Joel Thomas Hynes (the Singer Songwriter one) at the Dakota Tavern, Toronto

Joel Thomas Hynes, The Sauce

May 19, 2018 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM 

Dakota Tavern 249 Ossington, Toronto, Ontario M6J 3A1

Singer/songwriter Joel Thomas Hynes (and author and audiobook narrator Joel Thomas Hynes !)  and The Pearly Gates (featuring Eamon McGrath, Braden Sauder and Grieg Millson from The Great Lake Swimmers) play for the launch of Dead Man's Melody. Opening act is stomp-punk band, The Sauce. 5:30 pm. $8.  ticketfly.com/event/1675035

LOCATIONDakota Tavern 249 Ossington, Toronto, OntarioM6J 3A1 View Map

SECTIONS Music

MUSIC GENRES Pop/Rock/Hip-Hop/Soul

WEBSITEVisit Event Website

DATE & TIME May 19, 2018 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

Icelandic Translation of When I Married Halldór Laxness by Agnes Walsh, translation by Adalsteinn Ingolfsson

Back in October, 2006 Rattling Books ran a Translation Contest in Iceland. We invited translations of the poem When I Married Halldór Laxness by Newfoundland writer Agnes Walsh. The winning entry, selected by Ingibjörg Haraldsdóttir, was a translation by Adalsteinn Ingolfsson. On this last day of Poetry Month 2007 we are delighted to share it with you here.


ÞEGAR ÉG GIFTIST HALLDÓRI LAXNESS, LJÓÐ EFTIR AGNESI WALSH

Þegar ég giftist Halldóri Laxness (tileinkað Sam B.)

Ég horfði á froðuna skreppa saman og gulan mjöðinn mæta henni til hálfs. Ég hallaði glasinu, það valt um og vökvinn rann yfir ellistirt hné hans. Ég leit undan en baðst ekki forláts. Með fallegum beinaberum fingrum buskaði hann frá sér froðunni í aðskiljanlegum ögnum, sem væri hún kusk séð um síðir fyrir einskæra tilviljun.

Nú veltur ákvörðunin á þér.

Hann neri miðinum inn í buxnaskálmina. Ég varpaði öndinni. Báðir valkostir voru banvænir.

Ætlarðu að dandalast í þessu landi ljósvakans til eilífðarnóns?

Já.

Jafnvel þótt ég hengdi þig upp á hárinu?
Jafnvel þótt ég hellti upp í þig sjóðheitu vatni?
Jafnvel þótt ég gerði þér indjánatjald úr birkihríslum?

Sjáðu mig.

Nei.
Hann lét sig hverfa.

Kvöldið eftir hringdi síminn.
Ég skal hitta þig á mótum Jökulbrúnar og Kompáss. Ég verð að geta treyst á þig.
Ég verð þarna í þrjú kvöld í röð.

Þrjú kvöld í röð var ég á stanslausum en árangurslausum þeytingi milli staða.

Föstudagskvöldið hringdi dyrabjallan. Hann rétti mér tvær bækur eftir Aksel Sandemose. Ég lagði fingur mína á hlý fingraför hans á efri bókinni og lokaði hurðinni. Ég las og beið.

(Í flóðbylgju gekk kona glugga á milli með kerti í hendi meðan hús hennar barst út á flóann. Henni var bjargað í St. Lawrence.)

Þegar þú ert reiðubúin, ef þú verður það nokkurn tímann, skaltu kveikja á eigin kerti.

Tveimur árum síðar hélt ég skjálfandi hendi á eldspýtunni. Hár hans hafði gránað við kollvikin og hann stakk feimnislega við fæti.


To read the original English text of When I Married Halldór Laxness click here.

To hear Agnes Walsh reading the poem in the original English you can purchase a download of In the Old Country of My Heart by Agnes Walsh from Rattling Books online or get the CD from Freds Records.

Poem: not man's time from The Grey Islands by John Steffler

not man's time here.
sun's time.
rock's time.
I begin to feel it.

days blink by - light
and cold flowing over - tide
breathing smoothly, evenly, I

slip between half-seconds, flash
light-beam pinball-style, do
ten thousand vanishing things
in a breath.



This poem is from The Grey Islands by John Steffler. Originally published in print form by McClelland and Stewart (1985); Brick Books (2000). The unabridged audiobook edition of The Grey Islands is narrated (in order of appearance) by John Steffler, Frank Holden, Janis Spence, Deidre Gillard-Rowlings and Darryl Hopkins with island soundscapes recorded off the coast of Newfoundland.

You can purchase downloads of Rattling Books audiobooks online or physical CDs from Fred's Records in St. John's, Newfoundland (or by mail order).

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #4

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The unabridged audiobook edition of Adrift on an Ice-Pan, narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available from Rattling Books as a digital download or you can get the physical audiobook CD from Fred's Records

Excerpt

It was impossible to make any progress through the sish ice by swimming, so I lay there and thought all would soon be over, only wondering if any one would ever know how it happened. There was no particular horror attached to it, and in fact I began to feel drowsy, as if I could easily go to sleep, when suddenly I saw the trace of another big dog that had himself gone through before he reached the pan, and though he was close to it was quite unable to force his way out. Along this I hauled myself, using him as a bow anchor, but mch bothered by the other dogs as I passed them, one of which got on my shoulder, pushing me farther down into the ice. There was only a yard or so more when I had passed my living anchor, and soon I lay with my dogs around me on the little piece of slob ice. I had to help them on to it, working them through the lane that I had made.

