1911 W 30th St, Cleveland, Ohio 44113, United States
Mark Frutkin attended an all-boys Jesuit high school in Cleveland, St. Ignatius High School.
College/University
Gallery of Mark J. Frutkin
1032 W Sheridan Rd, Chicago, Illinois 60660, United States
Frutkin attended Jesuit University in Chicago, Loyola University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1969 spending the third year (1967-1968) at a special campus in Rome, Italy. He studied five years of Latin and was terribly interested in the sciences too but did poorly.
Gallery of Mark J. Frutkin
2130 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder, Colorado 80302, United States
1032 W Sheridan Rd, Chicago, Illinois 60660, United States
Frutkin attended Jesuit University in Chicago, Loyola University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1969 spending the third year (1967-1968) at a special campus in Rome, Italy. He studied five years of Latin and was terribly interested in the sciences too but did poorly.
(Paris, the City of Light, was once the scene of a brillia...)
Paris, the City of Light, was once the scene of a brilliant magnesium flare, host to the belle epoque from 1900 to 1914. Tempting poets, painters, writers, and composers from across Europe, the city relied on one man to move among them all-Guillaume Apollinaire. His contemporaries called him brilliant, mad, whimsical. He was the bastard son of an Italian cavalry officer and a Polish woman addicted to gambling, but nevertheless let it be rumored around Paris that he was the son of the pope.
(In 1904 a force of 2500 British Imperial troops invaded T...)
In 1904 a force of 2500 British Imperial troops invaded Tibet. Their mission was to march on the fabled capital of Lhasa and seize its ruler and spiritual head, the Dalai Lama, and compel him to expel foreign provocateurs. All this was but another strategic deployment in the Great Game being played by the major European powers as part of their international one-upmanship and global jousting. The soldiers were accompanied by London journalist Edmund Candler, who reported the experiences of the invaders (and published them in a book afterward: The Unveiling of Lhasa). As Candler notes, the further into the country they march, the odder things get, and the less certain they become of their mission. Tibet seems a cryptic place, full of magic and menace, rocks and snow, and natives that look like clay. Most of the time it is as if they, the Westerners, are invading nothing. Tibet seems an awesome emptiness bounded by soaring mountains, yet something is there, awaiting them. But it is more like a rendezvous - an appointment with a metaphysical reality far greater than the Europeans' mechanistic concept. The Tibetan troops who resist are easily dispatched by the invaders' superior weapons, yet it is the English who are unnerved. The fallen defenders do not cry out, they do not weep. The deeper the British trek, the more penetrated and undone the soldiers feel. The commanding officer grows sick and weaker the further they advance as if he himself were violated by the incursion. Some of the men under his command become contentious, others lust for punitive combat with no quarter given. Yet, as Candler observes, the enemy they most often engage is themselves.
(It is the story of Marco Polo as he is about to set sail ...)
It is the story of Marco Polo as he is about to set sail on an arduous and lengthy pilgrimage with his father, uncle and faithful guide across the sun-soaked silk route, the rich path of the carpet-makers and the black seas of the Indian Ocean. Doggedly pursued by a vengeful assassin of the Venetian Doge, Marco is eager to arrive in the promised land of the mighty Kublai Khan and bask in the safety offered by his royal legions. But while enjoying the myths of the new land, Polo is haunted by the recurring appearance of a winged lion which lurks behind his dreams and roams the palace of his heart. Even upon his return to Venice, a naval battle and capture by their rival Genoa, even as he languishes in an enemy jail cell recounting his trials to an incredulous inmate, there is always the heartbeat of the lion.
(Divided into two sections, one inspired by ancient Chines...)
Divided into two sections, one inspired by ancient Chinese art, the other limning the ambiguities and incongruities of the contemporary human condition, Frutkin’s new volume of poetry, Iron Mountain, often presents human beings wandering in the wilderness between two abysses while still appreciating the smell of pines, the softness of the rain, the brilliance of the stars, the hum of the computer, and the jostle of the crowd on the bus. These are poems of translucent delicacy harboring hard truths where "A Taoist priest gulps the elixir of immortality and blows away in the dust, a young Chinese girl bumps me in the crowd prompting a shiver, like a startled phoenix, dressed in my skin." In Frutkin's vision, the entire world is a written landscape that speaks to us of time, of change, of immutability, of radiant emptiness.
