Carl Leggo Research Articles

Lingering in Leggoian Light

My PhD supervisor and mentor, Carl Leggo, died of cancer on March 7th, 2019. In this essay, I trace the personal, poetic, intellectual, and spiritual journey of his momentous mentorship. In the absence of his physical being, there is still a profound presence, and what I have come to know as pedagogical light. On his passing, another lyrical lesson began for me on how what a teacher leaves behind can stay in the mind, heart, and soul for a lifetime. I have emerged knowing what it means to live poetically, as Carl was writing and teaching us all along. His mentorship is enduring and continues to shape the art of my own being into fullness as a poet, (re)searcher, and teacher. Here, through prose and poetry, I reflect on Carl’s wisdom and how he saw the breadth of my pedagogical being—the whole of the moon.

Snow in Summer

In this article art is used as inquiry to ask powerful questions, untangle paradoxes, and help us navigate loss and grief in the Anthropocene. Several central questions are considered and animated through narrative and poetry. How do we live poetically (Leggo, 2005) in a world that we need to exploit in order to survive? How do we engage in a more-than-human world full of ambiguity and paradox? How might nature become a teacher or mentor (Jickling et al., 2018), and what anthropocentric barriers do we face? How can stories and poems facilitate holistic expression and place-based connection? As we elucidate the wonder and loss of cottonwood, and the mentorship of ponderosa, Carl Leggo (2004, 2005, 2012, 2016, 2019a, 2019b) serves as a guide for artful attending and hopeful imagination for living poetically. Joanna Macy’s (Macy & Johnstone, 2012; Macy & Brown, 2014) work that reconnects and Leggo’s curriculum of joy offer parallel paths of grief and hope so that we might find our way through the Anthropocene.

Journey to the Death

This book review explores the publication of an email correspondence between Carl Leggo and Kimberley Holmes which occurred over the period of time that Leggo was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment for a brain tumour that eventually ended his life. It observes his role as a super-mentor of graduate students undertaking works in poetic inquiry and life writing, and his commitment to living poetically until his unfortunate passing in 2019. The review considers some ethical issues associated with this publication and the reasons why it provides useful insights to anyone committed to academic mentorship.

“Gratitude to Old Teachers”: Leaning into Learning Legacies

Amongst a group of poet-scholar friends, all of us students of the American poet Robert Bly, often speak of our “gratitude to old teachers,” the title from one of Bly’s (1999) poems. We cherish a meditative awareness of deeply rooted presences holding us up, buoying us as we stride across “Water that once could take no human weight” that now “holds up our feet / And goes on ahead of us ….” What is this mystery? Through the love and support of “old teachers,” we are held, led, and supported, into an unknown future that, without their guidance, we might never have reached. Many of Bly’s students (myself included) refer to how meeting him “changed” or even “saved” their lives. Similarly, I could say this of meeting and studying with Canadian curriculum scholar and poet Carl Leggo. Practicing gratitude to old teachers fosters vital pedagogic engagement and personal connection in a world often fraught with isolation and despair. Reflecting on how these poetic influences have inspired and guided my own personal and professional life, this essay ruminates on grateful legacies within literary and curriculum studies, and beyond.
 Keywords: gratitude, curriculum studies, mentorship, poetry, poetic inquiry

Walking Softly in the Bush: Apprenticing to the Earth in an Ecological Curriculum

In this piece, we conceptualize walking in the bush as an act of ecological apprenticing. Even after many years of learning/teaching, we also attune to the limits of our knowledge, seeing ourselves as continually evolving in our practice of nurturing more ethical and responsible apprenticeship relations, both out in the bush and in the classroom. Together, we write about places in the bush that are sacred to us, places around the Nicola Valley and the Nehalliston in the interior of British Columbia. We undertake a holistic and relational dialogue, grounded in life writing and literary métissage (Erika Hasebe-Ludt, Cynthia Chambers & Carl Leggo, 2009). We interpret the work of an ecological curriculum through four interrelated concepts of apprenticing: 1) as a sustained and lifelong, imperfect and unfinished practice; 2) as learning/teaching through sensory heartful attunement; 3) as teaching/learning through wonder; and 4) as a gift which creates relationships and obligations (“bound by legal agreement”). Drawing on Vern’s lifelong pedagogical work of “walking in the bush” and Jodi’s poem entitled “Huckleberry Prayer,” we undertake an intergenerational dialogue around an ecological curriculum as an act of apprenticing to the Earth.

