At the Botanical Gardens in Montreal (two)

Carp at the Botanical Gardens

Where the carp swim...

Hingston Family Grave at Cote des Neiges Cemetery

After reading Allan Hustak's biography of Sir William Hingston, Montreal mayor, surgeon and banker (Price-Patterson Ltd., Canadian Publishers, Montreal, 2004), who lived from 1829 to 1907, I was delighted to find the Hingston family plot at Cote des Neiges cemetery. I used to live about six miles from the New York State border, at Trout River, and William Hingston grew up only a few miles away at Athelstan, Quebec. I enjoyed Hustak's book on Hingston very much. I've read several other books by Allan Hustak, including his excellent biography of St. Patrick's Basilica, and I recommend whatever he's written.

Re. Dk/ : Read the work

The first issue of the new online periodical www.poetry-quebec.com is dedicated to the work of Louis Dudek. My article, "The First Person in Literature", on Louis, is available on the site. I add the following as a suggestion, a postscript, that we read a poet's writing, his body of work, and avoid those whose aim seems purely negative.

Endre Farkas, Carolyn-Marie Souaid, and Elias Letelier-Ruz, the editors of Poetry Quebec, have created an excellent online journal of poetry and poetics. Congratulations to all three of them!

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Louis Dudek made an enormous contribution to literature in Canada as a poet, publisher, and critic. He helped many poets realize something of their creative potential by mentoring, publishing their work, and reviewing their books.

Robin Blaser describes Louis as being a “walking loneliness.” Even Louis’ friendship with Ezra Pound, for which he has been criticized for being overly naïve in his support of Pound’s work, is the friendship of a someone who would find approaching Pound difficult. It is this criticism of Dudek’s relationship with Pound, who Pound referred to as Dk/, that I would like to discuss here.

People will dig up whatever they can to criticize someone else, or invent something, or reveal their personal grudges in their comments. When he met Pound, Dudek was young and in awe of the older poet, as many of us would be if we were in his situation. Another visitor of Pound’s at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, where Pound was incarcerated after the war, was Charles Olson. It took Olson several years of dealing with Pound before he finally made his break with him. Olson and Pound had personalities that were larger than life; alternately, Louis was introverted and introspective.

Assuming that Pound needed to be “disowned”, then perhaps Dudek, like Olson, should have disowned Pound much earlier in his career than he did. Dudek rightly identified Pound’s Cantos as one of the greatest works of 20^th Century literature; however, he never supported Pound’s political views.

Dudek went to Pound to offer his support as a younger poet to the older poet that he admired for his poetry, just as Olson approached Pound for the same reason. To find one’s own voice, as a poet, it is necessary to assimilate something of the work and vision of the poets who come before us and that we admire in our youth. Both Louis and Olson assimilated in their work what they learned from Pound, and both poets eventually found their own distinctive poetic voices. Pound’s poetry helps inform something of Dudek’s work, just as Pound’s poetry helps inform something of Olson’s work, but the majority of both Dudek’s and Olson’s body of work is original and beautiful, for instance Dudek’s Atlantis and Olson’s masterpiece The Maximus Poems.

Dudek’s respect for Pound is that of an introverted person for the elder poet who had accomplished more in his writing career than just about any other poet in the 20^th Century. However, Dudek was not without serious critical reflection on Pound: Louis confided to me that despite having taught Pound’s work for over thirty years he never convinced anyone to share his enthusiasm for Pound; as well, he accepted that Pound was "mentally ill", as others have diagnosed, but which in no way disqualifies Pound’s creative work. Louis would always direct his students to read Pound’s work, The Cantos, for themselves, to go to the source, and not get hung up on what others are saying.

Although I saw Louis only infrequently in the 1990s--at poetry readings at McGill and a group of us went to dinner at Ben's Restaurant after the readings with Louis--I was kept informed of how he was doing by Sonja Skarstedt, who did so much for Louis during that time. Sonja, who is a tireless worker for poetry, both writing her own work and publishing poets with Empyreal Press, also published Louis’ work in his final years.

