CC Canada Poet Laureate John Hoben is a PhD student in Education at Memorial University. His poetry has won a Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Award (2004) and 2nd prize in Memorial University’s Gregory Power Poetry Award (2007) for emerging student writers. His work has appeared in small press publications in British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Born and raised in Musgrave Harbour, a small fishing community located on the north-east coast of Newfoundland, John currently lives in Torbay, Newfoundland with his wife and daughter.

John’s latest poem The Conch was recently featured in Inscribed ~ A Magazine For Writers Volume 3 Issue 3. The Conch is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence.

The Conch
by John Hoben

He presses his ear
to the smooth coiled conch;
its mouth the mouth of deep,
muddy rivers, a small still voice
is the voice of green breasted
meadows, of
summer’s children singing.

In the shell
oceans are rolling;
his ear full of the
thunderous reign of
clouds, of sure and
craggy mountains.

The pursed
quick fist
that opens the
swirling door into,

the ancient house
of black.

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

[…] “It’s just STAYING, that’s what,” she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. “It’s no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living away back here by themselves. Trees aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were there’d be enough of them. I’d ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they’re used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said.” [To be continued…]

Read previous entry here.

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

[…] Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the big, rambling, orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde’s Hollow. To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert’s father, as shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place LIVING at all. [To be continued…]

Read previous entry here.

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

“I’ll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla where he’s gone and why,” the worthy woman finally concluded. “He doesn’t generally go to town this time of year and he NEVER visits; if he’d run out of turnip seed he wouldn’t dress up and take the buggy to go for more; he wasn’t driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. Yet something must have happened since last night to start him off. I’m clean puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today.”

To be continued…

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so
rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy, was something that didn’t happen often. Mrs. Rachel, ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon’s enjoyment was spoiled.

To be continued…

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three
on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the
hollow and up the hill; moreover, he wore a white collar and
his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof that he was
going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the sorrel mare,
which betokened that he was going a considerable distance.
Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?

To be continued…

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill; moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?

To be continued…

Well it’s been a long time in the coming but the Canadian government has released Bill C-61: An Act to amend the Copyright Act. As can be expected there is all kinds of enlightening commentary from stakeholders of all stripes. We here at CC Canada try hard to abstain from the politicking but there is no shortage of blog and mainstream media content to inform your opinion. Let Google be your guide…

Why not start here with the Act itself: Bill C-61

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees. Thomas Lynde–a meek little man whom Avonlea people called “Rachel Lynde’s husband”–was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening before in William J. Blair’s store over at Carmody that he meant to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about anything in his whole life.

To be continued…

Anne of Green Gables

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

CHAPTER I: Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised

…

There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend closely to their neighbor’s business by dint of neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts–she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices–and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel’s all-seeing eye.

To be continued…