David O’Meara: Manx bartender, Gord Downie inspirer and Ottawa’s new poet laureate

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David O’Meara suspects anyone who finds Ottawa boring either hasn’t been in the city long enough or may be a bit of a dullard who doesn’t know how to have fun.

“Ottawa gets a bad rap as the capital city, with the whole Ottawa-is-boring, it’s the city that fun forgot and all that garbage,” said the award-winning writer (and bartender) recently named Ottawa’s English-language poet laureate.

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“Usually when I hear people say that, I think, ‘You’re boring because there’s lots to do here.’ It’s a vibrant town,” he added, pointing to the array of art openings, stage shows, outdoor movie nights, festivals, concerts and numerous other creative endeavours filling the calendar.

Of course, no discussion of Ottawa culture is complete without considering the city’s lively poetry scene, which O’Meara helped nurture as founding artistic director of VerseFest, launched in 2011. Although it’s usually held in the spring, this year a fall edition of VerseFest takes place Nov. 28-Dec. 1, showcasing the best local, Canadian and international poets in French and English.

In addition to the festival, more than 14 reading series hold regular events in the Ottawa area, drawing 600 to 1,000 people per month.

Clearly, poetry is alive and well in Ottawa, and a big part of its vitality is due to the fact that VerseFest has long supported both kinds of poets: page and stage.

“It was obvious from the beginning there was a really strong spoken-word community in town and that we, the written-word community, should all work together,” O’Meara said. “It used to be there were the page poets and then the stage poets. What I love about Ottawa is that the written word and spoken word communities are very involved with each other.

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“People like to joke about how poetry is dead or not very popular,” he added, “but the fact is it’s stronger than ever. It’s had a boost, a renaissance from the spoken-word community.”

O’Meara, 56, is taking over the English poet-laureate position from Albert Dumont, the Algonquin elder who brought attention to Indigenous issues during his two-year tenure and campaigned successfully to take Sir John A. Macdonald’s name off the western leg of the National Capital Commission’s parkway along the Ottawa River. It’s now called Kichi Zibi Mikan, meaning Great River Road in Algonquin.

The new francophone poet is Véronique Sylvain, who succeeds Gilles Latour.

The poet-laureate title comes with what O’Meara describes as a “modest” budget and a lot of freedom. Traditionally, an official poet laureate might write about notable people, organizations or events in the community, and O’Meara is open to that type of work.

But he also wants to organize events that bring artists from different disciplines and communities together. “I know a ton of visual artists and musicians and it’s so much fun to collaborate with them,” he said. “I’d love to do some events where poets and writers partner with other arts genres like dance, music or film.”

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One high-profile collaboration he was tickled to be part of happened more than 20 years ago, when O’Meara came home to find a message from the Tragically Hip’s beloved frontman, Gord Downie, on his answering machine.

The late singer-songwriter had evidently read O’Meara’s debut collection of poetry, published in 1999, and was struck by a piece called The War Against Television. Downie was calling to ask for permission to quote it in Leave, a track that would be included on the band’s 2002 album, In Violet Light.

Naturally, O’Meara gave his blessing. “It was a real kick to have them quote from one of my poems in one of their songs,” he said, recalling a fun-filled night on the town with Downie after the Hip played Bluesfest that summer.

“I love when art forms borrow from other art forms,” he added. “Gord took the poem and did something different with it. I think art forms are plastic in that regard — they can have a new life in other people’s hands.”

Born and raised in Pembroke, where his father was a truck driver, O’Meara came to Ottawa to attend Carleton University, completing an honours degree in English literature. He said he was shy about his poetry until later in university, joking that it was “probably because I grew up in Pembroke and was worried I was going to get beat up.”

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After a few years of teaching and travel, he gravitated towards the restaurant and bar industry because of the “fluidity” of that work. “You can take time off if you need it,” he said.

O’Meara has worked a couple of shifts a week at the Manx Pub for 20 years, long enough that it feels like family. It’s also a good outlet to meet people, and, most importantly, he can leave the work at the bar.

“The main thing for me is that it doesn’t take up a lot of mental space when I walk out the door,” he said. “I’m not going home and marking papers or thinking about how to make a martini. I can immediately drop it and get started on other stuff.”

One of those projects is his first novel, Chandelier, a three-part portrait of a modern family, focusing on a young adult teaching in South Korea and her divorced parents.

It comes out Sept. 14.

lsaxberg@postmedia.com

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