For as long as John Strugnell can remember he has always be a fan of the written word.
As an 11-year-old boy he spent countless hours jotting down lines of poetry in a notebook and reading Toes in My Nose by Canadian author and poet Sheree Fitch.
“Her book was always in my school library and I just remember taking it out over and over, I just loved it,” said Strugnell, adding when he was growing up he was also big fan of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson.
“I think my mind is just hardwired differently,” said Strugnell.
“Without sounding silly, I think in rhythm, I think in metered time,” he said, perhaps unaware he was speaking in rhythm.
For the past few years the local poet has been busy penning poems and playing with words, culminating in the creation of his latest exhibit called: My Mind’s Content.
“In this collection a lot of my writing is a play on words and using connections between the natural and human world and the way they fall together in ways that we don’t always see and finding similarities between them,” explained Strugnell.
“Is it my mind’s content or my mind’s content?” asked Strugnell, emphasizing each word to highlight the double entrendre he’s used.
“I guess it depends on how you read it.”
To showcase his poems, which will be on display at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum and Archives starting Feb. 4, he has opted to display them using canvass, photographs and even low-fi analog audio for some of the poems that are a little bit more intimate.
“I don’t see it like I’m creating art, I see it like I’m just finding a visually pleasing way to present some of my intimate thoughts,” said Strugnell, who will read some of his poems during an opening gala at the museum on Feb. 5.
The audio concept is a rather new idea for Strugnell who has been fascinated by analog technology for years.
“What I’ve done is recorded myself reading some of my poems and put them on a cassette tape so people can go through this box of tapes, chuck it into a player that I’m going to have there and then listen to it and it will actually be me reading it.”
The poems themselves touch on various themes, such as love and relationships.
The opening gala on Feb. 5 starts at 8 p.m. and is free of charge. Strugnell asks that anyone who attends the gala to not wear sneakers or hats.
“There’s something to say about the casualness and how laid back Jasper is, but there’s a time and a place for it,” he said. “I put effort into doing what I’m doing for people and I think it would be nice if people could put a bit of effort into it for everybody else.”
Paul Clarke [email protected]
