A.M. Klein's "Heirloom"

 

Map of Montreal from 1910

1.

Looking through an old notebook from 2010 I found a poem I had written about the poet A.M. Klein. Then I remembered that in my first book of poems, The Trees of Unknowing (1978), I had a poem entitled "Heirloom"; when I was young I had been very impressed with Klein's poem of the same title. I wondered when it was that I wrote "Heirloom", probably sometime in the early 1970s but I thought it was much earlier. Then I also remembered that Sandra Goodwin, Bill Goodwin's widow, had told me that she grew up near where Klein lived; that was before Klein became a recluse due to mental illness and she and the other children in the street would greet Klein by saying "Good morning, Maitre Klein" ("Maitre" being the formal way to address a lawyer or notary in Quebec). Sandra was married to Bill Goodwin who was Irving Layton's nephew and best friend for eighty years; I knew Bill because I taught in the same English Department as him and when he retired he said he had retired so I could hold on to my job. Anyhow, I wondered where Klein had lived, I found two addresses in Lovell's Montreal City Directory, one on Clarke (in the Mile End neighbourhood) and one on Querbes in Outremont. The address on Querbes says his employment was as "Public relations counsellor Seagram's"; the Bronfmans certainly supported Klein, they were wonderful patrons of the arts. I taught Klein's "Heirloom" poem for many years; one day I reread my own "Heirloom" poem, it is almost an embarrassment when compared to Klein's.

2.

That generation of poets, Layton, Dudek, Smith, Scott, Klein, welcomed young poets, after all,  who would want to be a poet? Bill Goodwin was Irving Layton's nephew but they were more like brothers. My mother lived on Montclair Avenue and, on occasion, I used to see Bill walking along Monkland Avenue on his way to Irving Layton's home on Monkland; that was in the 1990s when Irving wasn't well and Bill and several others looked after him, it was before Irving entered Maimonides long term care residence. Bill was very kind to me in so many ways; one day, soon after my son was born in January 1979, he phoned to say that it was too cold to take a baby outside, as my wife and I had planned, and he was right. Whatever Bill taught it included poems by Irving Layton and every year he would have Irving in to the college to give a reading. Some times after the reading I would get a lift downtown with them. Poets, like Irving Layton and Louis Dudek, focused on the young, especially if they were poets, so while Irving was talking in the front seat of the car he'd turn around and include me in the conversation. He was always polite and considerate. He'd ask what I was writing and show some interest, despite his famous enormous ego he was also concerned with mentoring young poets; Layton was a natural teacher. But that's what the older poets were like, it wasn't all prizes and ego, they mentored younger poets; it was a small community and anyone wanting to be a poet was treated with some respect. I mention this as it is an heirloom from those days when poets were few but they were dedicated to the Muse and to the life of being a poet.