Osborn makes a point of making his performances accessible to everyone, especially the homeless. I asked how the homeless know he is coming. "The information that I'm going to be there is being relayed. Contrary to popular belief, being homeless is a full time job getting through a day: accessing food, shelter, standing in lines - these kinds of experiences are pretty demanding, so it is difficult for homeless people to attend events. I know it was for me because of the demands of survival. However I have performed at street drop-in centres, to take the poems and the music to them."

The descent down the class line is a quick and easy one, and one Osborn recalls freely. "I had an unstable childhood. Throughout high school, before I ever smoked a cigarette, drank a beer, or used any drugs I had attempted suicide a couple of times. I was emotionally disturbed by events that happened early on in my life and I wasn't able to deal with them at all, and was more or less driven by them. When I first used heroin I thought that finally I had something to live for. Until then I felt quite hopeless, but if I had enough heroin I felt I could live a life of some kind. Though the effects of that drug created actions that were pretty destructive, I could sleep at night and I didn't feel like killing myself every hour. While it worked that way for a while, the circumstances involved with being a drug addict in North America pretty much guarantee a self-destruction, but initially drugs were a solution to my problems. Seven and a half years ago in Vancouver I became homeless. My life was impossible. Certainly the psychologists, police officers, judges, and councilors I encountered throughout the years said I had a pretty impossible life. It was highly unlikely that I was going to emerge into a more creative place, and yet that is what has happened. That is the basis on which I operate. I do not have the final word, there are other influences involved."

After getting clean, Osborn returned to the mean streets of Vancouver which seems like a very risky proposition. "At first I would dream of mountains of heroin and lakes full of alcohol, and I thought that would never end. And it did of course. But the thoughts of temptation are certainly there. I haven't heard of a place in North America where there aren't any drugs these days. When I got straight I spent a year outside of the East side, but I was involved in the community and understand the area. It had become a home to me."

Poets have long enlisted musicians to add another dimension to their work, but it's usually folk, or jazz based, not rock and roll. "I've always liked rock and roll, and it's been very important to me. I wanted to have music that would drive the poem perhaps in another way or amplify the meanings. Originally I worked with a couple of jazz musicians, but then I heard David Lester (longtime guitarist for Mecca Normal) play his electric guitar. It clicked right away."

You can pick up Osborn's CD (Festival Distribution) and book (Arsenal Pulp Press: www.arsenalpulp.com) of poetry "Hundred Block Rock" at his shows on his current tour before he returns home to run for council in the upcoming Vancouver civic election.

© 1999 - John Sekerka