Thomas D’Arcy McGee, a visit to his mausoleum

Visiting Thomas D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum, at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, fourteen years ago, on 20 April 2010. The other mausoleums along this road belonged to the families of prominent Montrealers of that time, the mid- to late-1800s.

"What is it that a Poet Knows" by Louis Dudek

 

Louis Dudek

What is it that a poet knows

                that tells him ­­ 'this is real?'
Some revelation, a gift of sight,
granted through an effort of the mind ­­
                                    of infinite delight.

All the time I have been writing on the very edge of knowledge,

heard the real world whispering
                    with an indistinct and liquid rustling­­
as if to free, at last, an inextricable meaning!
Sought for words simpler, smoother, more clean than any,
                            only to clear the air
of an unnecessary obstruction
Not because I wanted to meddle with the unknown
        (I do not believe for a moment that it can be done),
but because the visible world seemed to be waiting,
                            as it always is,
somehow, to be revealed

Review of In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets

Laurence Hutchman on Grand Blvd near Somerled, Montreal, March 2016

                                 

Laurence Hutchman 

In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets

Guernica Editions, Toronto, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-5507-309-1

Conversations with Eight Poets

by

Stephen Morrissey

             Laurence Hutchman's In the Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets is a valuable addition to our knowledge of modernist Canadian poetry. The poets interviewed in these conversations are Ralph Gustafson, George Johnston, P.K. Page, Fred Cogswell, Louis Dudek, Al Purdy, Anne Szumigalski, and James Reaney. All eight of these poets have made important contributions to Canadian literature—they are all distinguished members of the Canadian poetry canon—and several have also contributed as translators and publishers.

            There is an easy intimacy between Laurence Hutchman and the poets he is interviewing. It feels as though we are listening in on good friends having a friendly but serious conversation on a subject about which both of them are passionate. Each interview is prefaced with a vivid and detailed description of the poet's home or place of work where the interview took place. When Hutchman is invited into Ralph Gustafson's Eastern Township's home he sits by a warm fire in late December; he describes the "chilly November morning in Saskatoon" when he rode a borrowed bicycle to interview Anne Szunigalski and entered her home where he admired paintings "everywhere on the walls, mostly done by her own family."
            Just before the interview which takes place in James Reaney's university office, Hutchman notes, "We sit on a green couch for the interview. On the wall facing us there is a painting of Reaney's, of The Nihilist Spasm Band. Above us is a picture, 'A Well Organized Athletic Meet on Centre Island, 1907 two women carrying eggs on a spoon.' Above those are topographical maps representing Grand Bend, St. Mary's and Stratford." Hutchman's awareness of the minutiae and detail of the place where the interview takes place enhances each interview that follows. In these interviews we are invited to know the human side of the eight different poets. Indeed, these conversations are an invitation for new readers to explore each poets' work.
            Scholars will find In The Writers' Words, Conversations with Eight Poets a valuable source of insight into these poets' work; recent criticism I've written on Louis Dudek's major long poem "Continuation" has been deepened by reading the interview with him. I can hear Dudek's voice—engaging and inquiring—in his discussion with Hutchman; Dudek states,

                        In Continuation 1 and Continuation 2, I at last found a voice where

                        I could say exactly what I want to say, and everything I want to say,

                        in the most amazing fragmentary way... you have to take risks in poetry.

                        What is poetry trying to do on the page? It's trying to represent the

                        poet's thought.

                        Many of us have fond memories of having met these eight poets. I remember meeting James Reaney at a League of Canadian Poets AGM in Toronto; he was wearing a tie decorated with books that I liked so much it took me a year before finding a similar tie for myself. In Edmonton, a few years ago, Mark Abley's excellent keynote address at the League's AGM was on Anne Szumigalski and it brought her life and work to a new audience. Elsewhere, I heard Fred Cogswell and Ralph Gustafson read their poems and from time to time corresponded with them. I sat and talked with Al Purdy after one of the times I heard him read. Louis Dudek, besides being my professor, was a friend until the end of his life. I remember being a first year graduate student at McGill University and walking into the English Department's staff lounge and seeing Laurence sitting discussing his own poetry with Louis Dudek. Dudek's DC Books published Hutchman's first book, Explorations (1975). George Johnston was a good friend, we both lived in rural south-western Quebec after he retired from teaching at Carleton University. In addition to many discussions on poetry George taught me the basics of the art of bee keeping which I did for many years. George and his wife Jean were both good friends and warm-hearted people, over the years of knowing them I also got to know some members of their family. During their careers all of these poets that Hutchman interviews readily made themselves available to newer poets. Reading Hutchman's conversations with them reminds me of the generosity and welcoming spirit of this modernist generation of poets, many of whom made an indelible impression on me.
                  All eight of these poets began writing and publishing during the 1930s to the1950s. Individually and collectively they made a significant contribution to Canadian poetry. P.K. Page, reminiscing about when she lived in Montreal, reminds us of poets we may have forgotten but who are still important for their role in Canadian literature, they include Patrick Anderson and John Sutherland. She also remembers with fondness Montreal poet A.M. Klein; Page says,

            ... he was only nine years older than I but he seemed to belong to a different generation. This had to do with a series of things, I think, with the fact that he was married, had children, and a law practise. He was already established as a poet... I find him a  wonderful poet and can't think why people today don't see it. But they will again.

