The Double Helix

Publisher:  Coady House, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  1976
Pages:  60pp   Price:  $2.00   Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX83

A volume of poetry.

Abstract: 
Norm Craven is the father of eleven children who provides bread for the table by factory work. Yet fathering goes much further and is beautifully exercised in the imagination and play with which he engages the young ones. Though the family is large, Norm found time to be active in his community, editing for a while, a community newspaper, and most of all, visiting those in need on behalf of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
One of the poems in this collection is called "neruda is dead, there is no one to chronicle the suffering". Here especially, in a reflection upon the death of a fellow poet, Norm Craven's sensitivity to the thrust of his own poetry becomes apparent. He too chronicles the suffering of those in his city; the victims, the poor. It is a chronicle that is tragic and angry, yet also hopeful, even in awe of a mystery of beauty present in the lives of these nameless crucified. They are not the objects of some political propaganda for a new movement, but rather recognized as the subjects of a profound, overwhelming presence of life. Norm Craven's poetry approaches them with reverence. They are indeed the elements of that double helix which is the matrix of life.
Here is chronicled a double history: the history of repression and the history of liberation. Both are present and intertwined in Norm's poems. The poems are not
separate from the struggle of living, nor will it be possible to grasp their meaning or implications apart from an engagement in that struggle of the poor and victimised.
We are pleased to present this small collection in solidarity with the people these poems chronicle and in solidarity with those poets and artists of many nations who also chronicle the struggles of their people.