Gathering Around the Christmas … Canoe
9 Dec
Perhaps it’s time to add canoes to your Christmas decoration plans. Canadian folklorist Shelly Posen, the Peterborough Examiner reports HERE, knew he wanted to debut his new poem “The Christmas Canoe” among its namesake watercraft.
And indeed, the first reading of the poem, based on a Quebecois folk tale about loggers who make a deal with the devil to be transported home for the holiday in a flying canoe, took place beneath a suspended birch-bark canoe at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario.
The reading was part of a festive Christmas celebration hosted by the institution.
“We always try to do something Christmas-y,” museum executive director James Raffan told the Examiner. “When he sent us this poem, we thought it was perfect.”
Canoes aren’t a new motif in Posen’s work. His songs “Canoeing My Troubles Away” and “When I First Stepped in a Canoe” are included in a musical collection of canoe inspired music called Canoesongs.
