CANADIAN POETRY ASSOCIATION: BOOKCLUB BOOKLITS
HMS PRESS
POB 340 STN B
LONDON ONTARIO N6A 4W1
ISBN 1-895700-66-3
ISBN 0-919957-26-9 (paper)
Copyright 1991/96 by Wayne Ray
By the time I arrived for my first day of work in July of 1980
at 93 Highland Avenue in Toronto, the greenhouses and grounds had
been virtually abandoned for six months except for some occasional
grass cutting by laborers from the University of Toronto Grounds
Department. It took me two weeks to get the two growing greenhouses
and sheds up to working condition and it wasn't until September
that the plants in the conservatory were transplanted, divided,
cleaned and rejuvenated to the point where the dead jungle look had
disappeared and life was back to normal. I did not have all that
much time to clean up the grounds thoroughly as fall was coming and
weeds, weed trees and shrubs had made a forest of the back slopes.
After the Fall season became a reality and the cleanup began
I discovered that the lower of three tiers was in reality a half
acre terraced rock garden with two large concrete ponds and a 300
foot artificial stream running to it from the east side of the
upper lawn. This discovery changed my whole attitude toward the
place and I looked forward eagerly for the next spring. The three
and a half acre estate is situated in Rosedale, Toronto, over
looking a ravine that runs from Bayview Avenue to Mt. Pleasent
Road, and goes from Highland Avenue halfway down to the floor of
the ravine. The upper lawn is bounded by mature Quercus and Acer
saccharum on the north with a single mature specimen of Acer
saccharinum and Ailanthus altissima next to the thirty two room
house and a magnificent Robinia pseudoacacia on the Eastern edge of
the half acre lawn.
A steep grassed slope flows south to the second terrace where
the greenhouses, sheds and cold frames are located on the west side
and a large gazebo which is situated beneath two large Salix
babalonica. Beneath a stone step lies the remains of a family pet
whose name (Billy, 1947) is inscribed upon the stone. From here the
second slope; peppered with syringa vulgaris. syringa, and stumps
of trees and shrubs long gone, flows onto the third terrace where
several varieties of Malus are growing along with Euonymous
europaeus, Sorbus aucuparea and Robinia pseudoacacia.
It is on the Eastern edge of this terrace that an artificial
stream leaves the one acre deciduous forest and enters the rock
garden and reaches the ponds. The forest is composed primarily of
Fagus sylvatica, Quercus rubra, Betula papirifera, Acer rubrum A.
saccharum, Ostria and, Robinia pseudoacacia. The half acre rock
garden encompasses the entire lower western section of the estate
covering three smaller slopes and two smaller terraces.
What intrigued me most was the thought of what was lying
beneath all that brush and leaves. What species of wild flowers had
crept in from the forest? What species of plants were introduced
into that rock garden before it was abandoned five to ten years
before? What wild flowers were in the forest? In the rock garden
proper, including trees and shrubs, I found Tradiscantia
virginiana, Achillea lanulosa, Pinus mugho, viburnum trilobum, Acer
palmatum, Hieracium canadense, Ulmus pumila, spirea vanhoutii,
Malus coronaria, Asparagus filicina, Robinia pseudoacacia, pteris
spp., Potentilla recta, Ranunculus acris, Taxus cuspidata`Hicksii',
Chelidonium majus and Muscari botrides.
For the first year I kept the weeds, suckers and crab grass
under control and thinned the wild flowers into groups or moved
them around the garden to fill empty spaces and thinned out the new
growth from the shrubs. I had, in my spare time, established a
regular trading route with other gardens and gardeners (Allan
gardens, Humber College Arboretum, Erindale College greenhouse,
Corruthers Estate, Niagara College, Edwards Gardens) whereby we
would exchange plants, cuttings and seeds and I had become involved
with the Seed Exchange at the Glendon Hall Campus on Bayview
Avenue.
By the time my second spring had arrived I had germinated or
grown from cuttings, different species of plants. Only about 90
different species made it to adulthood and graduation from the
greenhouse and cold frames. Nearly half of these new plants were
being grown for the conservatory and the flowerbeds around the
house. They included species of Begonia, Fuchsia, Pilea, Euphorbia,
Peperomia, Impatiens, Hosta and other indoor plants. The flower
beds on the second terrace that stretched from the work shed to the
gazebo acted as trial beds for the wild flowers that I started
earlier that year. The university was not overly interested in
returning the estate to its earlier glory and especially not the
rock garden as very few guests went to see it so I was obliged to
thin out my new plants and let things grow wild. By the end of my
third year (l983) just before I accepted the position of Grounds
Foreman at the main campus I had successfully introduced the
following wild flowers into the gardens; Aguiligia brevistilla,
Ranunculus abortius, Lychnis chalcedonica, Saxifraga aizoides,
Siline cotripacta, sedum anacampceros, S. kamtshaticum, S.
kamtshaticum oreo marginatum, Malva sylvestris, M. M. verticillata,
Potentilla tridentata, P. intermedia, P. pentandra, Polemonium
corveleum, Atriplex lentiformis, Agastace foenicleum, Campanula
carpatica and Plantago lanceolata.
