I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems, published by Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, BC. Thank you to all who helped bring this book to publication, including Richard Olafson, the publisher of Ekstasis Editions, my wife Carolyn Zonailo, and thank you, Nellie McClung, whose painting "Sailboats off Kitsilano" is the cover image. The poems in this book were published between 1971 and 2021, and best represent what I have tried to do in poetry.
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| Late November snow, 2018 |
The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.
The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.
The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,
And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.
Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest sings
Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud,
And the horizon throws away its shroud,
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.
At length it comes along the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,
While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.-
The hedger hastens from the storm begun,
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.
The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,
While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.
The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves,
Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,
Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.
There he doth dithering sit, and entertain
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,
And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again.
Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods,
Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;
One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods,
The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;
A dreary nakedness the field deforms -
Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,
Lives in the village still about the farms,
Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night
Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.
At length the stir of rural labour's still,
And Industry her care awhile forgoes;
When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task, at bleak November's close,
And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay,
And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,
For little birds - then Toil hath time for play,
And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.
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Preface
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T |
he Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche is a
collection of essays and short statements on poetry and poetics. This book complements my previous book, A Poet’s Journey:
on poetry and what it means to be a poet
(2019) also published by Ekstasis Editions. I’ve spent many years in the
solitary work of writing poems and thinking about poetry; this book summarizes,
explains, and enlarges on that subject. The book is divided into three
sections; they are: ideas about poetry and writing poetry; a discussion of several
Canadian poets, including F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Louis Dudek, and the poets
I knew from the early days at Véhicule Art Gallery; and shamanism, psyche, or
soul in poetry.
1 H.W. Garrod in his book, Poetry and the Criticism of Life (1931),
writes that it was Seneca “who first said, what Ben Jonson and many others have
said after him, that the critic of poetry must be himself a poet.” There is a tradition
of poets writing about poetry; Louis Dudek’s writing is full of a contagious
enthusiasm for poetry; Irving Layton wrote with bravado about the importance of
poetry in Waiting for the Messiah
(1985), and there are important statements on poetry in the prefaces of some of
his books. Three other books of essays and commentaries on poetry need to be
mentioned: co-edited by Louis Dudek and Michael Gnarowski, The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada (1967); An English Canadian Poetics
(2009) edited by Robert Hogg; and On
Poetry and Poets, Selected Essays of A.J.M. Smith (1977). I also recommend George
Whalley’s extraordinary Poetic Process,
an essay on poetics (1967).
2 In Canada we rarely celebrate our poets,
I refer to poets of previous generations; even poets who died only five or ten
years ago seem to have never existed judging by their absence from our cultural
or daily life, or their being mentioned for their poetry, or their poetry being
quoted. We don’t name bridges or airports after our poets, that’s reserved for
dead politicians no matter how dubious their contribution to our national life.
This collective amnesia does not augur well for our future; if we can't even remember
a few dead poets who helped define what Canada means, then what kind of a
country will we end up having?
3 What are the perennial qualities of
poetry? There is the dichotomy between two approaches to poetry, two types of
poets, Apollonian and Dionysian, classical and romantic, formal and informal,
cosmopolitan and nativist. No matter which group of poets one falls into one of
the things that makes for great poetry is if the poet has found his or her authentic
voice: has the poet written something that is true to their inner being and is
insightful of the human condition; and the corollary of this: does the poem
move us emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually? This is the type of poetry
that interests me; these perennial qualities make for great poetry.
4 My approach to poetry has always been
intuitive. Intuitive people know that intuition gives us knowing but without
proof, while intellectual knowledge is substantive but often lacks the insight
and originality of intuition. When intuition precedes intellectual
understanding, as it does, then it is necessary to find evidence for one’s intuitions. Most of my insights into poetry—for
instance, and I’m obviously not the first to
say it, that poetry is the voice of the human soul—originated intuitively. In
this book I am trying to substantiate my intuitive insights into poetry, this
has helped me to better understand my thinking on poetry and, I hope, it is of
interest to readers.
5 No real poet ever decided to be a poet,
it doesn’t work that way; if it was a decision they probably didn’t last long
writing poetry. I answered a call to do this work and now I ask, is there
closure on this activity that has dominated my life? This book is closure for
my writing about the meaning of poetry but, as for writing new poems, I don’t
want to end up as some old poets do, and that is publishing perfectly written
but meaningless poetry. I hope I will be long gone before that happens. Of
course, there may still be a few poems to write, and a few odds and ends to
write about poetry; there is no age for retirement for poets, there is just the
slow act of disappearing.
Stephen
Morrissey
Montreal,
Canada
16
November 2021
Preface
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Whether poets are born or made every
poet is on a unique journey, this is the journey to writing original poems in
an authentic voice. This journey
includes poets who are one's mentors; the poet friends of one's youth; the
poets who are an influence on one's work and thinking; and the varied
experiences of life that are important to the development of the poet. The art
of poetry includes ideas about poetry; poetry as the voice of the human soul; visionary
poetry; the purpose of experimental poetry; confessional poetry; and finding an
authentic voice in poetry.