The piece of ice we were on was so small it was obvious we must soon all be drowned, if we remained upon it as it drifted seaward into more open water. If we were to save our lives, no time was to be lost. When I stood up, I could see about twenty yards away a larger pan floating amidst the sish, like a great flat raft, and if we could get on to it we should postpone at least for a time the death that already seemed almost inevitable. It was impossible to reach it with0ut a life line, as I had already learned to my cost, and the next problem was how to get one there. Marvelous to relate, when I had first fallen through, after I had cut the dogs a drift without any hope let of saving myself, I had not let my knife sink, but had fastened it by two half hitches to the back of one of the dogs. To my great joy there it was still, and shortly I was at work cutting all the sealskin traces still hanging from the dogs' harnesses, and splicing them together into one long line. These I divided and fastened to the backs of my two leaders, tying the near ends round my two wrists. I then pointed out to “Brin” the pan I wanted to reach and tried my best to make them go ahead, giving them the full length of my lines from two coils. My long sealskin moccasins, reaching to my thigh, were full of ice and water. These I took off and tied separately on the dogs' backs. My coat, hat, gloves, and overalls I had already lost. At fist, nothing would induce the two dogs to move, and though I threw them off the pan two or three times, they struggled back upon it, which perhaps was only natural, because as soon as they fell through they could see nowhere else to make for. To me, however, this seemed to spell “the end.” Fortunately, I had with me a small black spaniel, almost a featherweight, with large furry paws, called “Jack,” who acts as my mascot and incidentally as my retriever. This at once flashed into my mind, and I felt I had still one more chance for life. So I spoke, to him and showed him the direction, and then threw a piece of ice toward the desired goal. Without a moment's hesitation he made a dash for it, and to my great joy got there safely, the tough scale of sea ice carrying his weight bravely. At once I shouted to him to “lie down,” and this, too, he immediately did, looking like a little black fuzz ball on the white setting.

My leaders could now see him seated there on the new piece of floe, and when once more I threw them off they understood what I wanted, and fought their way to where they saw the spaniel, carrying with them the line that gave me the one chance for my life. The other dogs followed them, and after painful struggling, all got out again except one. Taking all the run that I could get on my little pan, I made a dive, slithering with the impetus along the surface till once more I sank through. After a long fight, however, I was able to haul myself by the long traces on to this new pan, having taken carre beforehand to tie the harnesses to which I was holding under the dogs' bellies, so that they could not slip them off. But alas! The pan I was now on was not large enough to bear us and was already beginning to sink, so this process had to be repeated immediately.

I now realized that, though we had been working toward the shore, we had been losing ground all the time, for the off-shore wind had already driven us a hundred yards farther out. But the widening gap kept full of the pounded ice, through which no man could possibly go.

To be continued.

Poetry, the next latte & 30% off Poetry Downloads for April at Rattlingbooks.com

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #3

The following excerpt is from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, the story was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company. The unabridged audio edition narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available from rattlingbooks.com

Excerpt

There was not a moment to lose. I tore off my oilskins, threw myself on my hands and knees by the side of the komatik to give a larger base to hold, and shouted to my team to go ahead for the shore. Before we had gone twenty yards, the dogs got frightened, hesitated for a moment, and the komatik instantly sank into the slob. It was necessary then for the dogs to pull much harder, so that they now began to sink in also.

Earlier in the season the father of the very boy I was going to operate on had been drowned in this same way, this dogs tangling their traces around him in the slob. This flashed into my mind, and I managed to loosen my sheath-knife, scramble forward, find the traces in the water and cut them, holding on to the leader’s trace wound round my wrist.

Being in the water I could see no piece of ice that would bear anything up. But there was as it happened a piece of snow, frozen together like a large snowball, about twenty-five yards away, near where my leading dog, “Brin,” was wallowing in the slob. Upon this he very shortly climbed, his long trace of ten fathoms almost reaching there before he went into the water.

This dog has weird black markings on his face, giving him the appearance of wearing a perpetual grin. After climbing out on the snow as if it were the most natural position in the world he deliberately shook the ice and water from his long coat, and then turned round to look for me. As he sat perched up there out of the water he seemed to be grinning with satisfaction. The other dogs were hopelessly bogged. Indeed, we were like flies in treacle.

Gradually, I hauled myself along the line that was still tied to my wrist, till without any warning the dog turned round and slipped out of his harness, and then once more turned his grinning face to where I was struggling.


To be continued.

Poem: She loved him with a fierce appetite from Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath

She loved him with a fierce appetite


She loved him with a fierce appetite
Patting and prodding his flesh
Like a reliable, well-trained chef
And once, while they embraced,
She pinched the tender meat behind his hip,
Said “If we were stranded on a desert island,
And I had to eat you,
This is where I would begin.”

Over the years she tasted every part of him,
Sleepily chewed the lobes of his ears
In bed in his arms on cold winter mornings,
Licked the jam from his fingers at breakfast,
Then nibbled the tips to still her hunger,
And often she told him he was so sweet
That she could eat him alive.