It was during these three years that I was alone on the estate
that I found the time to write (other than the daily records I
kept). I began my research into a booklet which is now published
under the title of Arboreta and Botanical Gardens of North America:
A Travellers Guide in 1982. The fourth edition was published in
l988. It took two years to accumulate all the information from the
hundreds of gardens in the United States and Canada. My normal
working hours started at 7:30 am and I would arrive at 6:30 am most
mornings to do my correspondence and typing. Many of the botanical
gardens in Canada sent large amounts of information in the form of
brochures and photographs which I have turned into a rather large
manuscript to be published soon dealing solely with and titled
Botanical Gardens of Canada. It was during the years l983-85 that
I began to get interested in the poetry scene in Toronto. I
attended several readings and workshops and began to accumulate
friendships and contacts in the local writing community. In the
spring of 1982 I put together a collection of most of the poetry I
had written from entitled Poetics: The Complete Works of Wayne.
I was at that point in my life where writing was just a hobby
and I felt it was time to let my friends and the public become
aware of my writings. It was typed and photocopied and given away
to friends and neighbors. Even though this was a poorly done
production it enabled me to come in contact with small press
publishers who showed me the proper way of doing things. I formed
my own publishing company in l982 and began what has been a very
enjoyable publishing career. In the summer of 1982 I met Raymond
Souster who had a look at some of my poetry and made several
constructive suggestions that I applied to my writing skills and in
the fall of l984 I put together enough poems for a 32 page chapbook
which was type set and published under the title of Suburban Eyes.
In the spring of 1985 it went into a second printing. During the
Christmas holidays I wrote poems for high school students and put
together a similar collection of nature poems and sent both away to
a publisher who lost them in the mail while being returned to me.
I had neglected to make copies and learned a valuable lesson the
hard way.
In 1983 I wrote a series of childrens stories; 8 books
entitled Animals of The Windy Fields of which the first book was
published in the summer of 1983 with drawings by Shawn McConville.
The stories were loosely based on the characters I met while
working on E.P. Taylor's Windfields estate in North York in the
early `70's. In October of 1983 I was inspired by a conversation I
had with a local female poet one Wednesday evening after a reading
I attended at the Main Street Library and the next two days at
work, wrote all the anti-war poems which were published in 1984 by
Unfinished Monument Press. The chapbook was called Auschwitz and
was received with mixed reviews. One of the poems (Prisoner of War)
won me the Editor's Prize for "Best Poet of the Year: 1989, from
the Canadian Author and Bookman Magazine. During this time,
1981-83, I worked on a series of prose vignettes which I managed to
get up to eight stories for a total of 60 pages. It is an
autobiographical fiction called Giants of The North, published in
1992 by the London, Ontario publisher, Third Eye Press. The stories
are inspired by the `slice of life' style of short story writing
developed by William Soroyan and recorded dreams. I also finished
my epic poem of 400 lines based on the Aeneid by Virgil.
During my three years on the Presidents Estate I also
accumulated one of the largest private Herbarium collections in
Ontario. I began collecting and preserving plant material in the
forms of seeds, pressed plants, dormant winter twigs and
photographs during my college years at the Horticulture Campus of
Niagara College in St. Catharines, Ontario from 1970-1972 and when
I was an Estate Gardener for E. P. Taylor at his Windfield House
from 1974-1978. By the end of 1988, when the collection was donated
to the Herbarium of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton,
Ontario, I had accumulated over 2000 species of seeds and pressed
material, 150 species of dormant trees and shrubs and 1000 slides
of plant material and landscaping. Before the donation, I was
lending the herbarium material and slides to local high school
science departments as teaching aids under the company name of
Horticultural Management Services. When I began my publishing
company I had planned on publishing poetry and botanical books,
thus the name from the initials became HMS Press. In 1983 HMS Press
began by publishing Suburban Eyes by Wayne Ray (700 copies);
Arboreta and Botanical Gardens of North America: A Travellers Guide
by Wayne Ray (500 copies); as well as a game (League of Poets Board
Game), and a series of greeting cards by Gillian Chapman entitled
`Ignatia Creations'. In 1984 HMS published: two haiku chapbooks,
Photographs by Wayne Ray (100 copies) and Two Cops Kissing by Jones
(300 copies); an art photography chapbook Pool Hall by Vancouver
poet Beth Jankola (300 copies); and four poetry chapbooks; The
Captain, by Wayne Ray (200 copies); Premiere Performance by Robert
Sward, Robert Priest and Robert Zend (1000 copies); and Mysterian
Poem by Allan Engel (100 copies). Mysterian Poem was done out of
pure kindness on my part as a christmas present for Allen who was
trying to panhandle enough money to return to Montreal. He made
enough from the chapbook to go back.
It was during this period (1983/84) that I began distributing
poetry books for Unfinished Monument Press. I agreed to distribute
Faiers books and books for other small presses in the Toronto Area.
