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WRITING TIME IMPORTANT FOR LOCAL WRITER- POET

VALERIE MARSHALL-- Staff writer

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*Appeared in The Standard-Freeholder

(Canada) on Thursday, December 6, 1990.

When Stephen Gill was a young boy growing up in India, he wanted to be a teacher. But as a means to an end-- he really wanted to be a writer, but at that time in India, teachers had time to write. "Teachers were always in touch with intellectuals and writers. In India, most teachers do

the writing. Here, the university professors are encouraged to write."

Gill, who emigrated to Canada to do doctoral work at the University of Ottawa, has called Cornwall home for almost 20 years. It's unusual, he admits, for a writer to live outside a large city, since writers "have to be where the action is."

But still, he's managed to make a living as a writer. For the past three years, he's let the poetry in his soul take over from the prose. AIn high school, I was considered a poet. For years I suppressed my poetry. Somehow I thought that poets die poor and people don't take them seriously."

He says he feels comfortable with both poetry and prose, depending on what he has to say and the material he's dealing with. "There are certain things that I can describe better in poetry than prose." Next year, Gill will travel to Beijing, China, to receive an honorary doctorate in literature during the World Congress of Poets. It's there he plans to read his poem on Democracy. "I don't think writers should be politicians. They should be very honest."

A recent trip to Texas for readings of his work showed him that poetry, at least in that state, is alive and well. In the city of Austin alone there are eight associations of poets and a reading in Houston brought out 75 people which organizers there told him is "usual".

"That was something new for me. Here when there are 20 people, I think it is a success." The trip was sponsored by the Canada Council, which Gill says has been a great help to him not only in travelling, but in arranging translations of some of his work in India and in the national language of Pakistan. Gill plans to get back to prose next year, completing several books, including one on world peace, an issue he has written about constantly, developing his theory on one world government.

Articles in the past have included APoets and World Peace@ and AWriters and Race Relations@.

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