Hoggwash

Barry Callaghan and Joe Rosenblatt, poets of perspicacity, pizzazz, and probity, have been combative, ecstatic compadres for over 40 years, with Callaghan donning an array of chapeaus, the man of belles lettres and hog flaneur-on-the-hoof from Smooth City, while Rosenblatt decades ago declared his unconditional allegiance to the buzzers, chirpers, and purrers of the natural world, to remain at peace by his pond, aloof from the human horde.

This most unlikely pair are conjoined by their shared dedication to the Word, to those rare moments of ascendent insight that are contained in bedrock language, to disputation about all matters of gravity and gullibility, and to the sharing of extraordinary paintings and ink drawings that come from their nether surreal and noumenal worlds. Hoggwash, a convergence by epistle, is a tribute not just to their enduring friendship but to the life of the imagination itself. There is no record of correspondence like this, anywhere in the world.

Barry Callaghan is an author, poet, anthologist and translator. He has published some 20 books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, most recently Between Trains, Beside Still Waters and Raise You Twenty ­ part of the Raise You Five/Ten/Twenty non-fiction series. He has been translated into seven languages. He lives in Toronto.

Joe Rosenblatt has written more than 20 books, selections from which have appeared in over 30 anthologies of Canadian authors. He has been translated into French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Spanish, is a winner of the Governor General’s Award and the BC Book Prize. He lives at Qualicum Beach, on Vancouver Island.