Over the next three years, HMS Press Distributing represented 17
small press publishers with over 150 titles in stock. The biggest
problem I found in Toronto was the lack of stores that would carry
poetry, especially unknown names published by small or new presses.
This was followed by the complaint that other poets don't buy
poetry books and HMS ceased distributing books in 1985 when it was
taken over by the Canadian Poetry Association's BookClub, now
located in London Ontario and run by the London Chapter of the CPA.
In 1985 HM5 published a major work and its best seller yet (1000
copies), an art/history biography, Sybil Jacobson: Painting in The
West by Mary Alexander, a childrens story chapbook, our Bus Driver
by Leanne Tyla Ray, a broadsheet series by Rupindar Dhindsa a poster
by Beth Jankola and two chapbooks, Without a crystal Ball by Jim Flanagan
and North Light by Quebec poet, Jack Brooks . In 1986 HMS Press
produced two major works; The Whiskey Jack by Milton Acorn (1000
copies) and Arma Virurque Cano an epic poem by Wayne Ray. I met
Milton in August of 1985 in Toronto, where he was staying at the
home of Chris Faiers for several weeks before moving to the
Gladstone Hotel and eventually to his favourite, the Waverly Hotel
at the corner of Spadina and College. At that time he was writing
and reading and talking about his new interest, crows and ravens
etc. Chris asked Milton to give him his bird poems and he and I
would co-publish the book to raise him some money. About Christmas
time when Milton was admitted to Sunnybrook Hospital he gave me (as
Chris had pulled out by then) a manuscript (via James Deahl) of
what Milton considered his better bird poems and a few
anti-abortion poems to shock the people, he said. Milton edited the
book himself, while in the hospital. The book was going to be
released in July/August of l986 as a chapbook. Al Purdy gave me
permission to use his Cross Canada Writers quarterly piece for the
intro to the Whiskey Jack and (the late) Gwendolyn MacEwan wrote
the back cover piece. When Milton passed away, almost one year
after start of production, I decided to do a full size, two color
cover, spine bound book and added some more nature poems and
finally released the book in December, 1986. The other two new
releases; A Stand of Jackpine by James Deahl and Milton Acorn,
Unfinished Monument Press and Uncollected Acorn by Deneau Press,
were initiated well before Milton died and published after his
death.
Arma Virumque Cano is a 600 line poem based on the Aeneid by
Virgil where Aeneas travels to the end of the world to discover why
God has not bothered to help Mankind in its final days on Earth.
This poem began as a 200 line Grade XIII Latin class project in
1970 and has been added upon each year that I looked at it and
thought it finished. By the time I got around to the final draft,
I had acquired an Apple IIE word processing computer with a
graphics program that suited this poem quite well. It was produced
entirely on the computer with four fonts and almost two dozen
computer graphics and enabled me to create the ending I was having
trouble putting into words, the end of the world. Another book
produced in 1988 using the same program and graphics and published
in 1990 was entitled Riding on The Coattails Of Death: The Life And
Times Of B.F Gardner l953-1986. In 1987 as books were becoming more
expensive to produce, I only published two chapbooks; Weather
Report by Brian Burch and a college students cookbook, The Starving
Students Guide To Macaroni And Cheese by J. Schryer and M. Leggett
(1000 copies).
What I had decided to do next was a limited edition series
(100 copies) of Broadsheets with or without graphics, for the next
few years. The series consisted of; Sapient Island by Patrick
White, Three Poems by Phera, When Love Feels Sorry For A Poet by
Shaunt Basmajian, The Last Letter Home, by Wayne Ray, The Letter
O, by Dale Loucareas, The Man With Three Violins by Gwendolyn
MacEwen, Port Arthur Whore House Suite, by Rob MacIeod and Elmer by
Peter McPhee which was published in 1988. Because I moved to London
Ontario in July of 1988 the next in the series were planned for the
spring of 1989. The Third series will contain poems by Jeff
Seffinga, Susan Ioannou, Peter Baltensperger, and Rupindar Dhindsa.
Because of the move several projects were put on hold including;
The Twelve Stations 1&2 by Job Jones, A Soldiers Diary by Wayne Ray
and a childrens sports series which I bought the Rights for from
Colban of Canada in 1987 consisting of 24 - 32 page booklets on
recreational and competitive sports. In March of 1987 with the help
of the late Gwendolyn MacEwen, I bought the Audio Rights for the
reading of More Poems For People by Milton Acorn from NC Press and
turned them over to the BookClub of the Canadian Poetry Association
of which I co-founded on January 16, 1985, but that's another story
in itself.
From 1988 to 1994, HMS Press has published books by
David Berthiaume, Geri Rosenzweig, Michael Irving, Jennifer Footman,
Susan Ray, Albert Harper, Sheila Dalton, LT Dougherty, Bruce Ross,
and James Deahl. After January 01, 1994, HMS Press converted to Books
on Disk and in 1995 took over Atlantic Disk Publishers.
HMS Press Pages:
HMS Press Home Page
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Atlantic Disk Publishers
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HMS PRESS
POB 340 STN B
LONDON ONTARIO N6A 4W1
E-Mail: hmspress@mirror.org