Richard Stevenson

 

       

       

           Richard Stevenson has read to audiences across Canada and is the author of 23 full-length books and 7 chapbooks, including, most recently,

           Hot Flashes: Maiduguri Haiku, Senru, and Tanka, Parrot With Tourette's, A Charm of Finches, and Wiser Pills.  He also occasionally performs

           with the rock/poetry group Sasquatch.  He regularly reviews poetry and fiction, and periodically runs adult and young adult workshops.  He

           holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from The University of Victoria and University of British Columbia and teaches Canadian

           Literature, Creative Writing, Children's Literature, and Business Communication at Lethbridge College in southern Alberta, Canada.

 

 

           "Low Priority" (which appears in this issue of 13 Miles from Cleveland), is part of a long poem sequence on the Clifford Olson serial murder case, which

           afflicted the citizens of the lower mainland of British Columbia, in the early eighties.  Clifford Robert Olson, a career criminal and serial killer,  stalked,

           abducted, and killed eleven children we know about.  The case is one of the most heinous and grievous on record, and earned Olson the moniker

           "The Beast of BC." 

 

           The author Stevenson writes: "It is my contention that Olson is just a pimple on the hide of a macho-demento culture, and, hence, the current work is more than

           mere pornography or anti-hagiography.  Indeed, we're talking about evil, certainly, but also about a sick society that privileges these stories and begets bad actors,

           board games, serial killer cards, song lyrics, magazines, web sites, computer games and all sorts of misogynistic effluvia that are symptoms of a much bigger disease

           than individual psychopathy." 

 

           Stevenson questions:  "Is the culture psychopathic?  Maybe, but the debates about nature/nurture, rehabilitation/retribution, etc. need to go far beyond true crime

           invective. We need to look in the mirror to determine why the west spawns so many of these evil creatures. Olson, like Ted Bundy before him, knew he had charisma,

           and used all the culture's worst vices to aid and abet his agenda.  That's why the case bears poetic investigation."

 

               "I had the rather disconcerting experience of coming home from two years in Africa to find the first book on the case and a thumbnail photo on the inside back cover

           of one of the victims, who just happened to be one of the first students I taught.  It's been more than thirty years since that shock provoked a poetic response of a suite

           of six poems in the various voices of the principal persons involved in the case, which appeared in my fifth book, Learning to Breathe.  I've since expanded that suite to

           an (as of yet) unpublished booklength long poem sequence."