Brownstein: an 87-year-old Montreal poet’s plea for hope in 2022

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In pre-pandemic times, people often made great New Year’s resolutions: destroy the atom, kayak through Canada, reverse the aging process, etc.

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The time has changed. Resolutions now seem to focus on more achievable goals.

Like these from the always hilarious comedian Heidi Foss: “To be a best friend, to my fans. Be less compulsive… less compulsive… less compulsive ”.

Or these from my Corner Booth podcast partner Lesley Chesterman: “Less hate, more cake.”

And these from the lawyer Dino Mazzone: “Boring times. More time in front of the television watching football ”.

Illusions about boring times, because 2022 promises to be anything but Quebec. Not with a provincial election in the fall. Not with the ongoing debates on the merits of bills 21 and 96. Not with ongoing gun violence. Not with climate change closing in on us.

And of course the current problem that will not go away, and we are not talking about Habs here.

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As a precocious school-age child, my favorite activity in the gym was a game called dodge ball, in which you had to run for your life to avoid being hit in the cup, or other sensitive parts of the body, by a ball. giant rubber that could really sting when thrown. for bigger brutes. Who would say that many of us would grow up to be paranoid adults playing another form of dodge ball, running for our lives to avoid coronavirus (which, when magnified, could pass for an ominous spiked rubber ball) and avoid contact. direct? with respirators on our streets?

So it is in a world beset by a pandemic and divided on opposite sides of the problems of masking, vaxxing, lockdown and curfew. Frustration and anger are everywhere. Hopelessness can be contagious.

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Montreal poet Roni Shefler Heft sought to break down that path of despair. His resolve was simply to impart some hope with his poem New Year’s Wish:

Two years ago we did not know
our tongues would flow
with words about a deadly enemy
sneaking away on tiptoe.
We will kill the beast they told us
as weeks or months went by.
We learned a new vocabulary.
about all things viral.
Let’s get rid of the damn COVID:
wear a mask, get a vax,
keep a distance – be persistent –
stay in a bubble, don’t create problems,
get a boost, and a quick test,
make antibodies – rest.
Will this end soon?
2022 PLEASE let life resume.

Good thinking, no doubt, but Shefler Heft fears that negativity will only bring more negativity.

“The poem is not typical of my work, but it expressed the momentary feeling I was having with the start of the new year,” she says.

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“And let me add: I feel quite young for my age.”

In fact, she is an 87-year-old girl.

But he admits that this latest wave of COVID has been more demanding.

“The first time, I quite enjoyed being locked up, but it felt temporary. I never minded spending time alone. It feels a little more uncertain now, particularly since I can’t see my gentleman friend, ”says Shefler Heft. “We were out and about and going places before, doing things and planning trips. Now I am back in my sweat clothes that I was so happy to put away earlier.

“I have not felt as stimulated to write as in the past, but I forced myself to be positive to write New Year’s Wish.”

Shefler Heft, a retired librarian who worked at the McGill and Montreal Children’s Libraries, has been writing poetry most of her life. A collection of his writings, From the Well (with an inkwell on the cover) was published a few years ago, and his work has appeared in poetry magazines across the continent. Keep participating in online writing groups.

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Shefler Heft might also consider writing a nonpoetic account of his “not so typical” life.

His father, Harry Feldman, was quite notorious in Montreal’s Sin City days in the 1940s.

“He was my foster father and he was into the illegal gambling game. He owned the Tic Toc dinner club, where Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin performed. Later it became the Chez Parée ”.

Feldman’s exploits have been featured in William Weintraub’s City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and 50s, and D’Arcy O’Connor’s Montreal’s Irish Mafia: The True Story of the Infamous West End Gang.

By all accounts, Feldman owned a three-story building in the center of town, where the ground floor housed a legitimate business while the upper floors housed a gambling operation. But unlike his cronies, he never got involved in drug dealing. Nor was he ever arrested. And hear this: His organizing skills were even praised by renowned Montreal anti-corruption fighter Pacifique (Pax) Plante.

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“It was a very interesting childhood,” says Shefler Heft.

To say the least.

And speaking of his younger days, he spent them in the company of Leonard Cohen, a classmate at Westmount High School and “a friend.”

“I have a couple of poems about our times together at school,” says Shefler Heft, whose reminiscences of him were captured in Leonard Cohen: You’re Our Man, in which 75 poets reflected on his poetry. “I loved every word he wrote then and after. He was so authentic and he worked so hard to get to the bottom of it all. It was a great inspiration ”.

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