm not sure. It's where I grew up. I like malls. I like hydro towers. That probably couldn't have happened if I didn't grow up in a place like Mississauga. Other people don't like those things but I do. I like the band "Tears for Fears" because I spent a lot of time in Pharmacies and Zellers and that was the song that played (among others... I don't mean to paint some Kafka-like nightmare for non-fans).

Why did you choose it for this poem?

I don't write consciously in this way. I suppose it's because I spent a lot of time there.

What is your favourite place to write in Ontario?

Poetry is very portable and I think what that means for me is that I don't have a favourite place. I write on the subway. I write in cafes. I write in my room. The locus of it all is my desk. I made sure to buy a nice desk.

What is your favourite place to read in Ontario?

I suppose wherever the book is good.

Other than your own, what poem do you most closely associate with a place in this province?

Dennis Lee's "400: Coming Home" makes me think of the long stretch of highway that connects everything here. It's the opening poem of Civil Elegies. That book took place in a larger sea change in Ontario, I think, where people were becoming more and more able to write poems set in Toronto. But the poem is all about the highway and how it weaves the urban and rural.

Is there a book and/or poem that you feel really defines Ontario for you?

No. It's too big and it's history is too diverse. No writer captures Toronto and, say, Elmira specifically. Maybe over the course of a career, as Alice Munro has done. But maybe there are Ontario "qualities": a working class ethos; a deferential politeness; a harsh but elemental geosystem; a collision of culture. Karen Solie's book Pigeon does a great job of conveying these themes.

What were your greatest challenges in writing this poem?

The challenges are always the same: Is it done? How could it be better? It's knowing when to stop.

This is your first book of poetry, and earlier this year it won the Trillium Award for Poetry. What does it feel like to have your work honoured this way, and to be so identified as an Ontario poet?

I don't think the award identifies me as an Ontario poet, which is to say I don't think "writing about Ontario" is a condition of eligibility for the award. But to answer the first question, it's helped me realize that writing is what I'm doing. It's not that I was ever unsure: I don't think I would have wrote it down, though, and in an interview? Never. But now?

Mississauga gets into the spirit of giving

When driving around Mississauga, it’s fairly evident that the city is home to suburban families and to many office buildings, warehouses and corporate headquarters. Amongst those office buildings and warehouses lives First Book Canada, an international nonprofit organization that provides children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.

To date, First Book Canada has distributed more than 85 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout Canada and the United States. The organization is determined to see that all children, regardless of their economic background, can achieve more in school and in life through access to a lasting supply of new books.

From their facility in Mississauga, First Book Canada receives the donated books, stores them and ships them to the appropriate location. Lots of room is necessary for that kind of an operation, but according to First Book Canada's Executive Director, Tom Best, the decision to set up shop in Mississauga was more than just a spacing convenience.

“We ended up in Mississauga largely because we found the perfect location to expand our operations by having our own warehouse and shipping facility combined with adequate office space but we also wanted to be in an area that reflected the very nature of the sorts of communities we want to serve. Everyone knows that Mississauga is a very progressive community with a remarkable library system, with so many high profile, successful businesses and affluent neighbourhoods but it also has a significant population of families living below the poverty line who really don't have access to books. It’s very typical of the sort of community that can be found across the country where First Book Canada can make an immediate difference. We are very happy to call it home.”

First Book Canada is located at 1200 Aerowood Drive, Unit 36, in Mississauga, Ontario. If you’re interested in finding out more about First Book Canada, and how you can contribute, click here.