Chapleau's Armand Ruffo honoured with 2016 Life Membership Award by League of Canadian Poets

Armand Ruffo, who was born and raised in Chapleau, has been honoured by the League of Canadian Poets with the 2016 Life Membership Award for his contributions to Canadian poetry.

In making the announcement, at its annual awards ceremony recently, the League said it was "thrilled to grant life membership to Armand Garnet Ruffo" adding that he has made a "significant contribution to poetry in Canada."

The League further explained that "life members are selected for their incredible contribution to poets and poetry in Canada and the award is presented as a mark of distinction and appreciation for special achievements." Armand now joins the ranks of the distinguished Canadian poets who have received a life membership -- one named a year.

In extending congratulations to Armand, the department of English language and literature at Queen's University where Armand is Associate Professor and Queen’s National Scholar, noted that his most recent volume, The Thunderbird Poems, is a companion to his acclaimed biography of artist Norval Morrisseau Man Changing Into Thunderbird.

In 2015, Armand became a finalist for a Governor-General's Award in the non fiction category.

Before joining the Queen's faculty, Armand taught at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has a Master's degree in literature and creative writing from the University of Windsor and an Honours degree in English from the University of Ottawa.

Born in Chapleau with roots to the Biscotasing branch of the Sagamok First Nation and the Chapleau Cree First Nation. He is a graduate of Chapleau High School, and as I have noted on previous occasions when sharing Armand's success stories, he played on the 1970-71 Midget hockey team I coached, and yes, the plaque is still on my wall. I just looked at it!

Armand's work on Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird inspired Armand to write poems "reflecting the on both the works of art and the context in which Morrisseau painted them," the publisher of The Thunderbird Poems noted adding that the poems "complement the highly evocative and poetic biography, delving into Morrisseau's creative life through compressed, imagistic language, while untangling the complex and powerful threads of meaning, tradition and emotional power that resonate throughout Morrisseau's strong lines and vibrant colours (in his paintings)"

What an incredible undertaking by Armand to deal with Morrisseau's work in prose and poetry. For absolute sure, if I was a bit younger, and looking for a place to study English language and literature, I would head to Queen's University and take courses from Professor Ruffo.

But, some years ago, Armand wrote a play A Windigo Tale, which he turned into an award winning movie. It deals with the intergenerational impact of the residential school system in Canada, framed as both a mystery and a ghost story.

In a recent email Armand advised that he has new projects in the works, and commented, "Must be something in the Chapleau water." There sure must be as Liz Howard recently won the Griffin Poetry Prize for 2016, and like Armand was nominated in 2015 for the Governor-General's Award for poetry.

Congratulations!  My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Armand Ruffo and Liz Howard both from Chapleau nominated for 2015 Governor General Literary Awards in different categories

Armand Ruffo and Liz Howard, both from Chapleau, have been selected  as finalists in different categories in the 2015 Governor General's Literary Awards, to be announced on October 28.

Armand has been nominated in the non fiction category for his book Norval Morisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird while Liz is a finalist in the poetry section for  Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent.

My first WOW came when I received an email from Armand recently advising that his book had been nominated, and the second came  when Liz posted on Facebook that her work had been selected. Just imagine! We kind of expect that two, even more on occasion, are nominated for prestigious awards or honours from large cities.. 

Armand and Liz are from a small rural community and have both been nominated in the same year for a very prestigious literary award. Before going any further, a huge "WOW" to both of you, and congratulations.

The Canada Council for the Arts  explains that the Governor General’s Literary Awards are given annually to the best English-language and the best French-language book in each of the seven categories of Fiction, Literary Non-fiction, Poetry, Drama, Children’s Literature (text), Children’s Literature (illustrated books) and Translation (from French to English).

ARMAND RUFFO

Armand Garnet Ruffo was born in Chapleau with roots to the Biscotasing branch of the Sagamok First Nation and the Chapleau Fox Lake Cree First Nation. He is a graduate of Chapleau High School, and as I have noted when writing about Armand's work on other occasions, he played on my 1970-71 Midget hockey team. I still have the plaque the team gave me.

Andrew Carroll, editor of the Queen's Gazette wrote that Armand, the Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Languages and Literatures, is in the running for a Governor General's Literary Award in the non-fiction category for his work Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird, a biography of the innovative and controversial Ojibway painter.

