Biographies of Poets, Whitman and Smith

Mickle Street 

One of my favourite biographies of Whitman is Walt Whitman in Mickle Street (1921) by Elizabeth Leavitt Keller describing the last years Whitman's life. Whitman was not the saint that some people have tried to make him out to be, his housekeeper Mary Oakes Davis was the real saint as she cared for Walt and this is Mrs. Davis's story as much as Whitman's. Today we would call Mrs. Davis a care-giver and sympathize with her as she looked after Whitman who is described as thoughtless, self-centered, and having a bad temper.





                                      




Chesterfield Avenue

Canadian poets like Louis Dudek and A.J.M. Smith weren't interested in autobiography or having their biographies written. Considering how often we hear that the public doesn't read poetry people are still interested in the lives of poets. Some people think Smith is a difficult poet, a good biography would have made him more human and possibly have made his work more available to students and other readers. As it is now good luck to anyone trying to find information on Smith's life. Leon Edel, the famous Henry James biographer and old friend of Smith's, wrote a short essay on Smith after he died in 1980. Here is an excerpt from that essay: "I can sketch a few (memories), allowing myself anecdote and biography now that Smith is gone: the touch of cockney in Smith's mother's voice and way of speech, when Smith invited me to take tea in the trim little suburban house in Westmount: the mother openly aggressive about her son's desire to write poetry — "there's no money in it" — "be quiet mother," — "I think it good he's taken up science." "Please mother." She talked to me as if I were a familiar in the house I had entered for the first time, and as if I knew all about her continuing colloquy with her son." Smith's home, where Edel visited in the mid-1920s, is located at 79 Chesterfield Avenue in Westmount.

Whatever we do

 

Bus terminus, Atwater and Ste. Catherine Street,
1956

The dead are not thinking of you 

they are dead, so you don’t have to 

think about them, you don't have to worry

about what you did or what

you didn't do, they are

at peace wherever 

they are

                                         ————————————————-

Whatever we think, whoever we like or dislike, it all refers back to ourselves, the dead are not thinking about you, and if we regret what we did or what we didn't do, whatever the case, give it up, surrender to time, to what could or might have been, let it all go, let it all disappear into time, nothing in the past can be changed and we select our memories, they are not real, they are memories, they aren't real, our regrets, what we would or should have done differently, who we loved and who we didn't love, who was mean and who was friendly, let it all go, it is only going to hold you back because it is all transient, changing, subject to change, ephemeral, evanescent, forlorn, and hopeless, and let it all go, forgive yourself, that's what you can do, forgive yourself and live in the so-called present but it isn't the present if it has a shadow of the past falling on it, darkening life, darkening our souls, and forgive yourself. The dead don't hold grudges against you or disapprove of what you have done or didn't do, the dead are dead and they have moved on, to nothing or to whatever we have invented for them to move on to. Whatever we think, whatever happened, you can do nothing about any of it, but you can forgive those who betrayed you, hurt you, disappointed you, and you can forgive yourself for what you have done or didn't do, and thank those who helped you, loved you, helped you along the way in your life's journey, but as for the dead, they're dead and gone except in your thoughts..