Lesley Choyce
Biography
Lesley Choyce - Photo Courtesy of Author
Lesley Choyce is a novelist and poet living at Lawrencetown Beach in Nova Scotia. He was born in Riverside Township, New Jersey in 1951. He attended Rutgers University and Montclair State University in New Jersey, as well as City University of New York before moving to Canada and becoming a Canadian citizen.
Choyce is the author of more than one hundred books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction for adults and children. He surfs in the North Atlantic year-round and has held a variety of jobs including rehab counsellor, freight hauler, corn farmer, janitor, journalist, guitarist, newspaper boy, and well-digger. Currently, he runs Pottersfield Press and teaches in the Transition Year Program for Black and Mi’kmaq students at Dalhousie University. He is the host of a regular nationally-broadcast program on BookTelevision called Off the Page with Lesley Choyce.
Choyce is the author of more than one hundred books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction for adults and children. He surfs in the North Atlantic year-round and has held a variety of jobs including rehab counsellor, freight hauler, corn farmer, janitor, journalist, guitarist, newspaper boy, and well-digger. Currently, he runs Pottersfield Press and teaches in the Transition Year Program for Black and Mi’kmaq students at Dalhousie University. He is the host of a regular nationally-broadcast program on BookTelevision called Off the Page with Lesley Choyce.
I had used that machine
to deliver the Philadelphia Bulletin
daily, for a decade,
riding across suburban lawns, destroying the grass,
crashing on the ice, tearing my pants in the chain,
griping about the flat tires of adolescence.
And here in Nova Scotia where I accumulate
a museum
I brought that good old bike
to ride to the ocean, to adjust and maintain,
to recapture my youth
only to have it rust away in a single year
to an irregular pile of scrap metal
under the duress of this northern place,
this sea-stoop of land,
this corrosive middle-aged rest home
for retired paperboys.
Published in Fast Living. Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
Used with permission of the author.
to deliver the Philadelphia Bulletin
daily, for a decade,
riding across suburban lawns, destroying the grass,
crashing on the ice, tearing my pants in the chain,
griping about the flat tires of adolescence.
And here in Nova Scotia where I accumulate
a museum
I brought that good old bike
to ride to the ocean, to adjust and maintain,
to recapture my youth
only to have it rust away in a single year
to an irregular pile of scrap metal
under the duress of this northern place,
this sea-stoop of land,
this corrosive middle-aged rest home
for retired paperboys.
Published in Fast Living. Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
Used with permission of the author.
Critical Analysis: Poetic Nostalgia in Lesley Choyce's "My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die"
Cara Smith (for ENGL 3103: Advanced Poetry Workshop)
In the poem “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die”, Lesley Choyce’s narrator reminisces about his past as a newspaper delivery boy, and the bicycle he rode daily to deliver his papers. He describes the bicycle lovingly, remarking that it served him for a decade of “riding across suburban lawns, destroying the grass,/crashing on the ice,” and other trials of adolescence (4-5). At the heart of the poem is the narrator’s quest to “recapture his youth” (11) by bringing the bike with him when he moves to Nova Scotia. By describing such a small event in a meaningful way, Choyce demonstrates Rainer Maria Rilke's philosophy that poets should “seek those [themes] which your own everyday life offers you” (19). Rilke also advises that childhood is a “treasure-house of memories” to be drawn upon to “raise the submerged sensations of that ample past” (20). Choyce draws from his past and present experience to create a poem that accesses something deeper than simply “love,” “nature,” or other typical, clichéd themes.
In the poem, Choyce is very likely drawing from both his childhood and his everyday life, and, as Rilke would suggest, “call[ing] forth its riches” (19). The first stanza establishes the narrator's concrete memories of the bicycle and the events associated with its use: he remembers the wear and tear of using the bicycle on a daily basis and demonstrates an emotional connection between himself and the “machine” (1). He speaks of the bike as though the two were comrades, sharing their adventures and “griping about the flat tires of adolescence” (6) — an attachment that is emphasized in the narrator’s decision to bring the bike with him to Nova Scotia. The decision is an attempt to recall the joy of youth he had experienced while using the bicycle when he was younger, to “recapture [his] youth” (11).
However, the so-called riches of everyday life are often fleeting. The narrator's attempt to re-experience his youth ultimately fails: he finds himself unable to recapture what made his adolescence unique and memorable, and the bike an unwilling participant in his continued adventures. Despite his best efforts to maintain the bicycle and use it on a regular basis as he once did, it falls into a dilapidated state, rusting from the salty Nova Scotian air. The desire to recapture or preserve youth is a relatable sentiment, and it is one Choyce employs specifically in “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die” in order to do exactly what Rilke suggests: taking the poor parts of life (the narrator’s inability to preserve his youth) and turning them into poetic riches (19).
Choyce’s poem describes Nova Scotia, the final resting place of the bicycle and ultimately the narrator's youth, as the “corrosive middle-aged rest home for retired paperboys” (17). This, as the concluding line, gives the poem a sense of hopeless and almost sinister finality. It is as though the province has purposefully stripped the narrator of his adolescence, retiring him and his two-wheeled companion before their time. The poem gives voice to the futility of attempting to resurrect days gone by, and the ability of time to rob the past of its tangibility. The narrator must resign to live out the rest of his days without his childhood accomplice.