When he died she
Feasted for the last time,
Spit up bones and hair like an owl pellet
And slept with it under her pillow for luck.



The above poem is from the audio collection Coasting Trade: a Performance for three voices with soundscapes, from Rattling Books.

Coasting Trade is the product of a collaboration between author Robin McGrath, radio producer Chris Brookes and actors Robert Joy, Rick Boland and Anita Best. It follows the voyage of a Yankee trading schooner, circumnavigating the island of Newfoundland sometime after 1865. As the vessel puts in at various ports, lyrical narratives weave back and forth through a century of change while the 19th century sailing notes adapted from Sailing Directions for the Island of Newfoundland by J.S. Hobbes (1865) remain timeless.

Rattling Books' audiobooks are available online as digital downloads or as CDs instore or mail order from Fred's Records, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Excerpt: Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, installment #2

The following is an excerpt from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience, it was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company. The unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available from Rattling Books.

Excerpt

It was late in April, when there is always the risk of getting wet through the ice, so that I was carefully prepared with spare outfit, which included a change of garments, snowshoes, rifle, compass, axe, and oilskin overclothes. The messengers were anxious that their team should travel back with mine, for they were slow at best and needed a lead. My dogs, however, being a powerful team, could not be held back, and though I managed to wait twice for their sleigh, I had reached a village about twenty miles on the journey before nightfall, and had fed the dogs, and was gathering a few people for prayers when they caught me up.

During the night the wind shifted to the northeast, which brought in fog and rain, softened the snow, and made traveling very bad, besides heaving a heavy sea into the bay. Our drive next morning would be somewhat over forty miles, the first ten miles on an arm of the sea, on salt-water ice.

In order not to be separated too long from my friends, I sent them ahead two hours before me, appointing a rendezvous in a log tilt that we have built in the woods as a halfway house. There is no one living on all that long coast-line, and to provide against accidents – which have happened more than once – we built this hut to keep dry clothing, food, and drugs in.

The first rain of the year was falling when I started, and I was obliged to keep on what we call the “ballicaters,” or ice barricades, much farther up the bay than I had expected. The sea of the night before had smashed the ponderous covering of ice right to the landwash. There were great gaping chasms between the enormous blocks, which we call pans, and half a mile out it was all clear water.

An island three miles out had preserved a bridge of ice, however, and by crossing a few cracks I managed to reach it. From the island it was four miles across to a rocky promontory, - a course that would be several miles shorter than going round the shore. Here as far as the eye could reach the ice seemed good, though it was very rough. Obviously, it had been smashed up by the sea and then packed in again by the strong wind from the northeast, and I thought it had frozen together solid.

All went well till I was about a quarter of a mile from the landing-point. Then the wind suddenly fell, and I noticed that I was traveling over loose “sish,” which was like porridge and probably many feet deep. By stabbing down, I could drive my whip-handle through the thin coating of young ice that was floating on it. The sish ice consists of the tiny fragments where the large pans have been pounding together on the heaving sea, like the stones of Freya’s grinding mill.

So quickly did the wind now come off shore, and so quickly did the packed “slob,” relieved of the wind pressure, “run abroad,” that already I could not see one pan larger than ten feet square; moveover, the ice was loosening so rapidly that I saw that retreat was absolutely impossible. Neither was there any way to get off the little pan I was surveying from.

To be continued.

Poem: Making the Fish by Michael Crummey

Making the Fish

Once you'd got the catch pitched up on the stage head, you got down to making the fish. Assembly line. Cutting table, blades of the knives pared almost to nothing by the sharpening stone. Woolen gloves soaked in fish guts, the water running red out of them when you make a fist. The cod passing through your hands llike knots in an unbroken string as long as the sea is wide.

Cut Throat
Get your fingers into the gills of a cod and lift it to the table, 15, 20 pounds some of them and the ache in your arm after three hours like the chill in a church hall on a February morning. Two motions with the knife, across the throat below the gills anad along the bare length of the belly, like a Catholic crossing himself before a meal. Push the fish along the table, the left hand of the man beside you reaching for it, he doesn't even turn his head in your direction.
Get your fingers in the gills of a cod and lift it to the table.

Header
The open body, the knife in your right hand. The head taken off clean, as if you were castrating a young bull. The liver scalloped from the chest and pushed into the oil barrel, left there to ferment like fruit going bad. The tangle of guts lifted clear, the cod flesh pulled from beneath, a body freed from a messy accident. Organs and offal dropped through a hole in the cutting table to the salt water beneath the stage.
The gulls screaming outside, fighting over blood.

Splitter
A good splitter could clear his way through 5 or 6 quintals an hour if the fish were a decent size, a full boat load done in three and out to the traps for more. Two cuts down each side of the sound bone, curved keel of the spine pulled clear and the cod splayed like a man about to be crucified. Dropped off the cutting table into the water of the puncheon tub, the next fish in your hands. Two cuts down each side, sound bone pulled clear, splayed cod dropped into the puncheon tub. Two cuts, sound bone pulled clear, cod into the tub. Two cuts, pull, into the tub.
By nine o'clock it is too dark to see properly, eyes as tender as skin soaked too long in salt water. The wicks are lit in bowls of kerosene: oily flame, spiralling spine of black smoke.

