Leonard William Russo

Leonard William Russo 1946-2024

This obituary is based on Len’s own words, a series of autobiographical poems he wrote late in life, looking back and reflecting.

They made it clear that there was a consistency behind the bewildering variety of jobs he took and places he lived. He never once wavered in his youthful commitment to Dorothy Day’s Distributionism, even as he reflected that most all his companions had moved on to conspicuous consumption.

Distributionist is the Catholic middle way, combatting the twin evils of dire poverty and ostentatious wealth, believing that the productive assets of the world should be “distributed” as widely as possible - not left in the hands of Big Corporations, Big Governments or Big Churches. It advocated ‘Happy Voluntary Simplicity’, that ‘Just Enough is Beautiful’.

Because of the family’s dire poverty, Len’s father had to leave school at Grade 3, something he bitterly resented all his life. He was determined to be a somebody, worked hard and became well off enough to retire at 55. But he then used his new wealth to ostentatiously lord his success over his friends and neighbours.

In response, Len joined a monastery, (age 14 !), leading, by pointed contrast, a very simple and austere life. But Len’s outgoing personality didn’t suit the contemplative life and he left after 7 years, in 1967. But he remained true to Dorothy Day’s tenets, living in a cold water bedsit, working as a welfare officer to the poorest in the roughest neighbours.

Eventually Len went to College, there deciding he didn't want a comfortable upper middle career as a Mathematician , choosing the bohemian life of an avant garde poet.

It was the height of the Vietnam War, and like Day and the Berrigan brothers, Len was very much opposed to the war. He left for Montreal, a hotbed of avant garde poetry, in 1971. He was part of Ray Fraser’s circle and Len published his own ‘little magazine’ , THE JAWBREAKER, and edited books of other poets.

In the way that Montreal poets are wont to do, Len even issued his own Manifesto ! It reads like Dorothy Day applied to cultural work. He opposed Canada Council Grants - sheer heresy in Canada’s cultural circles, said artists should print their own works as cheaply possible, mimeographed or offset, and sell them at cost. That there should be an end to the constant stream of awards and prize competitions - again, anathema to Canadian artists, then as now.

Fraser was from New Brunswick and when he left to return to the Maritimes, Len came to Nova Scotia in 1974. It wasn’t a hard choice - his father and uncles had hunted in NS for decades and when Len was 6, the family spent a summer at Loon Lake outside Halifax.

Len joined Halifax’s alternative world of protest and culture centred around the FOUR ESTATE newspaper, but soon followed a crowd of back-to-landers, another key tenet of Day and Distributionism, to PEI. Bedford PEI, just north-east of Charlottetown.

There he continued to publish as a poet, in the FIDDLEHEAD and the anthology EAST OF CANADA, while raising bees, selling airtight stoves and eating way too much bean sprouts and miso soup.

Eventually most of the crowd either gave up being hippies come-from-aways and moved to an urban middle class career or, like Len, became honorary native Islanders.

Len became a journalist and the political speechwriter but found province wide fame in the 1990s with his weekly column, Looking Around, in the two Graphic newspapers.

Len had an ability to put anyone at their ease and draw them out. He would wander into a government office and soon engage the deputy minister themself in a free wheeling conversation. That week’s column would have nothing of the serious statecraft of running a big department, just the light and human side of dealing with misplaced files and overdue replies.

Next week, he would have an equally entertaining & human interest column about a teenage receptionist in a small town hall.

In 2000, Len returned to Halifax and soon became known as the go-to PAINT GUY for peninsular Halifax, delivering mixing tips and wit. His store, the Canadian Tire on Quinpool, was centrally located and once again, Len was soon mixing it up with the highest and lowest in Halifax society.

Len was still writing poems, still trying new recipes as he loved to cook, still watching Monday Night football. His humble apartment was an austere garret, like the ones he had lived in most all of his life. It was dominated by his bikes - he had abandoned long distance running for long distance cycling and was soon dispensing bike advice to anyone.

Len’s father had retired at 55, so Len might have quit Canadian Tire after a year, or when he was 60 or 65. But he didn’t, because Dorothy Day said ‘to work was to pray’ and he was determined to die in the saddle. As he did.

Len was predeceased by his dad Leonard, his mother Palma, his beloved aunt Zizi (Angela Pepe) his gran Maria Michaela, and his sister. Remembered by many friends and children of friends all over eastern North America.