Some
aspects of the poet's journey have changed over the years. We have more people
today writing poetry, giving poetry readings, and trying to publish their poems
than possibly ever before. Most of these people aren't reading or buying poetry
books but poetry is still very much alive, it's just not the same type of
involvement as it was in the past. The poetry scene today is less sophisticated
than it was forty years ago; back then there were fewer poets, fewer prizes and
awards, and fewer creative writing courses. I remember when new books by Robert
Lowell, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop and others were given extensive and
serious reviews in newspapers and periodicals.
New books by Canadian poets, for instance Irving Layton, P.K. Page, and
Earle Birney, were also given serious and intelligent reviews in newspapers and
periodicals. These poets from a previous generation had an important place in
our culture but there are no poets today with the same cultural relevance and
prominence that poets once had. This does not signal the end or even the
diminishment of poetry. Poetry endures for one specific reason: poetry is the
voice of the human soul and it gives access to the inner life both when reading
poetry and when writing poetry. For this reason, as well, poetry will never
die.
Many things have changed in this post-postmodern world in which we live; however, some things will never change. Are people really all that different now than they were five hundred or five thousand years ago? The human spirit endures, human kindness and human malice endure, and the fundamental vision of art endures when it is acknowledges the human spirit. All art is an expression of the visionary capacity to see what is below the mundane surface of things; indeed, all art is vision in its transformation of the complexity and depth of the unconscious mind. All poets who have set forth on this extraordinary journey of self-discovery, creativity, and writing poetry know they must find their authentic voice and that this voice is an expression of the poet's vision, and this expression has a perennial place in the consciousness of humanity.
Montreal,
Quebec
December
2018
Morrissey, Stephen. A Poet's Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet. Ekstasis Editions, Victoria. 2019
O, I would tell soul’s story to the end,
Psyche on bruised feet walking the hard ways,
The knives, the mountain of ice,
Seeking her beloved through all the world,
Remembering – until at last she knows
Only that long ago she set out to find –
But whom or in what place
No longer has a name.
So through life’s long years she stumbles on
From habit enduring all. Clouds
Disintegrate in sky’s emptiness.
She who once loved remembers only that once she loved:
Is it I who wrote this?
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| 2012 |
Here is what remains of hostage posters after being scraped off a telephone pole near here. It’s as though these hostages don’t exist and what caused their captivity never happened, they are being erased, cancelled. This is probably part of the intention of whoever obliterated these posters.
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This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.
While snow the window-panes bedim,
The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart,
And children, 'tween their parent's knees,
Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.
And some, to view the winter weathers,
Climb up the window-seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In fancy infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O'er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.
As tho' the homestead trees were drest,
In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,
As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,
Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,
The children hail the happy day -
As if the snow were April's grass,
And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,
Sport o'er the water froze as glass.
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| The Unicorn Rests in a Garden (or The Unicorn in Captivity) by an unknown artist, 1495–1505 |
When the nation is divided
there is no nation: when history is discarded
the old regret what life has become;
there is no nation when people
have lost belief in the soul; there is no nation
when people are divided and turn on each other;
when the nation turns its back
on what made it a nation
there is no nation:
ships don't reach harbour,
cod fish so plentiful off Nfld's coast are gone,
the massacre of buffalos, a mountain of bones
on a bleak autumn morning,
flash mobs stealing everything from stores,
crows, carrion, and crowds of people
live in darkness,
goodness is ridiculed, vulgarity
celebrated, macabre faces in clouds,
mobs pounding on old people's front doors:
what is old is cancelled
as decreed, as legislated;
and people love ignorance and renounce
their own culture;
they are crossing the bridge
cities burn and the ruins
are ploughed into dust—
11 May 2023
All of the posters shown in a previous post, "Remember the hostages", have been torn down; I saw an older man meticulously peeling and scraping one of the posters from where it had been glued, he was using an exacto knife to do this. Indeed, in reaction to the tearing down of these posters, a neighbouring community has said that anyone removing similar posters will be fined up to $1K.
A few days ago, while walking by Concordia University on Sherbrooke Street West, I found posters with fairly offensive and ignorant comments scrawled across them. Whoever this person with a felt pen is he doesn't care about freedom of speech or that there are still over two hundred innocent people being held by terrorists; the person who wrote on the posters doesn't care about the hostages, or about freedom, or about truth, or about decency, he is full of righteous indignation, hate, and ignorance. Freedom of speech seems minor when placed in the context of war and people held as hostages; but freedom of speech is always significant and many people have lost their lives defending this freedom, defending it against censorship and cancellation. If we deny freedom of speech, in this case including destroying posters and writing on posters, we have descended to the level of this person who has written over hostage posters. In many respects we have moved into a very dark age and, I suspect, this darkness will last a very long time. This dark age hasn’t just begun but it has certainly gotten much worse.
| I think not . . . The evidence is to the opposite view . . . |
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| James Russell Lowell |
Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.
Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?
That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay,” he answered me, “not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.
In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.
In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.
Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.
Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.
Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?
That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay, ” he answered me,” not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.
In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.
In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.
Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.
