I just found out that Patrick Lane, one of my favourite poets, died earlier today. Patrick was a huge part of why I began pursuing and writing poetry earnestly. I was privileged to meet Patrick a number of times at readings and events, but the most meaningful was when my teacher Susan Stenson brought him in as a guest speaker to my high school creative writing class. Of the poems he read, one remains fixed in my mind: “Because I never learned.” It struck me—not just like being struck by an idea, but forcibly bouldered into my sternum—the reaction was physical. I had never encountered a poem like that. There was precision, like an exacto knife leaving a perfect cross-section. There was honesty there just barely at the lip of overwhelming. There was vulnerability that I didn’t know I could, as a man, be allowed to show.

I’ve spent most of my life since that visit pursuing poetry. After graduating high school I wrote feverishly, challenging myself to write fifty poems in the six months I was in Ottawa—one of those poems, eventually titled “Thanksgiving Feast” would go on to be my first major publication in subTerrain. Thinking of that poem now, I can see the lines tracing back to Patrick—precision, honesty, vulnerability. I focussed most of my BFA studying poetry, and as much I learned from all the writers around me, I think in many ways my poetry has come to strive even more than ever for those qualities. I’m now in the first year of MFA, having just submitted a proposal for what I hope to be my first poetry collection. I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am if it wasn’t for Patrick sitting at the front of that room eight and a half years ago. Maybe I’d have gone on thinking I was going to write fiction, or maybe I would have dropped out of university after two years of Poli Sci.

Biographically speaking, Patrick had a hard life. He was open about his trauma and later substance abuse. I think it’s also important to acknowledge that he did a lot of harm too, in his early life but his middle years too. Having met some of his children, I know it was not an easy go for them. And he was definitely a part of CanLit’s old guard. When certain lines were drawn, I can’t say I was on the same side as him. Our heroes are never perfect. I loved the poet, but it wouldn’t be fair to anyone to idolize the man.

When I first spoke one-on-one to Patrick, after Planet Earth Poetry at what was then the Black Stilt in 2011, I thanked him then for coming to our class. He asked me how old I was (18), and told me he was the same age when he started writing poetry. The last time I met him, just over a year ago, was at his book launch for “Deep River Night.” He asked me if I was a writer, because I mentioned my admiration for the tenderness and compassion with which he wrote the characters. I told him I was, and that it was his visit to my classroom that made me start writing poetry. He told me I should come write with him at one of the retreats was involved with, and I wholly regret not following up on that, although I think the fear of him rejecting my work was a big factor (again, it’s hard to meet your heroes). But both times I walked away thinking, “this matters. Poetry matters. It matters that I’m doing it.” He had the ability to impress that upon you even if it felt like the rest of the world disagreed.

Thank you, Patrick, for your work, your teaching, and the inspiration you left many of us.