“My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die” is a clear example of Rilke's suggestion that good poetry comes from turning inwards and searching inside oneself for inspiration. Choyce draws from his personal experience as a paperboy and the desire he developed later in his life to recapture his youth to recreate said theme. He exposes something about himself— the desire to re-experience youth—through the poetic portrayal of his relationship to and with the bicycle. He makes use of this otherwise unremarkable object from his everyday life, finding the beauty in it and creating poetry through the discovery.
Though the poem seems like a simple retelling of events from the narrator's youth, what lies beneath this description is Choyce's statement about the common human desire to indulge in nostalgia and cling to the remnants of a past brighter than what could lie ahead.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Choyce, Lesley. “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die.” Fast Living. Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. “One.” Letters to a Young Poet. Trans. M.D. Herter Norton. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. 17-22.
In the poem “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die”, Lesley Choyce’s narrator reminisces about his past as a newspaper delivery boy, and the bicycle he rode daily to deliver his papers. He describes the bicycle lovingly, remarking that it served him for a decade of “riding across suburban lawns, destroying the grass,/crashing on the ice,” and other trials of adolescence (4-5). At the heart of the poem is the narrator’s quest to “recapture his youth” (11) by bringing the bike with him when he moves to Nova Scotia. By describing such a small event in a meaningful way, Choyce demonstrates Rainer Maria Rilke's philosophy that poets should “seek those [themes] which your own everyday life offers you” (19). Rilke also advises that childhood is a “treasure-house of memories” to be drawn upon to “raise the submerged sensations of that ample past” (20). Choyce draws from his past and present experience to create a poem that accesses something deeper than simply “love,” “nature,” or other typical, clichéd themes.
In the poem, Choyce is very likely drawing from both his childhood and his everyday life, and, as Rilke would suggest, “call[ing] forth its riches” (19). The first stanza establishes the narrator's concrete memories of the bicycle and the events associated with its use: he remembers the wear and tear of using the bicycle on a daily basis and demonstrates an emotional connection between himself and the “machine” (1). He speaks of the bike as though the two were comrades, sharing their adventures and “griping about the flat tires of adolescence” (6) — an attachment that is emphasized in the narrator’s decision to bring the bike with him to Nova Scotia. The decision is an attempt to recall the joy of youth he had experienced while using the bicycle when he was younger, to “recapture [his] youth” (11).
However, the so-called riches of everyday life are often fleeting. The narrator's attempt to re-experience his youth ultimately fails: he finds himself unable to recapture what made his adolescence unique and memorable, and the bike an unwilling participant in his continued adventures. Despite his best efforts to maintain the bicycle and use it on a regular basis as he once did, it falls into a dilapidated state, rusting from the salty Nova Scotian air. The desire to recapture or preserve youth is a relatable sentiment, and it is one Choyce employs specifically in “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die” in order to do exactly what Rilke suggests: taking the poor parts of life (the narrator’s inability to preserve his youth) and turning them into poetic riches (19).
Choyce’s poem describes Nova Scotia, the final resting place of the bicycle and ultimately the narrator's youth, as the “corrosive middle-aged rest home for retired paperboys” (17). This, as the concluding line, gives the poem a sense of hopeless and almost sinister finality. It is as though the province has purposefully stripped the narrator of his adolescence, retiring him and his two-wheeled companion before their time. The poem gives voice to the futility of attempting to resurrect days gone by, and the ability of time to rob the past of its tangibility. The narrator must resign to live out the rest of his days without his childhood accomplice.
“My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die” is a clear example of Rilke's suggestion that good poetry comes from turning inwards and searching inside oneself for inspiration. Choyce draws from his personal experience as a paperboy and the desire he developed later in his life to recapture his youth to recreate said theme. He exposes something about himself— the desire to re-experience youth—through the poetic portrayal of his relationship to and with the bicycle. He makes use of this otherwise unremarkable object from his everyday life, finding the beauty in it and creating poetry through the discovery.
Though the poem seems like a simple retelling of events from the narrator's youth, what lies beneath this description is Choyce's statement about the common human desire to indulge in nostalgia and cling to the remnants of a past brighter than what could lie ahead.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Choyce, Lesley. “My Bicycle Comes to Nova Scotia to Die.” Fast Living. Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. “One.” Letters to a Young Poet. Trans. M.D. Herter Norton. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. 17-22.
Bibliography
Primary Sources: Poetry
Choyce, Lesley. All Alone at the End of the World. Ekstasis Editions, 2014.
---. “All That’s Left of Second Grade”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “Audience”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Beautiful Sadness. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 1998.
---. “Black Locusts”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Caution to the Wind. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2000.
---. Climbing Knocknarea. Ekstasis Editions, 2017.
---. The Coastline of Forgetting. Lawrencetown Beach, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, 1995.
---. “Dancing Lady.” Fred Cogswell and Gregory Cook, eds. Scroll. Wolfville, N.S.: Wombat Press, 1980.