Mr. Carroll noted that Armand, who teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature and Department of Drama, was surprised by the nomination and considers it an honour to be included among “such fine writers.”

“Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird took numerous years to write because of the huge amount of primary research that I had to do, and the way that I wanted to integrate this material into a compelling narrative, and so it is wonderful to hear that the book may not simply fall into the proverbial ‘big black hole’ and disappear quickly from sight,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s the writing that matters, and I think the nomination should help the book come to the attention of potential readers, and for a writer – at least for me – this is the best thing about the nomination.”

Armand previously taught at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has  Master's degree in literature and creative writing from the University of Windsor and an Honours degree in English from the University of Ottawa.

LIZ HOWARD

In a Facebook and email exchange with Liz, she advised " I'm so pleased to be in Chapleau Express. The Express was the first place that ever published me, when I was 8 years old!"

Regarding her background and family Liz said she was born in Timmins in 1985 and grew up in Chapleau on Monk Street and Highway 129. 

"I am the daughter of Tamara (nee Turcotte) and Sylvain Rousseau. My birth father was Russell Howard, son of William (Bill) Howard who is a former Chapleau Reeve. 

"I graduated from Chapleau High School in 2003 at the top of my class and left immediately to study psychological science in Toronto. I graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction in 2007 and became employed by the Hasher Aging and Cognition Laboratory as a research officer. 

"After graduation I began an intensive period of writing and performing my poetry. I enrolled in the MFA in Creative Writing through the University of Guelph and secured a book contract before my thesis was submitted. 

"My childhood in Chapleau, especially the significant amount of time I spent in the woods and lakes, are foundational to my writing. I am also very proud of my Anishinaabe (Ojibway) heritage and write about many First Nations issues."

ABOUT THE BOOKS

From Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird by Armand Garnet Ruffo ©2015. Published by Douglas&McIntyre:

"This compelling biography delves into the life of Norval Morrisseau, a self-taught Ojibway artist who rose to prominence to become one of the most innovative and important Canadian painters of the 20th century.He was a charismatic - and troubled - figure who first started drawing sketches and age six in the sand on the shores of Lake Nipigon. He became a great internationally-known success, but struggled with alcoholism, often trading his art for booze, and landing in jail while his wife and children lived in poverty."

An Excerpt from the book by Armand: "The more I thought about Morrisseau and his life, the more I realized that his experiences, while extraordinary in their own right because of his unique gifts, were fundamentally connected to something larger than himself. I realized that Morrisseau's life was representative of the profound upheaval that had taken place in the lives of native people across the country. With their traditional economies and support systems in ruins, they were thrown into abject poverty, families literally starving to death, and it was into this milieu that Morrisseau, like my mother, was born in 1932 (which is the birth year that he acknowledged in a Department of Indian Affairs cultural development application). A period that coincided with the unparalleled movement by Native peoples to cities and one-industry towns across the country to find work-shell shocked as they were by a history of missionaries, decades of residential schooling that taught them to hate everything Indian, hate even themselves, the overt racism that made them stand at the back of the line, the total disregard and denigration of their cultures, the stereotypes that 
continually projected Hollywood versions of them whooping and hollering on the screen."

From Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard ©2015. Published by McClelland & Stewart.

 "In Liz Howard's wild, scintillating debut, the mechanisms we use to make sense of our worlds - even our direct intimate experiences of it - come under constant scrutiny and a pressure that feels like love. What Howard can accomplish with language strikes us as electric, a kind of alchemy of perception and catastrophe, fidelity and apocalypse. The waters of Northern Ontario shield country are the toxic origin and an image of potential."

A poem from the book by Liz Howard:

STANDARD TIME

The total psychic economy shimmers
a little mouthpiece out in the field
anthropologically, her voice in its hollow

All night the blood moon measures the dilation
of each pupil, pin-prick or dinner plate
in this poem where our attention fails to die

A positive outcome would be music in the unfinished
basement, a purple curfew for causation, the reply
a sinuous window of dried moths over the harbour

An exercise in temperament pitched back over
the clouded bathroom mirror transiting near to silver
being female, some Velcro, afterbirth and gravel

In our settler dreams Plexiglas teeth stuck in the hide
of the ravine, a freeway of copper wire and blackstrap
molasses, Copernican limbs, mercury in the water