LIFE OF BLOSSOM

Scientists indicate that we are living in the Anthropocene, an epoch marked by unprecedented human impact on the planet. Our ecological predicament poses a significant challenge to human consciousness as we experience a pivotal moment in planetary history. Following the work of Mary Oliver, Carl Leggo, Kathleen Dean Moore, and other poetic luminaries, we consider what it means to live poetically in the Anthropocene, to experience beauty and meaning amidst depletion and radical ecological change, to weep for the disappearance of species while working toward personal and systemic transformation. We ask: How does poetry contribute to a flourishing life in a time of ecological crisis? Why is poetry an especially potent vehicle of human expression and transformation? In a dialogic format, the authors exchange reflections on poetic inquiry, and muse on the importance of poetry as a vehicle for investigation and reformation.

Howling with Hope

My PhD supervisor and lifetime mentor, Carl Leggo, was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and died March 7, 2019. The prospect of a shortened life brings a sense of urgency to the central existential questions of love, fear, joy, and loss—four prominent themes in Leggo’s work. In this essay, I reflect on how his mentorship has transformed my ontological, epistemological, political, ethical, and axiological understandings of living as a creative scholar in the academy.

Homage to the Place(lessness) of Poetry and the Poetic Life of Carl Leggo

This address was written for Carl Leggo and presented June 1, 2019, at the CACS preconference “The Many Faces of Love: Celebrating the Life Work of Carl Leggo”, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. It draws upon Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the three human activities—labour, work and action—that form part of her thesis in The Human Condition. Specifically, I aim to provide a brief description of the role that such activities play in constituting the vita activa (or life of action). This overview then circles around to the ways in which works of art, particularly poetry, help establish a sense of permanence in the world that the activities of labour and action do not. I then identify an intersection between Arendt’s writings on poetry with Carl Leggo’s as relayed in his own writings on the subject. This intersection highlights poetry’s infinite value.

Book Review: Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnection

This text comprises a book review of Canadian Curriculum Studies: A Métissage of Inspiration/Imagination/Interconnection, edited by Erika Hasebe-Ludt and Carl Leggo (2018) and published by Canadian Scholars’ Press. In this text, I first summarize the main themes and trends of the volume through reference to specific, illustrative contributions. I also highlight the rather distinct structure of the volume. In my discussion of the volume, I articulate its usefulness to emerging curriculum scholars as well as those teaching graduate courses in curriculum studies. I also make reference to several questions I have after reading the book as a whole. Finally, I end this essay by pointing to the intimate and welcoming atmosphere of the volume and of Canadian curriculum studies more generally.

Dwelling in the Human/Posthuman Entanglement of Poetic Inquiry: Poetic Missives to and from Carl Leggo

This inaugural Dr. Carl Leggo Memorial Lecture on Poetic Inquiry was delivered at the 7th International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry on October 3rd, 2019. I share a poetic conversation I have crafted out of Carl’s work that allows me, and all of us, to enter into a continuing dialogue with Carl’s words, which survive and will live on without his earthly presence. I discuss the process I undertook to create these poetic missives, in my voice and Carl’s, following the dialogue. All of the work beginning with “Dear Monica” are found poems created from Carl’s writing—his prose, not his poetry. My own poetic messages to Carl are mostly original, although they include a bit of found poetry from the literature on posthumanism. And the abecedarian poem is definitely inspired by Carl’s love of this type of poem, and his playful joy, always, in exploring the possibilities of language and poetry.

