Stratford Poet Profiles: Mark Hertzberger

Heidi Sander’s Canada Is Our Poem contest is an initiative for Canadian writers to have their poetry recognized. In addition to a prize of $1,000 for the winner, 200 poems were selected and published in the Canada Is Our Poem anthology.

One of these writers is Mark Hertzberger from Stratford. Hertzberger also writes for the Stratford Times as a monthly columnist. He said he started to appreciate the craft of writing in university but began to hone it after retirement.

“In my previous life, I was in HR, and I was doing conflict mediation and harassment investigations, which involved lengthy, really detailed, boring reports,” he said. “It was a relief to be able to write poetry. I mean, I’ve written that since I was in university, but it’s just nice to get back to it now that I’m retired.”

Hertzberger has written two books, and his recent submission to the Canada Is Our Poem contest was titled “Timmy’s in question,” which is a humorous piece about the coffee shop. He said his poetry often reflects life observations and humour.

“Some of it is a little funny, some of it’s a little bit weird,” he said. “I like to read a lot of different kinds of books, but I tend toward horror novels and that kind of thing, so some of my stuff has some strange images in it. Others are just about life and observations that come to me in a particular situation. I never really have a theme that runs through all my poetry. I guess you’d say it’s situation-specific.”

Regarding “Timmy’s in question,” Hertzberger said he wanted to write something about how a company that is no longer fully owned by Canadians is still somehow considered so Canadian.

“Tim Hortons is sort of a gathering place for a lot of people, and it’s sort of gone downhill over the years,” he said. “So I was kind of thinking, what’s really Canadian about it? So this poem is a bit of a satire on some of these retail institutions we have that supposedly embody a way of life but, in fact, are just fabricated to sell watered-down coffee.”

Hertzberger said he sometimes comes up with ideas while out observing people and situations. He likes to let ideas ruminate a bit before starting to jot them down. He said that sometimes he starts with a quote or line and often deletes the original idea after the poem starts to come together.

“It kind of gestates in my mind for a while until I get a handle on what it’s roughly going to look like, and it’ll often start with a line that I think of first,” he said. “I’ll put that line on paper, and I’ll build a poem around that. Often what happens is, when I’m finished, I take the line out, because somehow the poem takes on a life of its own, and it’s something totally different than what I thought it was going to be in the first place.”

As a poet and writer, Hertzberger said he also appreciates helping other writers and, along with other local poets, the initiative Poetry Stratford Live was born. This poetry open mic at the Bunker Performance Lounge and Café in downtown Stratford offers poets of all backgrounds and skill levels the opportunity to showcase their poetry on stage on the last Thursday of every month.

For more information on Poetry Stratford Live at The Bunker, visit www.bunkerstratford.com.

Stratford Poet Profiles is an ongoing series by the Stratford Times, casting a spotlight on some of the Stratford poets who submitted to Heidi Sander’s Canada Is Our Poem contest. An upcoming anthology with selected works from the contest will be released in the spring.

Timmy’s in question

Tim Hortons: uniquely Canadian.

But why?

Do maple trees shade the store?

Are they tapped to flavour the glaze?

Do baby beavers cavort in

the lemonade cooler?

Does the noble moose have

collapsible antlers to better access

the drive-through window?

This much is true:

I did once see a dead goose in the parking lot and,

if you listen,

you might hear the cry of a loon at the next table.

Mark Hertzberger