Little silver pills tracing a path through the lakebed
of submerged logs to a trap of currents under rock
our odd love and petrochemicals not otherwise specified

The finalists in the Non-fiction category are: Bee Time by Mark L. Winston; Dispatches from the Front by David Halton; Norval Morrisseau by Armand Garnet Ruffo; Party of One by Michael Harris; The Social Life of Ink by Ted Bishop

The finalists in the Poetry category are: Crossover by M. Travis Lane;; For Your Safety Please Hold On by Kayla Czaga; Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard; My Shoes are Killing Me by Robyn Sarah; Washita by Patrick Lane

Again, my sincere congratulations to Armand and Liz. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Armand Ruffo writes rich biography on Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird

Armand Ruffo's latest book Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird is described as an "innovative and rich biography" of a troubled person who by the end of his life  was considered by some as Canada's greatest painter.

Armand, who was born in Chapleau, and graduated from Chapleau High School, "drawing upon years of extensive research, including interviews with Morrisseau himself, evokes the artist’s life from childhood to death, in all its vivid triumphs and tragedies: his first solo and breakthrough exhibition at the Pollock Gallery in Toronto; his legendary “Garden Party” where he and his agent Jack Pollock flew a coterie of critics and patrons from Toronto to remote Beardmore for an afternoon tea party."

In information about his new book in an email, Armand explained that "Norval Morrisseau (1932–2007), Ojibway shaman-artist, drew his first sketches at age six in the sand on the shores of Lake Nipigon, and his first paintings were in cheap watercolour on birch bark and moose hide.

"By the end of his tumultuous life, the prolific self-taught artist was sought by collectors, imitated by forgers and received the Order of Canada among other accolades. Critics, art historians and curators alike consider him one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century and arguably Canada’s greatest painter.

"Morrisseau was a controversial figure too, eliciting everything from resentment to outright condemnation. Living on booze, flat broke and exhausted, he often traded art for a drink to the frustration of his agents. Despite immense talent and success, his alcoholism plunged his wife and children into poverty and he spent years bouncing between skid row and jail."

"Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird is an innovative and rich biography of this charismatic and troubled figure." 

Armand also writes about Morrisseau’s heart-wrenching battle with alcoholism, then Parkinson’s disease, and exultant “Shaman’s Return” to national status in the Canadian art scene and his solo show at The National Gallery of Canada.

Armand  draws upon his own Ojibway heritage and experiences to provide insight into Morrisseau’s life and iconography from an Ojibway perspective. Captivating and readable, this is a brilliantly creative evocation of the art and life of Norval Morrisseau, a life indelibly tied to art. Armand is also a member of Chapleau Cree First Nation.

Here is some additional information on Armand. He is the author of three books of poetry, Opening In the Sky (Theytus Books, 1994), Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney (Coteau Books, 1997) and At Geronimo’s Grave (Coteau Books, 2001).

He has also edited and co-edited(Ad)Dressing Our Words: Aboriginal Perspectives on Aboriginal Literatures (Theytus Books, 2001) and An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English (Oxford University Press, 2013).

His screenplay, A Windigo’s Tale, has been shown across Canada and at film festivals internationally.

He is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University, and lives in Kingston, ON. Armand also has taught at Carleton University, Ottawa. Due to be released in October, you can preorder from amazon.ca from link on sidebar.

Congratulations Armand,  andwhen writing about you and your successes, I can never resist mentioning that you played on the 1970-71 Chapleau Midgets hockey team I coached. Seems like only yesterday. My email is mj.morris@live.ca

Armand Garnet Ruffo award winning movie A Windigo Tale' selected to be shown at two Ontario film festivals this Fall

Armand Garnet Ruffo's award winning film, A Windigo Tale which deals with the intergenerational impact of the residential school system in Canada, fram ed as both a mystery and a ghost story of sorts, will be shown at two film festivals in Ontario this Fall.

On September 22, it will be shown at the Cinefest Sudbury Film Festival (http://cinefest.com/films/windigo-tale/) and in Toronto on October 24 at the ImagineNative International Film Festival. (http://www.imaginenative.org/


Born and raised in Chapleau, Armand now is a professor at Carleton University, and in an email says he did "A lot of moving around, different schools and jobs, constantly writing," after leaving his home town.