Teaching Writing: Fragments of a Poet’s Credo

Author’s abstract: I have been in school since I was four years old. Now, at the age of sixty-five, I look back on a long life spent in classrooms, as a learner and a school teacher and a professor of education, and I am filled with amazement that I have grown old! I was probably in my thirties before I began to understand how education always occurs in communities of teachers and learners who teach and learn from one another, who search and research together. As a beginning teacher, I wavered between feeling powerless and powerful. On the one hand, I assumed that I was in control in the classroom; I was the primary decision-maker. But, on the other hand, I typically expected educational experts to tell me what I should do. I depended on the stipulations of school administrators, the publications of professors, and the professional development workshops of school district consultants to guide, convince, and inspire me in my teaching. And, now that I’ve been a professor for a long time, I also know that professors don’t really know very much. They might profess a lot, but they know the searching is always in process, returning to the beginning of the search again and again in order to know the quests and the questions in lively other ways. As scholars, theorists, artists, and educators, we need to attend to language. We need to attend to etymology, diction, grammar, syntax, metaphors, and interpretation. All my life I have been enamoured with the necromancy of the alphabet, the magic of spelling, the alchemy of grammar, the mystery of books—the potent fecundity of language. I am always seeking connections to scholars who are committed to provoking scholarship with heartful and artful dedication.
 Editor’s Preface: With the permission of his family, we are honoured to publish posthumously “Teaching Writing: Fragments of a Poet’s Credo” by Carl Leggo. Carl submitted this piece to Art/Research International on January 28, 2019, only five and a half weeks before he passed from his physical being and life on Earth. Even as he “dwell[ed] daily in the space between living and dying” with cancer, Carl graciously offered earnest reflections about writing, poetry, and living well in the world: “fragments and suggestions from [his] credo …what [he has] given [his] heart to.” His wise words, always inspiring, are ever more precious now, a living reminder of the poet, teacher, and scholar he was and always will be to so many of his colleagues, friends, and students: thoughtful, erudite, generous, kind, courageous, vulnerable—and steadfastly hopeful. “Teaching Writing: Fragments of a Poet’s Credo” is rich ground to return to again and again: a succinct articulation of Carl’s ways of living poetically in the world, all threaded through with insights from some of his favourite authors. May “Teaching Writing” reverberate among Carl’s many poems, articles, and books—and more widely, among the writings of those who share his he(art)ful path in the academy. May these ever widening and deepening reverberations bring healing and benefit to many. 
 - Susan Walsh, Ph.D.

A Review of: Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place

A review of Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place, an edited book by Pauline Sameshima, Alexandra Fidyk, Kedrick James, and Carl Leggo, and published by Vernon Press, 2017.

A Review of The Way of the Teacher: A Path for Personal Growth and Professional Fulfillment by Sandra Finney and Jane Thurgood Sagal

A Review of The Way of the Teacher: A Path for Personal Growth and Professional Fulfillment by Sandra Finney and Jane Thurgood Sagal"I enthusiastically commend Finney and Thurgood Sagal for their thoughtful, hopeful, and inspiriting book which ought to be adopted as a core text in all Bachelor of Education programs as well as professional development plans for teachers." Carl Leggo

Eu Cabelo Você

Este artigo explora os cabelos humanos como um meio artístico. Venho questionando a relação de confiança e a dinâmica de poder entre quem corta o cabelo e aquele que recebe o corte de cabelo. Esta situação reflete nossas interações da vida diária de várias maneiras, particularmente entre profissionais e não profissionais, como artistas e não artistas e professores e alunos. Descobri que, para construir uma relação recíproca confiável, ambos os lados devem fazer um esforço paraentender as mentes dos outros. Este artigo inclui fotos da performance de cabelo e poesia para apresentar minhas investigações baseadas em artes para ajudar a entender esse relacionamento humano.

Review of “Arts-based Contemplative Practices in Education”: 2017 Canadian Society for Studies in Education ARTS Pre-conference

This review is a poetic and photographic response to a pre-conference session convened in May 2017 by the Arts Researchers and Teachers Society (ARTS) of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, and organized by Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel, Carl Leggo, and Diane Conrad. The gathering took place in Toronto, Canada on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, and of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. The theme of the pre-conference was arts-based contemplative practices in education. The day offered a collaborative space for learning and co-creation as a community of practice supported by a hospitable and responsive design. This enabled movement away from traditional vertical hierarchies of knowledge dissemination towards more lateral exchanges and emergent learning structures.

A Book Review of Arts-Based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Teaching: Honoring Presence Edited by Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel, and Carl Leggo, Published by Routledge, 2015

This book review of Arts-Based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Teaching: Honoring Presence is both a review of the work as well as a contemplation on the work. The reader is invited into the book through witnessing the impact reading the book had on this reviewer. Attention is given to each author’s contributions to the publication, noting how each chapter and each Lectio Divina (opportunities for contemplation between chapters) calls us to pay attention.