I remember when Louis died in 2001, leaving the reception after the funeral, walking into the cold dark March evening, and feeling an incredible emptiness, knowing that an important person in Montreal, a city of poets, was Louis Dudek and that he was now no longer among us. I felt that a great man of letters had died.

What is the meaning of the poet’s life? Poetry demands everything from a person. It demands one’s time and one’s soul and being. The meaning of the poet’s life is his writing, and this means his body of work. The message, then, is this: pay your respect to an elder poet, like Louis Dudek, by reading their body of work. Avoid the writings of those who would destroy a poet's reputation and memory. These people don’t know what motivated the man, who he really was, or his future place in literature.

Montreal Goddesses

The streets adjoining St. Patrick's Basilica, Montreal

This is Hermine Street, where my great grandmother, Mary Callaghan, lived, only a few hundred feet from St. Patrick's where her two brothers, both priests, served the congregation. Father Martin Callaghan was the first Montreal-born pastor of St. Patrick's. Of course, we are reminded that he was always "interim" pastor, retired from that position for a younger man who happened to be the son of a past mayor of Montreal... It was the act of the nouveau riche Irish not wanting to be associated with a priest from the working class who lacked the social position of the other, younger man. Father Martin's brother, Father James Callaghan, also served at the church and there is a weather-damaged plaque paying homage to him stored in the basement of the church. I took photographs of the plaque it when I visited there with my son about ten years ago. Hermine isn't much of a street anymore, not residential at all. It's a half block from St. Patrick's and the street has been cut in two, by the Ville Marie Expressway. This photo faces south and that's an underground section of the Ville Marie Expressway at the end of the street. Hermine was once residential, now it's a wasteland.

This is on St. Alexander Street--rue St. Alexandre--looking south towards Hermine. St. Patrick's is just to the right of this photograph.

This is rue St. Alexandre looking north, with St. Patrick's on the left.

You can see a little of this red door in the previous photograph. I believe it was where Father Martin Callaghan and Father James Callaghan lived when they were priests at St. Patrick's. Check it out at the Morrissey family history website.

Here is St. Patrick's from rue St Alexandre.

Looking down at LaGauchetierre (it runs perpendicular to Hermine and St. Alexandre) from St. Patrick's. There's a park in the foreground with the foundation of some old buildings that were associated with the church and then some buildings on the other side of the street.

This is taken looking up at one of the buildings across the street from St. Patrick's on rue St. Alexandre. This whole area is being redeveloped, lofts and condos are bringing in new people which has a great location to the downtown of Montreal. When I first began walking in this area it was quite run down, as was St. Patrick's, that was in the early 1970s. I think if there is a single place of deep spirituality in Montreal, or in any of the many churches in Montreal, it is at St. Patrick's. When I'm downtown I'll sometimes go to St. Patrick's just to sit and gather my whits...

Walk to the Black Stone

Here is the Black Stone.

It was 150 years ago, in 1859, that the Black Stone was erected. The Black Stone, also called the Black Rock, is situated on Bridge Street at the entrance of the Victoria Bridge on the Montreal side of the St. Lawrence River. The rock was dredged from the river by workers who were constructing the Victoria Bridge and it commemorates the deaths of over 5,000 Irish victims of typhoid fever who had just arrived in Canada after having escaped famine in Ireland in 1847. Already weakened by tragedy at home, the loss of their homes by forced evictions and the death of relatives, as well their own hunger, the long and difficult ship journey to Canada, and then death by typhoid fever when they arrived... It's a tragic and sad story of these people. The men who were building the Victoria Bridge discovered the mass grave--they died only twelve years before--of the Irish famine victims, some probably their own deceased relatives. Of course, they insisted that this tragedy be commemorated in some way. The rock faces a parking lot, on the other side of the street, where the actual graves are located. Every year, at the end of May, several hundred people walk from St. Gabriel's Church in Point St. Charles to the rock where a memorial service is held. There is a reception at the church hall after the walk. These photos were taken a few years ago, on a rainy cool May morning.