Publisher's Synopsis
This is a very, very special volume of creative work. It is a collection of writing and art originating at PARC, a community centre that offers a safe haven from the harsh realities of the street and the intolerable conditions of substandard boarding houses. PARC's membership includes people who are marginalized, socially-isolated, homeless, suffering addictions, new immigrants, the working poor and the poverty-stricken. But PARC is more. As one member states: I appreciate that PARC feeds me when I can't make ends meet, but, more important, I come to PARC for spiritual sustenance. Every city has its homeless, socially-isolated, marginalized people. What is remarkable about PARC in Toronto is that it has become a hub of astonishing creative energy and an incubator of literary and artistic talent. Let's Face It documents and presents publicly that talent.For over twenty years now Hume Cronyn has been at the center of that literary and artistic activity. He has nurtured, inspired, assisted, drawn out, the many creative efforts of the PARC community. His workshops, open readings and his presence have become an indelible feature of the PARC scene. He states it best:Workshop: so full of life, so full of feeling, laughter, bantering, buzzing, burping, writing, reading, listening, a mountainful of trust. We enter the room, dry bumbling sticks. We leave the room, ho! we leave the room as if we were floating, the Red Sea has parted for us, we ooze from every pore the aura of having created. - Hume Cronyn, PARC Writing Room
