From page 33
Gibsons for more than a decade.)

Though Grogan’s Cafe is clearly
autobiographical in many respects,
and draws heavily on Trower’s
cwn experience as a novice log-
ger, it'sa quantum leap for a poet
who usually plays his cards close
to his vest.

“Not enough people read po-
etry," he says bluntly. ‘There are
so many things that have to be
said, and if you just keep turning
them into poetry for the same

' small audience, you den’t reach
the people who need to hear
you.’

‘Grogan’s Cafe is a complex,
-iragic-comic novel, and Trower
admits that making the jump from
intensely personal lyric poetry and
straightforward autobiography. into
true fiction wasn’t easy.

“Poetry is about compression.

“If you can make a poem shorter,
cut back, pare down, you've gota.
-belter-than-average chance you're
making it better. With fiction it’s
the reverse — you expand.

_ “Margaret Atwood said you
have to get into ‘different gears’
for poetry and fiction and those
gears are hard to shift sometimes.”

The original manuscript for
Grogan’s Cafe was 112. pages long.

“The perfect length fora‘
screenplay,” Trower is quick to
‘point out, “which probably
_shows you how.much I’ve been

influenced by movies, but it wasn’t.

a novel. .
“twas working so hard getting

the plot down, | forgot everything ‘

else.”

“A friend read it and pointed
out I'd left,out ‘the poetry’ —
things | put into poems, like the
sound the birds make overhead
- when you've logged a setting and.
‘they come back and find the trees
and their nests are gone...-

“So | had to re-read the poetry:
of Peter Trower and put it all back
in. Some of it, anyway.. .

““There’s “stilt a lot more.” 7 .

7+ A lot more indeed. The manu-
script of another collection of
poems awaits final cutting and
polishing. ° *
Meanwhile, he divides his time
between his Gibsons home and
North Vancouver to collaborate

“> ona history of the B.C. fur trade
with longtime friend Yvonne
Mearns Klan. .

i OFFICE PARTIES
RECEPTIONS
W FAMILY GATHERINGS
@ BIRTHDAYS
i ANNIVERSARIES
fi CHRISTMAS EVE

Na EE WEDDINGS

Gift Certificates

445 - 13th Street
West Van

926-8922

Then there's the first draft of the
sequel to Grogan’s Cafe to be
worked on: a grim, gritty tale set in
the little-known underworld of
Vancouver in the 1950s when
famous jazz bands played the
clubs and zoot-suited gangsters
ruled the streets.

When he finally quit the camps
for good in the early 1970s,

“Pete the Poet’ had already

become a sort of street legend.

The social revolution of the ’60s
had made it reasonably safe for
Trower and poets like Al Purdy to
shoot pool and read poems aloud
in the pubs of the old Marble Arch
and Alcazar hotels.

But making a living as a writer,
particularly when you don’t have
academic connections or a
teaching job, can be as tough in its
way as working the camps.

Writing articles for Macleans,
Vancouver magazine, The
Western Logger and newspapers
to keep his nose above water
while he works on poetry and fic-
tion leaves him with little time to
hang out in creative writing
departments or engage in literary
politicking.

“q was never any good at kiss-
ing ass,’ he growls. ‘And I’m too.
old to learn now.”

As for the resulting critical indif-
ference, he chuckles, “Hell, I'm
still surviving that.”

.His tenacious refusal to sell out,
be ground down or roll over and
die has made him a kind of
touchstone for younger genera-
tions of “street poets’’ who still
seek him out at the Railway Club,
simply because he’s living proof
you can go your.own way, the.
shard way, and survive.

He's a ways willing to listen to a

/ poem, read a manuscript, and of-

fer encouragement to some
unknown, unpublished writer, as
he did to Evelyn Lau when he read
the first draft of her best-seller
Runaway.

Why?
: “Because I've been there,”
says with a haunted look. Then ‘he.

Jaughs,, “Hell, | stillam there.””

926. 4913

Book your
Christmas
Party
now!

Closed:
December:

12-Sunday
13-Monday
19-Sunday
25-Saturday
26-Sunday
27-Monday

Best. Wishes:

Sor the
Holidays OF

alk of us!

CINEMA 1
JURASSIC PARK
Nightly 7:10pm & 9:15pm
Sat/Sun. 2:45pm & 5:00pm
- Single Feature Presentation
14 yrs. R. :

Whether you are a
true audiophile or just

love great. music,
DENON offers you the
best in audio quality.

Even the least expen-.
| sive DENON products.
| are designed with.
superior components,

for outstanding sound
reproduction and
unsurpassed reliability.
From surround sound

receivers, multi-play

CD changers, and
cassette decks, fo
home installation and
multi-room equipment,
DENON is a name you
can trust,

Come and. experi-
ence the DENON dif-
ference today, and
check out our special
instore pricing.

CINEMA 2

COOL RUNNINGS
Nightly 7:05pm; Sat/Sun. 3:10pm

WHAT'S LOVE GOT
TO DO WITH IT?
Nightly.9:05pm; Sat/Sun. 5:05pm

.CINEMA 3

THE FUGITIVE "
Nightly 7:00pm; Sat/Sun. 2:50pm .
G. R. 14 yrs.

FEARLESS
Nightly 9:10pm; Sat./Sun. 4: SSpm
R.. 14 yrs.

14 yrs. R.

NOW OPEN SUNDAYS !

a2 HOON-SPM UNTIE CHRISTMAS