Salter
Empty wooden wheelbarrow set beside the puncheon tub, the flat, triangular sheets of fish meat hefted from the elbow-deep water.
Dead weight of the loaded barrow a strain on the shoulders, the bones shifting down in their sockets, the tendons stretching to hold them as the feet shuffle into the store house. A hogshead of salt beside the bins, a handful strown across the white insides of each fish before they're stacked. Weight of the pile squeezing water from the flesh.
Turn with the emptied barrow. Squeak of the wheel, squish of feet soaked inside the rubber boots. Arm fishing into the puncheon tub, elbow numb with the cold.

The Bawn
Wait for a fine day in August. Sweep a stretch of beach clear, put stones down over any patch of grass that might spoil the fish.
The salt cod taken from the bins and washed by hand in puncheon tubs, front and back, like a child about to be presented to royalty, the white scum scrubbed off the dark layer of skin. Carried to the bawn on fish bars and laid out neatly in sunlight, 150 quintals at a time, the length of the shoreline like a well-shingled roof.
Two fine days would finish the job, a week and a half to cure the season's catch. The merchant's ship arriving in September, anchoring off in the Tickle; the cured cod loaded into the boat and ferried out.

What it Made
You could expect $2 a quintal for your trouble, a good season for a crew was 400 quintals. anything more was an act of God. The Skipper took half a voyage, out of which he paid the girl her summer's wage, and squared up with the merchant for supplies taken on credit in the spring. The rest was split three ways. $130 for four months of work, it could cut the heart out of a man to think too much about what he was working for.



This poem appears in the collection Hard Light by Michael Crummey, printed by Brick Books. A selection from the book, 32 Little Stories, of which this poem is a part, was recorded by Rattling Books. Hard Light: 32 Little Stories by Michael Crummey, narrated by the author, Ron Hynes and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings is available as a digital download from Rattling Books.

The audiobook CD is available from Freds Records in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Excerpt: Easter Sunday from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

The following is an excerpt from Adrift on an Ice-Pan by Wilfred Thomason Grenfell. A true account of Grenfell's near death experience it was first published in 1909 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

The unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Chris Brookes, Jay Roberts and Janis Spence is available as a digital download from Rattling Books or as an audiobook CD from Fred's Records in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.


It was Easter Sunday at St. Anthony in the year 1908, but with us in northern Newfoundland still winter. Everything was covered with snow and ice. I was walking back after morning service, when a boy came running over from the hospital with the news that a large team of dogs had come from sixty miles to the southward, to get a doctor on a very urgent case. It was that of a young man on whom we had operated about a fortnight before for an acute bone disease in the thigh. The people had allowed the wound to close, the poisoned matter had accumulated, and we thought we should have to remove the leg. There was obviously, therefore, no time to be lost. So, having packed up the necessary instruments, dressings, and drugs, and having fitted out the dog-sleigh with my best dogs, I started at once, the messengers following me with their team.

My team was an especially good one. On many a long journey they had stood by me and pulled me out of difficulties by their sagacity and endurance. To a lover of his dogs, as every Christian man must be, each one had become almost as precious as a child to its mother. They were beautiful beasts: "Brin," the cleverest leader on the coast; "Doc," a large, gentle beast, the backbone of the team for power; "Spy," a wiry, powerful black and white dog; "Moody," a lop-eared black-and-tan, in this htird season, a plodder that never looked behind him; "Watch," the youngster of the team, long-legged and speedy, with great liquid eyes and a Gordon-setter coat; "Sue," a large, dark Eskimo, the image of a great black wolf, with her sharp pointed and perpendicular ears, for she "harked back" to her wild ancestry; "Jerry," a large roan-colored slut, the quickest of all my dogs on her feet, and so affectionate that her overtures of joy had often sent me sprawling on my back; "Jack," a jet-black, gentle-natured dog, more like a retriever, that always ran next the sledge, and never looked back but everlastingly pulled straight ahead, running always with his nose to the ground.

To be continued.

Poem: Close-up on a Sharp-Shinned Hawk by Don McKay

CLOSE-UP ON A SHARP-SHINNED HAWK

Concentrate upon her attributes:
the accipiter's short
roundish wings, streaked breast, talons fine
and slender as the x-ray of a baby's hand.
The eyes (yellow in this hatchling
later deepening to orange then
blood red) can spot
a sparrow at four hundred metres and impose
silence like an overwhelming noise
to which you must not listen.

Suddenly, if you're not careful, everything
goes celluloid and slow
and threatens to burn through and you
must focus quickly on the simple metal band around her leg
by which she's married to our need to know.


This poem is among those selected by Don McKay for his audiobook release with Rattling Books: Songs for the Songs of Birds.

Presently the digital download is 30% off for Poetry Month.
The Audiobook CD is available from Fred's Records in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Newfoundland Poems for Poetry Month : Percy Janes Boarding the Bus by Agnes Walsh

Percy Janes Boarding the Bus
a poem by Agnes Walsh

I was going to the Mall for a kettle
waiting on the number five,
when the number something-or-other
pulled up.

I was looking past it for mine,
when I saw him, an arm raised,
running softly.