(A brilliant novel packed with delights: grand romance, al...)
A brilliant novel packed with delights: grand romance, alchemical potions, violins to make you weep, commedia dell'arte theatre, reappearing comets, rambling skeletons, and cracks in time. It is 1682 in Cremona, Italy. With his manservant, an insolent dwarf named Omero, Fabrizio Cambiati, a priest, climbs the town clocktower to await the return of a comet that is said to reappear in the skies every 76 years. He has a new invention called a telescope with which to scour the night. As they await the comet, he scopes the town below and sees the commedia dell'arte players setting up in the town square and a Jesuit arriving in a carriage. We later learn that the Jesuit is Michele Archenti, a Devil's Advocate sent from Rome to investigate the candidacy for sainthood of this same Fabrizio Cambiati 76 years later! The novel then begins again, this time in 1758 when Archenti settles himself in the town to assume his investigations. It is his job to find the flaws in Fabrizio's character. In this attempt, he interviews a number of citizens, including an old duchess who holds a secret about Fabrizio's life that would ruin the reputation of this priest, who was both a hidden alchemist and healer.
Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush
(In geology, an erratic is a "boulder or rock formation tr...)
In geology, an erratic is a "boulder or rock formation transported some distance from its original source, as by a glacier." In Mark Frutkin's case, his movement was instigated by his wish to protest and resist the United States military draft during the Vietnam War, and his destination was Canada. An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 American Vietnam War draft resisters sought sanctuary in Canada. Many of these men stayed, became Canadian citizens, and have made significant contributions to the country, including writers such as William Gibson, George Fetherling, Keith Maillard, and Jay Scott; musicians Jesse Winchester and Jim Byrnes; children's performer Eric Nagler; and radio personality Andy Barrie. It's also a lyrical meditation about "returning to nature" in the bush country of Quebec and an account of the crucible that forged one writer. Tying everything together, though, is the overarching theme of the book: a contemplation of humanity's embrace of war and violence and the countervailing impulse to resist that embrace, specifically as seen in the experience of Frutkin himself. His grandfather Simon, who escaped Tsarist Russia and its military in the 1890s, and Louis Drouin, the Quebec farmer whom Frutkin bought his original farm from and who resisted conscription in World War II.
Walking Backwards: Grand Tours, Minor Visitations, Miraculous Journeys, and a Few Good Meals
(From Istanbul to New Delhi to Boulder, Colorado, through ...)
From Istanbul to New Delhi to Boulder, Colorado, through Venice, Paris, Rome, and points between. As travellers, we are always walking backwards, forever on the verge of stepping into the unknown, never knowing what waits around the next corner. You could be lost, forget your passport, fall ill. You could be served a bowl of food and not know whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral. Even flushing the toilet can be an adventure. You are a child again, innocent and hoping for the best, forced to trust strangers. Quite often this works out. Not always. Walking Backwards is a return to 10 cities and what happened there. Whether inadvertently smuggling cloth into Istanbul, reading poetry in New Delhi to a crowd expecting a world-famous pianist, or wandering endlessly through Mantua searching for a non-existent hotel on a street that's fallen off the map, Mark Frutkin is a master at rediscovering the magic at the heart of all travel.
(This is a unique novel of old China, the traditional land...)
This is a unique novel of old China, the traditional landscape of mountains and rivers without end, and life in an imperial city rife with plots, intrigues, culture, sensuality, and wealth. Li Wen, a landscape painter of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), is on a journey to deliver a message to the Chinese Emperor. His teacher has instructed him to paint four landscapes, one for each season, during the year it will take him to travel across China to the Emperor’s Court where he is to present the paintings to the Emperor as a long-life gift. A series of gripping adventures befall Li Wen on his journey, including burial in an ancient tomb and a snowstorm that nearly ends his quest.
(Lightness, clarity, freshness, simplicity - all can be us...)