---. “December Day at Little Gidding”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “Devil’s Island On My Left”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Discipline of Ice. Ekstasis Editions, 2008.
---. The End of Ice. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1985.
---. Fast Living. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
---. “Going Home”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. I'm Alive. I Believe in Everything. Breton Books, 2013.
---. “In New Jersey”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. In Praise of Small Mistakes. Ekstasis Editions, 2020.
---. “Leaving New York”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Man Who Borrowed the Bay of Fundy. Brandon: Brandon U. P., 1988.
---. “Medicine Walk”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “My Daughter, With Knots”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “The Perfect Advice”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Re Inventing the Wheel. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1980.
---. Revenge of the Optimist. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2004.
---. “Sirocco Sky”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Top of the Heart. Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 1986.
---. Typographical Eras. Kentville, N.S.: Gaspereau Press, 2003.
---. “You Are The Universe”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
Choyce, Lesley, et. al. Sea Level. Perf. The Surf Poets. East Lawrencetown, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, 1999.
---. Long Lost Planet. Perf. The Surf Poets. Halifax, N.S.: Harbourmaster Music, 1995.
Choyce, Lesley and Maxine Tynes. Borrowed Beauty. Porter’s Lake, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, [year unknown].
For a list of Choyce’s fiction, children’s books, and other authored works, please see his personal webpage, lesleychoyce.com.
Or, click the document below the bibliography.
Secondary Sources
Campbell, Wanda. “ ‘Every Sea-Surounded Hour’: The Margin in Maritime Poetry.” Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008) 151-170. LiteratureOnline.
Choyce, Lesley. Interview. “The Ending Cannot Be East. It Can Be Upbeat, But Not Too Tidy.”School Libraries in Canada 29.2 (2011): 36-39. Academic Search Premiere.
Creelman, David. “Swept Under: Reading the Stories of Two Undervalued Maritime Writers.”Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 60-79. MLAIB.
DeMont, John. “The Surfer Poet.” Maclean’s 107.33(1994): 44. Academic Search Premiere.
Staines, David. “The Coastline of Forgetting.” Rev. of The Coastline of Forgetting, by Lesley Choyce. Journal of Canadian Poetry: the Poetry Review for the Year 1995 12(1997).
Choyce, Lesley. All Alone at the End of the World. Ekstasis Editions, 2014.
---. “All That’s Left of Second Grade”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “Audience”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Beautiful Sadness. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 1998.
---. “Black Locusts”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Caution to the Wind. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2000.
---. Climbing Knocknarea. Ekstasis Editions, 2017.
---. The Coastline of Forgetting. Lawrencetown Beach, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, 1995.
---. “Dancing Lady.” Fred Cogswell and Gregory Cook, eds. Scroll. Wolfville, N.S.: Wombat Press, 1980.
---. “December Day at Little Gidding”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “Devil’s Island On My Left”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Discipline of Ice. Ekstasis Editions, 2008.
---. The End of Ice. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1985.
---. Fast Living. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1982.
---. “Going Home”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. I'm Alive. I Believe in Everything. Breton Books, 2013.
---. “In New Jersey”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. In Praise of Small Mistakes. Ekstasis Editions, 2020.
---. “Leaving New York”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Man Who Borrowed the Bay of Fundy. Brandon: Brandon U. P., 1988.
---. “Medicine Walk”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “My Daughter, With Knots”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. “The Perfect Advice”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. Re Inventing the Wheel. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1980.
---. Revenge of the Optimist. Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2004.
---. “Sirocco Sky”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
---. The Top of the Heart. Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 1986.
---. Typographical Eras. Kentville, N.S.: Gaspereau Press, 2003.
---. “You Are The Universe”. Lesley Choyce, lesleychoyce.com, year unknown.
Choyce, Lesley, et. al. Sea Level. Perf. The Surf Poets. East Lawrencetown, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, 1999.
---. Long Lost Planet. Perf. The Surf Poets. Halifax, N.S.: Harbourmaster Music, 1995.
Choyce, Lesley and Maxine Tynes. Borrowed Beauty. Porter’s Lake, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, [year unknown].
For a list of Choyce’s fiction, children’s books, and other authored works, please see his personal webpage, lesleychoyce.com.
Or, click the document below the bibliography.
Secondary Sources
Campbell, Wanda. “ ‘Every Sea-Surounded Hour’: The Margin in Maritime Poetry.” Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008) 151-170. LiteratureOnline.
Choyce, Lesley. Interview. “The Ending Cannot Be East. It Can Be Upbeat, But Not Too Tidy.”School Libraries in Canada 29.2 (2011): 36-39. Academic Search Premiere.
Creelman, David. “Swept Under: Reading the Stories of Two Undervalued Maritime Writers.”Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 60-79. MLAIB.
DeMont, John. “The Surfer Poet.” Maclean’s 107.33(1994): 44. Academic Search Premiere.
Staines, David. “The Coastline of Forgetting.” Rev. of The Coastline of Forgetting, by Lesley Choyce. Journal of Canadian Poetry: the Poetry Review for the Year 1995 12(1997).
| Choyce Full Bibliography |