I jumped to life, beat on the bus door,
siad to the driver: "Mr. Janes.
Mr. Percy Janes wants to get on."

He raised a "So what?" eyebrow.

Mr. Janes straightened his astrakhan hat,
mumbled thank you and stepped up.
As the bus rumbled on
I continued under my breath:
"Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Percy Janes,
Newfoundland writer, poet,
just boarded the number something-or-other."

If this was Portugal,
a plaque would be placed
over the seat where he sat.

As it is, you have me
mumbling in the street
like a tourist in my own country.


This poem appears in the audiobook poetry collection produced by Rattling Books entitled In the Old Country of My Heart by Agnes Walsh. Available online as a digital download and 30% off during April, National Poetry Month.  Also available as a hard copy CD from Fred's Records, St. John's Newfoundland.

Poem: Yet by Mary Dalton, from Merrybegot

Yet

Moll doll his chin;
Her hair birch-
Broom-in-the-fits;
Chalk and cheese, they said;
Cradle and grave,
They said;
Yet-
You could smell
The smouldering, sparry,
Whenever they met.

This poem appears in the collection of poems by Mary Dalton entitled Merrybegot. The audiobook edition of Merrybegot published by Rattling Books in 2005 is performed by Anita Best with Patrick Boyle on trumpet and flugelhorn.


The audiobook digital download is available from Rattling Books online.
The audiobook CD is available from Fred's Records in St. John's, NL.

Rattling Books owner hounded by paparazzi declares Poetry the next Latte

Tired of beating off Globe and Mail, New York Times and Guardian paparazzi disguised as gulls eating garbage, Janet Russell, owner of the dazzlingly successful, befouled by money Rattling Books, emerged from the seaside villa company headquarters in Newfoundland today and granted a brief interview on the meaning of April.

“Poetry is the next latte," Russell said.


N.B. Rattling Books poetry audiobooks are 30% off for the whole of April, National Poetry Month.

Newfoundland Railway Wake Sale: 40% off Donovan's Station by Robin McGrath (audiobook)

This weekend is the 69th anniversary of the last run of the Newfoundland Railway. Newfoundland became the 10th province of Canada at midnight on March 31, 1949, and at that time the Newfoundland Railway ceased to exist. By April 1, the trains running through Riverhead and Gaff Topsails were part of the Canadian National Railway.

The passing of the Newfoundland Railway may have been in name only, but there are few people who don't remember the Railway with pride and sadness. The Railway was a major achievement for a small nation such as Newfoundland, and it was part of our national identity for decades.

To remember this celebrated part of our heritage, Rattling Books is holding a Wake Sale. From now until midnight on Monday, April 2, 2007, you can save 40% on the audiobook edition of Robin McGrath's captivating novel Donovan's Station.

Set in Newfoundland throughout the early twentieth century, Donovan's Station perfectly recreates the time when the Newfoundland Railway was at its height.

The sound of the train is so soothing in the evenings. I never guessed when they first put the tracks through that I could feel that way about it. Mr. Reid used to say that before the railway came, travel meant coaxing a jaded nag over the bogs and barrens or tossing about in a fog in a stinking jackboat, with as good a chance of drowning as of reaching your destination. I suppose a great many people agreed with him, which is why they turned out in such numbers for that first run. I know that for the fishermen, who had no work betwen September and Christmas, the work on the railbed was very welcome.- Donovan's Station by Robin McGrath

"Eighty-four years is time enough for one life," Keziah Donovan muses as she waits for death to re-unite her with her "own sweet man". Stricken down by a paralytic stroke, Keziah's body is immobile but her mind is on a journey through a life that spans two centuries. Carried along by her rich inner narrative, the reader travels through the disease, labour, and progress of tumultuous times and the equally turbulent events of personal history - births, marriages, deaths, and mysteries.Set in rural and urban Newfoundland, this novel is alive with its landscape and language. In Keziah Donovan, award-winning writer Robin McGrath has created an unforgettable story-teller with a voice so authentic and distinctive that it compels the reader to sit and listen, and rings in the ear long after the book is put down.

Read by the following (in order of duration):

Janis Spence as Keziah Donovan

Janet Russell as Kate

Andy Jones as Father Roche

Elizabeth Pickard as Elizabeth (Lizzie)

Merrill Francis as Dermot

Reviews:

Mesmerizing...Keziah Donovan should take her rightful place beside [Hagar Shipley and Mary Bundle]. - Jodi DeLong, Halifax Herald

Janis Spence, the main narrator, gives both a wistful quality as Keziah Donovan looks back on her life from her deathbed. Other readers portray supporting characters as they write letters or diary entries. These narrators sound as if they're talking to themselves while they write, with pen scratches in the background. The whole cast gives a quietly human performance.- AudioFile Magazine

Donovan's Station by Robin McGrath was shortlisted for the Caribbean & Canada Region of the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2003.

Listen to a clip on SoundCloud from the unabridged audio edition of Donovan's Station narrated by Janis Spence.

Excerpt: "The Lure of the Labrador Wild" by Dillon Wallace, setting: late March 1904

The following excerpt is from Dillon Wallace's classic story of the fateful canoe trip which Wallace, Leonidas Hubbard and George Elson made into the interior of Labrador in 1903 (The Lure of the Labrador Wild originally published in 1905 by Fleming H. Revell, New York) .

