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The Bookmarks

A Bookmark is a poster-sized ceramic plaque with text from a story or poem. A Bookmark can be found in the exact physical location where the literary scene takes place, so that the visitor can read the story or poem while standing just where the narrator or characters stand.

You can visit Bookmarks at six locations around Ontario. Four more Bookmarks will be installed across Ontario in fall 2011.

Bookmark 06: FUGITIVE PIECES by Anne Michaels

Up Grace, along Henderson, up Manning to Harbord I whimpered; my spirit shape finally in familiar clothes and, with abandon, flinging its arms the stars.

From Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels, published by McClelland & Stewart. Bookmarked at College and Manning Streets, Toronto on October 28, 2010.

Bookmark 05: GARBO LAUGHS by Elizabeth Hay

Cars whizzed by, the wind picked up. Lew felt waves of fatigue roll off Dinah as she leant into him. There was another bench next to the iron railing, he helped her over to it and she sank down, and then he knelt at her feet. “Enough already,” she said. “I’ll marry you.”

From Garbo Laughs, by Elizabeth Hay, published by McClelland & Stewart. Bookmarked at Bronson Place, West side (near Fulton) at Colonel By Drive, Ottawa on October 26, 2010.

Bookmark 04: ESSENTIALIST by Ken Babstock

 Surfacing at St. George, I cupped my hands 
        and blew—bodies scattering among museums,
              bank towers, campus rooms, and shops, each

              to where they’re thinking of or not, seemed
         to prove a law we’re locked into, demonstrable
with iron filings, magnets and clean tabletop.

From “Essentialist” from Airstream Land Yacht by Ken Babstock, published by House of Anansi. Bookmarked at St. George and Bloor Streets, Toronto on October 21, 2010.

Bookmark 03: MEXICAN SUNSETS by Bronwen Wallace

Nothing’s the same any more.
Here in Kingston, even limestone forgets itself
and the staid Protestant church towers
succumb to gothic fantasies, windows ablaze
with dragons’ fire and the pink screams
of captured damsels…

From “Mexican Sunsets” from Common Magic by Bronwen Wallace, published by Oberon Press. Bookmarked at the corner of Clergy and Princess Streets, Kingston on September 23, 2010.

Bookmark 02: ROGUES' WEDDING by Terry Griggs

Wagons jammed the road as passengers spilled out of them to join the milling throng on the dock. Children streaked through the crowd, dogs, a chicken on the loose; a young man barged through carrying a skeletal white-haired woman in his arms who was dressed in purple satin from toe to bonnet as though rigged out in her own coffin lining.

From Rogues’ Wedding, by Terry Griggs, published by Random House of Canada. Bookmarked at Owen Sound’s Waterfront Trail on September 2, 2010.

Bookmark 01: IN THE SKIN OF A LION, by Michael Ondaatje

Then there was no longer any fear on the bridge. The worst, the incredible had happened. A nun had fallen off the Prince Edward Viaduct before it was even finished. The men covered in wood shavings or granite dust held the women against them. And Commissioner Harris at the far end stared along the mad pathway. This was his first child and it had already become a murderer.

From In The Skin Of A Lion by Michael Ondaatje, published by McClelland & Stewart. Bookmarked at the Bloor Viaduct, April 23, 2009.