Ode to a Sparrow

“Ode to a Sparrow” is a profile of Canadian poet Peter Van Toorn. Van Toorn’s book “Mountain Tea” was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1984. The film celebrates Van Toorn’s poetic insight and language, and captures the concentration and labour of Mountain Tea’s creation. “Ode to a Sparrow” includes readings from Van Toorn, conversations with some of his friends, and lyrical visuals to accompany a reading of Van Toorn’s essay about the importance of the title of a poem, “Handy Handles.” “Mountain Tea” was unavailable for many years, but was reissued by Signal Editions in 2004. “I can think of no better antidote to the numbing effects of the tepid, watery concoctions that now pour endlessly from small presses across Canada… Word-crazy, yet clear-eyed, the poems in this book hold their own with anything produced in English in this century…. A tonal trickster, [Van Toorn] is a master of the extended jam session, riff-raffing and mischievously tom-fooling his long-playing way through the startled ear to the still susceptible heart.” – Ian Higgins, Canadian Literature Quarterly, reviewing “Mountain Tea”