The unabridged audio edition of The Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace narrated by Jody Richardson is available from rattlingbooks.com.


“…On Sunday, March 27th, I was sitting in the cosey post house wondering where George and the others were, when suddenly George appeared from out the snow that the howling gale was whirling about. My long suspense was ended. The body had been recovered in good condition, George said. Wrapped in the blankets that Hubbard had round him when he died – the blankets he had so gaily presented me with that June morning on the Silvia – and our old tarpaulin, which George had recovered farther back on the trail, it had been dragged on the Indian sled forty miles down over the sleeping Susan River, and thence out over Grand Lake to the Cape Corbeau tilt, where the men had been compelled to leave it the day before owing to the heavy snowstorm that then prevailed. From the tilt the men had gone to to Tom’s house at the rapid to spend the night, and George had now come down to the post to relieve my mind with the news that the body was safe.

It was arranged that the next morning George and Duncan should take the post dogs and komatik, drive up to Cape Corbeau and bring the body down. The morning was calm and fine, and they started early. It was a strange funeral procession that returned. The sun was setting when they passed over the rapid where Hubbard that beautiful July morning had sprung vigorously into the water to track the canoe into Grand Lake. How full of hope and pleasurable anticipation he had been when we paddled through the Little Lake! Over the snow and ice that now hid the lake the seven dogs that were hauling his corpse strained and tugged, ever and anon breaking into a trot as George and Duncan, running on their snow shoes on either side of the komatik, urged them forward with Eskimo exclamations or cracked their long whip over a laggard. No need to urge any one of them on, however, when they came in sight of the post. Darkness was falling. Knowing that their daily meal was near at hand, the dogs broke into a run, and with much howling and jumping swung around the point and up to the buildings.”

To be continued.

Joel Thomas Hynes, narrator of several Rattling Books audiobook recordings, wins BMO Winterset Award

Joel Thomas Hynes is on a streak, yesterday having won the BMO Winterset Award with his latest novel We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds some Night.

 In his acceptance speech he acknowledged earlier financial help from Arts NL.

“This book, for me, was a long journey. Getting it published, even. After having four or five books out, you’d think it would be easier, but I had to fight to get this book published,” Hynes told the Winterset ceremony attendees. “It seems like when everyone else was against this book, the arts council was for this book, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the arts council for financing aspects of the writing of this book. If not, I don’t know, I would have had to go on to do something else.”

You can hear Joel reading his own work and that of others on the following Rattling Books audiobook recordings:

Down to the Dirt by Joel Thomas Hynes, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

Asking Jesus to Dance by Susan Rendell, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

Light Years by Susan Rendell, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes 

(Availabe as Short Fiction Singles or as part of In the Chambers of the Sea  the collection of short fiction by Susan Rendell.)

Say Nothing Saw Wood by Joel Thomas Hynes, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

(Availabe as a Short Fiction Single or as part of the Anthology EarLit Shorts 1.)

Michael and Jesus by Catherine Hogan Safer, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

(Availabe as a Short Fiction Single or as part of the Anthology EarLit Shorts 2)

Slip by Michael Collins, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

(Availabe as a Short Fiction Single or as part of the Anthology EarLit Shorts 3)

Cycle by Leslie Vryenhoek, narrated by Joel Thomas Hynes

(Availabe as a Short Fiction Single or as part of the Anthology EarLit Shorts 4)

The above Canadian audiobook recordings brought to you by Rattling Books of Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

Excerpt: The Last Voyage of the Karluk by Captain Bob Bartlett, setting: March 12, 1914

In this excerpt we continue The Last Voyage of the Karluk: An Epic of Death and Survival in the Arctic, 1913-1916 as related by her captain, Robert A. Bartlett and here set down by Ralph T. Hale (published in 1916 by Small, Maynard and Company, Inc.; unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Frank Holden published by Rattling Books).

“March 12 we got away again at dawn. McKinlay, Mamen, Kataktovick, Kerdrillo, and his family and I went ahead of the others, with lightly loaded sledges, and, on account of improved ice conditions, made such good progress that at one P.M. we landed on Icy Spit, on the northeast side of Wrangell Island. It is perhaps easier to imagine than to describe our feelings of relief at being once again on terra firma, after two months of drifting and traveling on the ice. We had had a hard road to travel much of the way from Shipwreck Camp, but fortunately, since the big storm in the days following the departure of the advance party, we had had continuously fine weather, with good daylight and exhilarating temperatures in the minus forties and fifties.

As soon as we landed we began building an igloo. There was plenty of driftwood scattered all about and Keruk gathered up a lot of it and built a fire, so that by the time the first of our three igloos was built she had some tea for us and the rest of the party who, coming along easily with light loads over our trail, arrived an hour and a half after we did. We were overjoyed to find the driftwood for, although we were pretty sure of finding it, yet we were a little dubious and it was a great relief to my mind to know that fuel was assured.