The Newfoundland Diaspora: Mapping the Literature of Out-Migration by Jennifer Bowering Delisle (review)

Jennifer Bowering Delisle. The Newfoundland Diaspora: Mapping the Literature of Out-Migration. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2013. Pp. vii, 211. $42.99. As Jennifer Bowering Delisle argues, out-migration from Newfoundland is both a preoccupation for many of its writers and a condition under which some of their literary output is produced. Because leaving the province is such a universal phenomenon--indeed, the author observes that it is often expected or considered inevitable (3)--out-migration serves as more than simply a thematic concern. It forms the signature trope that, when combined with an expressed desire to return home, defines the shared experience central to Newfoundland literature and provides Delisle with the foundation from which she seeks to theorize diaspora in an Atlantic Canadian context. To this point, by her reckoning, the concept has been applied too loosely to the Newfoundland experience, and so the author connects diaspora purposefully to five features of out-migration. In large measure, Newfoundlanders abroad experience a painful separation, an unbroken connection to the island, and a sense of marginalization in their new homes. In response, they form communities of the like-minded and together regard Newfoundland in neo-national terms (10). While these commonalities are essential to her understanding of diaspora, Delisle seems most troubled by the application of this last feature. Is Newfoundland in its literature depicted as a region, a province, or a nation? Ultimately, the author seems to understand this figurative Newfoundland as a nation, one that transcends its nebulous status before confederation to strengthen its place within Canada and sharpen the features of its creative heritage. Delisle uses the novels of Donna Morrissey to illustrate the toll of out-migration in human terms, revealing how personal choices that for many are thought to be pragmatic can be pieced together in a mosaic of fictional experience that is both wider and deeper than any individual story. The verse of Carl Leggo, on the other hand, demonstrates the persistence of nostalgia in diasporic literature, as the poet's very personal observations evoke a series of images that may be read as central to any evolving definition of Newfoundland identity. Though the idea of Newfoundlanders as perpetual outsiders on the mainland sits uneasily with the concept of Canadian multiculturalism, the work of Helen Buss/Margaret Clarke allows Delisle to explore the ways in which identity remains grounded in a sense of place. By embracing multiple identities, Buss/Clarke may acknowledge many attachments in different locations; a similar preoccupation defines the work of David Macfarlane, who seeks literary spaces where his Newfoundland and Canadian heritages overlap. The poetry of E. J. Pratt is weighed on its authenticity as Delisle revisits the question of whether his verse is contrived romanticism or whether it ever reflects genuinely on outport life. While she is mindful of his skeptics, the author chooses to emphasize how Pratt embraces Newfoundland cultural traits while also identifying as Canadian, thereby transcending narrow political allegiances and traditional conceptions of nationhood. A more common strategy of resistance is the construction of an imagined community of Newfoundlanders in the drama of David French, whose declared identity resists assimilation in Toronto (111). …

29 Ways of Looking at the Oblique in A/r/tography

Research Article| December 01 2012 29 Ways of Looking at the Oblique in A/r/tography Carl Leggo Carl Leggo Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Visual Arts Research (2012) 38 (2): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.5406/visuartsrese.38.2.0001 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Carl Leggo; 29 Ways of Looking at the Oblique in A/r/tography. Visual Arts Research 1 January 2012; 38 (2): 1–5. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/visuartsrese.38.2.0001 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressVisual Arts Research Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this issue. Spectacle Pedagogy: Art, Politics, and Visual Culture Charles R. Garoianand Yvonne M. Gaudelius Being with A/r/tography Stephanie Springgay, Rita L. Irwin, Carl Leggo and Peter Gouzouasis [Eds] Hornsey 1968: The Art School Revolution Lisa Tickner

Muffling Identities/Cultural Silencing: Exploring Issues in cultural diversity Through Dance

Kathryn Ricketts is a doctoral student donning an oversized overcoat and hat and carrying a suitcase heavy with the weight of borrowed stories she tells through a methodology called a/r/tography. This paper serves as a living document of the years she has spent with the core members of the a/r/tographic team: Rita Irwin, Carl Leggo, Peter Gouzouasis, and Kit Grauer and marks the continued articulating of a practice informed by the key themes of identity and place. Her work is focused on the telling of stories of displacement through dance and how this telling impacts the agency of those who tell and those who listen. This paper is written from the personal perspective of the artist researcher and also from the perspectives of the a/r/tographic team.