Lightness, clarity, freshness, simplicity - all can be used to describe this latest collection of poems by Mark Frutkin. Throughout, the poet shines his light on subjects as diverse as the cathedral of Chartres, ancient Chinese poets, the art of listening, and tiny, black beetles that devour books. Poems as thin and sharp as a blade and as sweet as honeysuckle. A unique work that dissolves into the silence of dusk like the lucid, haunting knock of the hermit thrush.
(Rumors of the Second Coming of Christ abound in the City ...)
Rumors of the Second Coming of Christ abound in the City of Masks. Michele Archenti, publisher, former priest, and current confidant to the mysterious skeleton-bearer Rodolpho, finds himself swept away by a rising tide of politics, ambition, and lust in eighteenth-century Venice.
Mark Frutkin is a Canadian award-winning novelist and poet. He has written more than fifteen fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Frutkin is a recipient of the Trillium Book and Sunburst Awards.
Background
Ethnicity:
Mark Frutkin's mother was of Irish, Scottish, French descent, while his father was of Russian and German descent.
Mark Frutkin was born January 2, 1948, in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother was born and raised in Toronto, and his father was born and raised in Cleveland. When they got married Mark's mother moved to the States but the family was much closer to the Canadian relatives. Frutkin spent most summer vacations in Toronto and at relatives' cottages on or around Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. When Mark was nine, his older brother gave him the Giant Golden Book, Deluxe Edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey, inscribing it: "In hopes that from this you may learn to love the literature of the ancients." The book had a profound influence on Mark. As Frutkin said: "Perhaps those two elements, the heroic, Iliad, and the fabulous, Odyssey, influence everything I've done."
Education
Mark Frutkin attended an all-boys Jesuit high school in Cleveland, Saint Ignatius High School, and Jesuit University in Chicago, Loyola University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1969 spending the third year (1967-1968) at a special campus in Rome, Italy. He studied five years of Latin and was terribly interested in the sciences too but did poorly. Frutkin also studied at Naropa Institute in 1976.
Mark Frutkin's first job was to sell magazines door-to-door while in high school. In his own words, it was awful. In the university, he worked all sorts of factory jobs in Chicago and Cleveland over the summers, hard grueling work, mostly dealing with nuts and bolts (his father was in management in the "fastener" industry). Mark also worked on an assembly line spray painting Tampax dispensers, but it lasted a week.
After graduation, in 1969 Frutkin taught grade school in Cleveland for one year, with grade six as his homeroom. He taught social studies, geography, history, some art, and music. As Mark said he loved the kids but didn't get along too well with the tough Polish nuns who ran the school. Then Frutkin got drafted and came to Canada. On first coming to Canada, he spent six months living in a large house in downtown Toronto, filled with draft resisters and art students. Then Mark came to Ottawa, obtained landed immigrant status, and started looking for land. He became a Canadian citizen in 1976. While cruising back roads in western Quebec he saw a hand-scrawled sign on a fence post: "Terrain a vendre" and ended up buying 200 acres with three log cabins and a barn for $5500 (1970) with his brother and a friend. The Habitant farmer they bought from made an X on the contract, the lawyer helping him to hold the pen. He lived frugally during his time in the country. One year in the early seventies he lived on $600. At the farm, Mark worked at all sorts of jobs: cutting roadside brush, cutting pulp, making maple syrup, made his own taps out of staghorn sumac, carpentry, woodworking, stained glass work, did the craft fairs for a few years, and sold a few poems.
Frutkin spent nine years living in a cabin, constructed of squared cedar logs, two-storeys high and about 120 years old without electricity or running water, leading a simple life of healthful hard work, cutting firewood by hand, hauling water from a spring in buckets, growing vegetables, reading by coal oil lamp. This was near Wolf Lake, Quebec. Mark spent a lot of time alone, reading, and writing. He called this time as his apprenticeship as a writer. He saw bears close up, heard wolves, got intimate with winter, shoveled snow a lot, kept the fire going, went crazy with the bugs, and grew his hair almost down to the hips. Frutkin had his first publication of three poems in 1974 (Fiddlehead), then burned a two-foot pile of notebooks in 1976 after returning from studying for six weeks at Naropa Institute. In his own words, he burned them because they seemed too important to him, too much self-indulgent claptrap.