We could see a good deal of the island from the spit, which made out from land some distance into the ocean. Waring Point lay far to the east of us and Evans Point to the west. The geographical names on Wrangell Island were derived from the names of the officers of the U.S.S. Rodgers who explored the island in 1881. On a clear day like this it was not unusual to be able to see for seventy miles. The northeast side of the island, on which we now were, sent several low sandy spits out from the land, thus forming lagoons which of course were covered with ice. Near the coast were low mountains and valleys, with higher peaks in the interior beyond. Here and there on the beach were dead trees that had drifted ashore, with the roots sticking up into the air; we also found planks and other lumber. Everything was snow clad and white, only a degree less cheerless than the frozen ocean itself.

The next day Munro, Chafe, Breddy and Williams went back with all the dogs and sledges to the last camp on the ice, fifteen miles from our landing-place, and brought in all the supplies we had left there. While they were gone I sent Kerdrillo nine miles across the lagoon to Berry Spit, to see if he could find any traces of the mate’s party or the Mackay party. He took his rifle with him to look for game. When he came back at nightfall, he reported that he had seen no traces of either party and only one bear track and one fox track. This was an indication that there was small chance of getting a bear on or near the island, because there were no seal holes within twenty-five miles from land; we had seen some near the big rafter, about forty miles out. Later in the season, as the ice broke up nearer the land, the seal would work in shore and of course the bears would follow. I asked Kerdrillo what he thought the chances were of there being any caribou or reindeer on the island. It is not an uncommon thing to find caribou on islands in Hudson Strait, which have drifted on the ice from the mainland, and there were, I knew, both these animals in plenty on the Siberian coast. I wondered, too, whether there might not be Arctic hare on the island. Kerdrillo said he thought there was so much snow that caribou and reindeer would be unlikely to staty where it would be so difficult for them to get food and he did not believe any were to be found.

The next day, to verify his opinion, I sent him out again, giving him tea and pemmican, so that he could have a full day’s march and make a reconnaissance into the interior. About dark he returned and reported that he had seen no traces of caribou, reindeer or hare and very few signs of foxes. Later on , however, h thought ptarmigan would visit the island. He had seen one bear track, which he thought was about three days old, probably of the bear whose tracks he had seen on the previous day.

The story is told of a student who, when asked to name five Arctic animals, replied, “Three polar bears and two seal.” If these varieties were to be all we should find on Wrangell island, we should still be able to sustain life, if only we could get enough of them. I should have liked, however, to know that caribou and reindeer, too, could be had for the shooting.

We now made a snow shelter and started in on the fourteenth to dry out our boots and stockings; we had plenty of firewood. Keruk looked after this work. Maurer’s and Malloch’s feet still troubled them and Mamen’s knee was a constant cause of suffering, so that I was glad that they could now have an opportunity to rest. From the moment of our departure from Shipwreck Camp we had been constantly on the move during every minute of the daylight. The weather, though cold, had been exceptionally fine and clear; in fact we had not lost an hour on account of bad weather and had been inconvenienced for only one night by open water. As a consequence all hands were in need of a little rest. The dogs, too, were in a reduced condition, for though they had had plenty to eat they had worked very hard and I wanted them to get what rest they could.”

To be continued.

New SoundCloud Listening sample clip set in Fogo, from Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath

New Listening Sample from Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath posted on SoundCloud: sample set in Fogo

Coasting Trade by Robin McGrath
An Audio Book Performance for Three Voices
Narrated by Robert Joy, Rick Boland and Anita Best
Produced by Chris Brookes

Coasting Trade follows the voyage of a Yankee trading schooner circumnavigating the island of Newfoundland, with navigation notes adapted from Sailing Directions for the Island and Banks of Newfoundland by J.S. Hobbes (1865). 

This audiobook recording brought to you by Rattling Books

Excerpt: "The Lure of the Labrador Wild" by Dillon Wallace, setting: mid March 1904

The following excerpt is from Dillon Wallace's classic story of the fateful canoe trip which Wallace, Leonidas Hubbard and George Elson made into the interior of Labrador in 1903 (The Lure of the Labrador Wild originally published in 1905 by Fleming H. Revell, New York) . In 2005 Rattling Books released an unabridged audiobook edition of The Lure of the Labrador Wild narrated by Jody Richardson.

Douglas's story made it plain that the weather conditions on Grand Lake had been fierce enough to appal any man, but as there had been no snow since Friday night I could not understand what Tom was doing at the rapid on Sunday, and with Mackenzie's consent I had Mark immediately harness the post dogs and drive me up to his house. I arrived there considerably incensed by his inactivity, but I must say that his explanation was adequate. He asked me if I had been able to see anything of Grand Lake, and made me realise what it meant to be out there with a high west wind of Arctic bitterness drifting the snow in great clouds down its thirty-seven miles of unbroken expanse. There was no doubt that the men had done the best they could, and after instructing Tom that, if more provisions were needed, to obtain them at Donald's at my expense, and receiving from him an assurance that he would again start for Hubbard's body as soon as the weather would permit, I returned, mollified, to the post.

It was on this day (Sunday, March 13th) that I received my first news from home and the outside world, Monsieur Duclos, who had been on a trip north, bringing me two telegrams from New York. They conveyed to me the comforting assurance that all was well at home, being replies to the dispatches I had sent in December. Received at Chateau Bay, they had been forwarded to me three hundred and fifty miles by dog teams and snowshoe travellers.