            In his interview George Johnston discusses the literary scene back in the 1930s when he was a student and had just begun writing; Johnston states, "To tell the truth, I was hardly aware of a literary life in Toronto, except at the university. There was one intellectual sort of magazine which came out once a month..." This comment by Johnston reveals to us how far Canadian literature has progressed over the last sixty or seventy years.

            The eight poets Hutchman interviewed spent a lifetime writing poetry and thinking about poetry; theirs was a life centered on literature and poetry. The New Brunswick-based poet Fred Cogswell, who did a tremendous service for poets across Canada during his many years of running the literary small press, Fiddlehead, makes this statement on "the philosophical nature of ... poetry":

           

The particular philosophical nature of poetry is that its function is to illustrate the  qualities of the human mind that are the basis for the attitudes we have as human beings. Keep going farther than you've already gone, or you become a victim of what you've written up until that moment.

            In the interview with P.K. Page, living at the west coast edge of the continent, in Victoria, BC, a clap of thunder is heard as the interview comes to an end. PK says to Hutchman, "You're conjuring up gods that we don't normally have." This is what Hutchman does in all of these interviews. He conjures the gods of poetry. Hutchman's interviews with each of these eight poets is an intimate conversation with each individual. We hear their voice, their commitment to poetry, and their example of a life lived for poetry. Hutchman's book stays vivid and lively and brings the reader directly into the personality and writing of each of the eight poets. For anyone of any age, either scholar or reader, who is interested in the modernist poets of Canada, this book is an indispensable companion to the poets' collected works. That is part of the magic of this book.

                                                                        Stephen Morrissey

                                                                        Montreal, September 3, 2013

F.R. Scott memorial plaque unveiling

The F.R. Scott Memorial, 12 October, 2011, at St. James the Apostle Church, Montreal

A commemorative plaque for F.R. Scott will be unveiled on October 12 at St. James the Apostle church here in Montreal. Scott was a constitutional lawyer, a McGill professor of law, and an important Canadian modernist poet; however, poetry was his first love. He states, “Everything in my life that I did was done with a feeling of making poetry.”

Below is an excerpt from an interview with F.R. Scott published in the Quill & Quire in July 1982. Scott’s answers here deal with the Canadian Constitution, Canada-Quebec relations, and the big multi-national corporations; his answers are prescient and insightful in light of today’s world:

Q&Q: Is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms entrenched in the new Constitution the one you would have wanted?

Scott: The Charter of Rights is certainly not the one I wanted. It was put together in such a hurried fashion. All these power boys running around in smoke-filled rooms. There are many things in it that will cause us tremendous headaches. Of course, I have been in favour of an entrenched bill of rights written into the old Constitution, it was understood that certain laws affecting freedom of speech, freedom of assembly or freedom of religion could not be tampered with beyond the surveillance of the court — on any condition. Now, although it is entrenched really it is only partially entrenched because there’s the clause allowing a province to opt out. Quebec wants to do this.

Q&Q: Do you think the current form of Quebec nationalism is a progressive force?

Scott: I think the Parti Québecois’ position of independence is reactionary. Furthermore, I think it is immoral. It will make everybody worse off. There’s no absolute right to independence. You’ve got to see what harm it will do. To take a functioning federal system and split it into pieces is doing so much harm all around and about that I say it is immoral. Quebec has not been so badly treated. Separatism is just satisfying an amour impropre.

Q&Q: Is it too late to bring Quebec back into the fold?

Scott: Quebec is more subconsciously in the fold than we think. You know, I was a great defender of Quebec’s rights when it came to compulsory conscription. That made me a total isolationist when the war broke out and got me into more trouble than being a socialist. But it has always been my hope and faith that Quebec will come back. It will take a good deal of common sense, which I’ve always felt French-speaking Quebeckers have, and which their English-speaking counterparts increasingly show.

Q&Q: When you entitled your brief to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, “Canada — One or Nine”, were you questioning the ability of Canadians to grasp the potential of their country and does this still worry you?

Scott: This problem is as real to me today as it was in 1938. The spirit of commercialism, the disregard of the community, this attitude is so powerful and has as its most active defenders the big corporations. Only a strong federal state can stand up to these gigantic corporations though even it seems to have a hard time doing so. But at least a strong federal state can evoke a certain national will that says this is our place, these are our resources. To hell with the continental arrangement where the corporations will take 90% and the country will be left with 10%. We must say, we’re going to come into our own slowly. And if we had nothing but little individual nation states, little feudal forts running Canada, we’d be completely swallowed. I think I was ahead of my time in saying we must strengthen the federal system.

Sailboats at Kitsilano

Years ago, I bought a painting from Nellie McClung, who was not only a wonderful poet but also a talented visual artist. My spirits are always lifted when I see her painting, "Sailboats at Kitsilano," in a room in our home. One afternoon in the mid- or late- 1990s we visited Nellie at her home. In one room, it was the first room on the right as you entered her east end Vancouver home, she had some large paintings leaning against a wall and we looked through these. I decided to buy "Sailboats at Kitsilano"; since she had lost some money to an unscrupulous acquaintance we agreed that I would pay her on the installment plan and I enjoyed our correspondence over the next six months. The painting was unsigned so Nellie signed it with her forefinger using paint from a can of house paint. A few weeks ago, all these years later, sitting at the beach looking out at the sailboats, there was Nellie's painting. 

"Sailboats at Kitsilano" by Nellie McClung

You can read Nellie's chapbook, Charles Tupper and Me (2004) that we published for her at http://coraclepress.com/chapbooks/mcclung/charles_tupper_and_me.html.

Kitsilano Showboat at Kitsilano Beach