"Then in 1989 I got a scholarship to attend the writing program at The Banff Centre in Alberta, and that more or less gave me the encouragement (and courage, I guess) to continue. I'm still at it after all these years supplementing my income by teaching literature and creative writing at Carleton University in Ottawa. And now the film stuff… on thing leads to another.


"Most recently a poem of mine will appear in the 2010 Best Canadian Poetry anthology (Tightrope Books)"

"Although both my parents came from out of town, my mom from Biscotasing and my dad from Metagama," Armand said, "I grew up in Chapleau and did my primary and secondary schooling there. For a kid growing up in the 70's, it was a marvellous place that offered the kind of freedom few kids in the city can even imagine. What comes to mind are the amazing lakes we have up there -- I probably spent just as much time in the water as I did on land. (If I wasn't in school I was probably out fishing!)

"And yes, as you noted, (in an email to him) I played some hockey like most kids in town, but for me it was mostly on the back river or midnight at the arena. This brings me to the friends I had growing up and the sense of community. In this regard, Chapleau was second to none. It is these things that I continue to carry with me through life.

On Nativewiki.org an entry reveals that Armand has also taught creative writing at both the Banff Centre for the Arts and the En'owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, British Columbia. (http://www.nativewiki.org/Armand_Garnet_Ruffo)

It adds that he is a a former director of the Centre for Aboriginal Education, Research and Culture and his work is strongly influenced by his Ojibwe heritage. "His first collection of poetry, Opening in the Sky, reveals an abiding interest in the complexities of Aboriginal identity in a multicultural society. His second book, Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney, further 'raises difficult questions about voice and identity, aboriginal culture, human rights and the environment.' His third collection of poetry, At Geronimo's Grave, employs "Geronimo's life as a metaphor for the many abandoned native people on this continent, trapped in the slow-moving vehicle of another culture which is taking them nowhere.

"His latest book in progress, Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird, is a creative biography of the renowned Ojibway painter and founder of the Woodland School, Norval Morrisseau, Copper Thunderbird. In addition, he has written plays,stories and essays, which continue to appear in literary periodicals, including Red Ink, Rampike, CVII, and absinthe, and anthologies in both Canada and the United States. "

Armand first wrote A Windigo Tale as a play in 2001winning a CBC Arts Performance Award. Then he decided to turn it into a movie, which he wrote and directed.

Armand explained in a recent email to me: "As for the movie that I wrote and directed, it is called A Windigo Tale, and it essentially deals with the intergenerational impact of the residential school system in Canada. As you probably know from the numerous reports culminating in the Prime Minister's (Stephen Harper) apology in 2008, for the longest time what went on in those schools was Canada's dirty little secret. Generations of Native children were literally torn from their families and forced to assimilate, most often brutally, into Euro-Canadian society. Stories of physical and sexual abuse are rampant.

"Anyway, my story takes its title from the evil Windigo manitou, which according to Ojibway mythology is an insatiable cannibalistic creature, because I think what went on in those schools was a kind of consumption of the human spirit. Of course, I didn't simply want to write a didactic expose so the story is framed as both a mystery and a ghost story of sorts.

"Due to financing issues it took much longer than expected to finish it -- making a feature film in Canada is no small feat. But it is now finished and has been garnering attention and even winning a few awards. It won Best Picture and Best Actress (Jani Lauzon) in Edmonton (at the Dreamspeakers Film Festival) in June, and it was recently selected to close the ImagineNative International Film Festival in Toronto in October."

He added: "I could go on and talk more about the film and what made me want to make it, but I think it is best simply to see it. Lastly, I should add that although my parents have passed on, I still have family on Fox Lake Reserve, and I try to get up there and onto the lakes whenever I can."

Armand mentioned playing "midnight" hockey in the old Chapleau Memorial Community Arena. Let me explain. Armand was a member of the 1970-71 Chapleau Midgets hockey team that I was coaching, and I had made it clear that the players were to be on time for practice at eight a.m. Saturday morning. It was amazing. When I arrived shortly before eight, there they were all dressed sitting in the dressing room ready to go.

Some time later Jamie Doyle, the team captain told me that they arrived at the arena around midnight, entered through a back door and played shinny all night, adding this way they were sure to be on time.

Congratulations to Armand on his literary achievements and I hope that if any readers are in Sudbury or Toronto this Fall when A Windigo Tale is being shown, they will attend, and yes as he notes, Chapleau was "second to none" as place to grow up. My email is mj.morris@live.ca