Tom Blake started on Monday morning, the 14th, and Tuesday at noon joined George and Duncan at Donald's. On Wednesday the three men began their march up the Susan. The weather continuing fair, they made good progress and had no difficulty in finding the site of our last camp. Hubbard's body, with the tent lying flat on top of it, was under eight feet of snow. Near the spot a wolverine had been prowling, but the body was too deeply buried for any animal to scent it, and in its quiet resting place it lay undisturbed. It was fortunate that it had not been placed on a stage, as I had suggested; for in that event it would undoubtedly have been destroyed.

Continuing on inland, the men recovered the photographic films, the sextant, my fishing rod, and other odds and ends we had dropped on the trail as far back as Lake Elson. Tom and Duncan praised George unstintingly for the unvarying accuracy with which he located the things. With the country and smaller trees buried under a great depth of snow, and no landmarks to guide him, George would lead the other men on, and, with no searching about or hesitancy, stop and say, "We'll dig here." And not once did his remarkable instinct play him false.

"Tis sure wonderful," said Tom, in telling me about it. "I ne'er could ha' done it, an' no man on Th' Labrador could ha' done it, sir. Not even th' Mountaineers could ha' done it." And Duncan seconded Tom's opinion.

(To be continued. )

Excerpt: The Last Voyage of the Karluk by Captain Bob Bartlett, setting: March 10 (ish), 1914

In this excerpt we continue The Last Voyage of the Karluk An Epic of Death and Survival in the Arctic, 1913-1916 as related by her captain, Robert A. Bartlett and here set down by Ralph T. Hale (published in 1916 by Small, Maynard and Company, Inc.; unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Frank Holden published by Rattling Books).

**********************

The next morning, therefore, I sent McKinlay, Hadley and Mamen back to bring up the bear meat. The rest of us sledged supplies along the shoreward way, Kataktovick and I walking on ahead to blaze the trail. We had a continuation of the fine weather and low temperature. I suppose it was about forty or fifty below zero. We sledged a good part of the supplies along to the new camp on the big floe and built igloos there. The next day we continued the work, Kataktovick picking the trail. At first it was rough going but after a time it became a little better and we moved all our supplies ten miles nearer the land, returning to the igloos on the big floe for the night. We found that at one of the temporary caches along the way two bears had destroyed a case of coal oil and scattered two tins of biscuit over the ice.
It was hard luck, after getting the oil so near the island, to have bears to contend with in addition to the elements, especially as our dogs were not trained to follow a bear, so that there was no use trying to go after them. A polar bear has a very acute sense of smell and can scent a human being in plenty of time to get away from him, and as a bear can go faster than a man it can escape easily, unless the hunter has dogs trained from puppyhood to follow a bear and round him up, the way the dogs of Greenland can do. Of the bears that the McKinlay party shot the meat was simply cut off the bones, to have no useless weight to carry and some of if was cached on the ice, with the skins, and the rest brought with us. We expected to be able to get it later on but never did because we did not go back over the trail again, and we expected to get more bears on our way to the island.

On the tenth we kept up the task of sledging the supplies forward. We worked from daylight to dark, some with pickaxes, others with sledges with light loads, for the going was rough. The Eskimo built the igloos and by night we had all our supplies up, Munro, Mamen and myself getting in with the last load just at dark.

The going was was bad nearly all the way along here. Kataktovick and I were off at the first crack of dawn picking the trail for the others to follow with their pickaxes and their lightly loaded sledges. It was necessary for us to make fairly good loads, for a white man can not handle a sledge as deftly as an Eskimo can and we had not enough Eskimo to drive all the sledges even if they had been free from the work of trail-making and building igloos.

We made about seven miles during the day. Sometimes we had to get the sledges up on a ridge fifty feet high with an almost sheer drop on the other side. When we came to such rough places we would harness all the dogs to a sledge and all of us who could get a hand on it would help push the sledge. When we got the sledge up to the top we would run a rope from it to another sledge down below and as the first sledge went down the other side it would pull the second sledge up.

The Rattling Books logo

The Rattling Books logo is a Razorbill (Alca torda) wearing headphones.

Razorbills are North Atlantic seabirds. Included among their breeding sites are the islands off Tors Cove, home to Rattling Books. Their vocalization is a guttural rattling sound.

New SoundCloud audiobook listening sample posted: Below the Bridge by Helen Fogwill Porter, read by Mary Barry

New SoundCloud audiobook listening sample posted:   

Below the Bridge 
by Helen Fogwill Porter
read by Mary Barry

Listen to a sample from Below the Bridge featuring the memories of Helen Porter of growing up on the south side of St. John's, Newfoundland.

To purchase a digital download of Below the Bridge (30% off until March 20) .

This audiobook recording brought to you by Rattling Books.

New SoundCloud listening sample post: The Stylist, a short story by Lisa Moore, read by Holly Hogan

New SoundCloud listening sample post: The Stylist, a short story by Lisa Moore, read by Holly Hogan. 

The Stylist appears in the short fiction collection by Lisa Moore entitled Open.  Available online as a digital download, or as an MP3 CD from Fred's Records in St. John's Newfoundland.

This Canadian audiobook recording brought to you by Rattling Books.