Powder Still in the Powder Flask
By Marina Kochetova
Last Friday, June 5, a successful event marking the 10th anniversary of TOLK (the Ottawa Creative Literary Club) took place at the University of Ottawa. The evening featured poetry and music and included a performance by the club’s oldest member, a man well known in both Montreal and Ottawa not only for his poetry collections. That man is Boris Volfovich.
Having celebrated his 90th birthday in February, Boris Osipovich continues to lead an active life, constantly surprising everyone with new creative achievements in various fields. A talented craftsman, he is renowned for creating panels and artwork from birch bark—something quite rare in Canada. It takes much more than simply inventing a subject and expressing it without words, as one does in poetry. First, the artist must find the material itself—the bark of a birch tree—and then process it properly. As a result, all the birch groves in and around our city seem to have become friends with Volfovich. During his walks in nature, he not only enjoys the fresh air and burns a few calories but also searches for inspiration for future creative projects, convinced that the abundance of such projects helps prolong life.
Having reached such a venerable age, this creative individual refuses to rest on his accomplishments. One might ask: why continue developing one’s powers of observation? Why not simply enjoy the landscapes that change with every season? Many people probably do just that. But for Boris, that would be too easy. He constantly challenges himself, testing whether there is still “powder in the powder flask.” At the very beginning of each new project, he mentally reaches out to another soul. And souls, in his view, belong not only to people but also to animals, plants, and even stones.
His works are gentle attempts to connect with other souls, to understand them and transform what is unfamiliar into something close and kindred. He succeeds because he sees and thinks differently, because he truly cares about what happens around him. He knows how to listen—and how to hear. Perhaps that is why people of all ages are drawn to him. They come not only to see his latest works in the workshop located in the garage of his townhouse, but also to chat, sit in his cozy kitchen, listen to his newest poems performed by the author himself, and enjoy the latest topical jokes that he invents as well.
Life, indeed, goes on.