When Mark moved to Ottawa in 1980, he did more carpentry and started writing for local magazines, including Harper's, Canadian Forum, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, Ottawa Business Life, Prism International, Descant, Fiddlehead, Parallelogramme, Canadian Fiction, and Toronto Globe and Mail. Frutkin also served as an assistant editor at Ottawa Revue (1981), editor at Art Action Magazine (1985-1990), and at Arc Poetry Magazine (1986-1990). He taught creative writing part-time at the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, University of Western Ontario, University of New Brunswick, York University, Naropa Institute (Halifax) as well as spontaneous storytelling to grades 1-13. Mark received several writing grants from the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Chapters Books, City of Ottawa, and others. He was a member of the board of directors at the Galerie SAW Gallery from 1982 to 1984, a member of the Ottawa International Writers Festival (2001-2002), a media assistant and speechwriter for Member of Parliament from British Columbia (1985), a speechwriter for Minister of Canadian Heritage (2008), and a contract writer of marketing communications and speeches for the public sector and high tech industry, including Bell Canada, Nortel, Alcatel, Cognos, RCMP, and other government departments.
Mark Frutkin is an award-winning author of over a dozen books of fiction, nonfiction, and books of poetry. His work has appeared in Canada, the United States, England, Russia, Spain, Poland, Holland, India, South Korea, and Turkey. His poetry and fiction have been published in numerous Canadian and foreign journals. Frutkin is a contributor of more than 300 articles, essays, and reviews on art and books to The Globe and Mail, Amazon.com/ca, Harper's, the Ottawa Citizen, Arc Poetry Magazine, and to many others.
His book Acts of Light was a finalist for Archibald Lampman Poetry Award in 1993, and his novel, Atmospheres Apollinaire, was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award (fiction) by the Governor-General of Canada, the Trillium Book Award, and the Ottawa-Carleton Book Award in 1988. In 2006, his novel, Fabrizio's Return, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada/Caribbean region) by the Commonwealth Foundation, as well as Hermit Thrush was nominated for Ottawa Book Awards (poetry) in 2016.
When Mark Frutkin lived in isolation for nine years without electricity or running water in a wooden house near Wolf Lake, Quebec hr started meditating after reading Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Sunryu Suzuki. After moving to Ottawa in 1980 Frutkin became more interested in Tibetan Buddhism and became a student of Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, a Tibetan meditation master who Mark had met in Boulder in 1976. Although he traveled to India and to Europe many times, especially Italy, Spain, France, his true interest was to borrow a phrase from Guy Davenport, the "geography of the imagination."
Politics
When Mark Frutkin came back from the year (1967-1968) at the University in Rome, Italy, he got involved in politics a little, opposed the Vietnam war. He only took part in one march in Chicago and left halfway through. As he said: "The psyche of the mob was abhorrent." Frutkin has also written the book Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush to protest and resist the United States military draft during the Vietnam War and against the violence of the wars based on his own experience. Frutkin's grandfather Simon escaped Tsarist Russia and its military in the 1890s, and Louis Drouin, the Quebec farmer whom Frutkin bought his original farm from and who resisted conscription in World War II.
Membership
Writer's Union of Canada
,
Canada
1986 - present
PEN Canada
,
Canada
1991 - present
Personality
Mark Frutkin was deeply attracted to the Canadian landscape when he was a boy. Frutkin is a philanthrope, he likes people. He also likes nature. Thus, Mark spent around ten years living "in exile" with no modern conveniences, running water, and electricity. At that time he was a vegetarian. In his own words, he was slightly colorblind but that didn't prevent him to write art reviews for numerous magazines. Frutkin's hobbies are watching baseball on TV, drinking good French wines, reading, and writing books. His favorite color is golden yellow.
Interests
fine wines, reading, hiking
Sport & Clubs
baseball, tennis
Connections
Mark Frutkin married Janet Anderson in 1977 and divorced in 1979. Then Mark married Faith Seltzer, a cultural administrator, on December 14, 1984. Frutkin has a son, Elliot.
Father:
Reynold Frutkin
Mark's father was in management in the "fastener’ industry."
