A newly discovered painting by Darrell Morrisey

"Sunset Landscape" by Darrell Morrisey, dated May 1917

In March of this year I was contacted by Gretchen Shoring of ARTI, a company selling antique paintings located in London, UK, about a painting possibly by Canadian artist Darrell Morrisey. Darrell was a "forgotten" member of Montreal's Beaver Hall group of artists; while some members of the group have become famous, Darrell and several others have mostly disappeared from public view.            

"Sunset Landscape" is not signed on the front of the painting, but Darrell's signature is on the reverse, written in pencil in cursive; on the previously discovered painting (see below) by Darrell, her name is printed in block letters at the lower left of the painting; in both cases she has written her name, "D. Morrisey". Duggleby Stephenson, the auction house based in Yorkshire, UK, which first acquired this painting, describes it as follows:

Description: Darrell Morrisey (Canadian 1897-1930): Sunset Landscape, oil on board signed with initials, inscribed and dated 1917 verso 13cm x 19cm

Here is a suggestion of what might be the provenance of "Sunset Landscape". The painting might have been a gift by Darrell to someone she knew, I suggest it was given to Charles Darrell (or a member of his family), after whom Darrell was named, as he was both Darrell’s godfather and a close friend of  T.L. Morrisey, Darrell's father. In 1913, when Darrell was about fifteen years old, she left Montreal for the UK, accompanied by Charles Darrell to his family home in Chiselhurst, Kent, where she would board at Tudor Hall School. Charles Darrell and his wife, Emily Harries Jones, had four daughters, all older than Darrell, and Darrell could easily have been included in family gatherings. Charles Darrell was born and raised in Yorkshire, where Duggleby Stephenson is located; is it not possible that a descendant of Charles Darrell returned to Yorkshire and, many years later, in 2023 or 2024, decided to sell the painting? Someone identified the artist, Darrell Morrisey, who was a family friend, on a note attached to the reverse of the painting. I think this is a possible scenario. But, obviously, I am just speculating and I could be totally wrong.

Finally, I like this painting very much; it demands our attention. To me, the painting has a charisma (assuming a painting can have charisma; Darrell definitively had charisma). Of course, what we need are more paintings by Darrell, and we may find a few more, but for now we have her life story that is still unfolding, and we have these paintings by her.    

Here is a link to my 2012 essay on Darrell Morrisey: Darrell Morrisey, a forgotten Beaver Hall artist.  

In our living room: on left, a painting by Mary Harman, used as the cover image for
my selected poems, Mapping the Soul, Selected Poems, 1978-1998 (1998); on the right
is a watercolour by J.F.B. Livesay, the father of Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay; 
the painting by Darrell Morrisey is below the Livesay.

"Sunset Landscape", by Darrell Morrisey, 1917

                                            Reverse side of "Sunset Landscape” with Darrell's signature
                                and a sticker identifying Darrell and her brother, Thomas Sydney Morrisey  



Two paintings by Darrell Morrisey

Painting by Darrell Morrisey discovered in 2014

Newly discovered painting by Darrell Morrisey, 2024

Preface, Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems

Preface

 What in one is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support

                            —John Milton

 

T

his selection of poems is taken from books and chapbooks I published from 1971 to 2021. When I began writing poetry my themes were the transience of life, family, grief at losing close family members, and romantic love. These many years later I am still writing about the transience of life, family, grief at losing close family members, and romantic love, but giving more emphasis to some and less to others. My experience is that where we begin as poets is where we end. What is our journey as poets? It is the great theme of literature; it is the journey to self-awareness.

1

These poems are presented here without section breaks; this is the model Ken Norris suggested to me, found in Robert Creeley's Selected Poems (1991). The text of Creeley's book has a continuity that is unbroken by titles of books and dates published, as one finds in most selected poems, and I've used the same approach in presenting the poems in this book; it is the book of poems of my life. Of course, bibliographical information is still available in both the Books Published page and the Contents page.

 2

We learn something from every poet we read. In 1967 I read Allen Ginsberg's statement, "Scribble down your nakedness. Be prepared to stand naked because most often it is this nakedness of the soul that the reader finds most interesting"; it was an important insight for me and has influenced my writing to this day. But other poets were also important; these include William Blake; the Romantic poets; Walt Whitman; the Beats; Charles Olson; Louis Dudek; and George Johnston.

3

Poetry isn't antiseptic, it's passion for life. Poetry is love and death and tears of joy and tears of sorrow. It's messy, it's stuff we don't want to talk about, it's betrayal and jealousy, it's love and sex and tenderness and grief and regret and awe and divine inspiration; it's the shadow falling across one's life. Poetry is nothing if not passionate; passion, not the intellect, not fashion, not popularity, not what other people are doing, defines poetry.

4

We all experience darkness in our lives: some of us have descended to the underworld; some have been lost in a dark forest; and some of us have had to begin life again in middle age—we lost everything—for nothing was as we believed. But darkness can be place of creativity, of self-awareness, of meaning, and of rebirth. I found my voice in poetry when I was able to turn the darkness of my life experiences into poems; I affirmed what I had seen and I said, "thank you, darkness" and "farewell, darkness"; and that is the birth of the poet.

5

My wife, the poet Carolyn Zonailo, is always in my thoughts and heart; to her my thanks, my love, and my deepest appreciation for our over thirty years together. I want to thank Richard Olafson for his commitment to publishing—the year 2022 was Ekstasis Editions' fortieth anniversary—he has made an important contribution to our national literary life; he has helped many creative people realize their potential and their dream.

 

                                           Stephen Morrissey

                                           Montreal, Quebec

                                           20 November 2022

Morrissey, Stephen. Farewell, Darkness: Selected Poems. Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, 2023.

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems (2)

 

Deleted:

Poems, no matter how dark their subject matter, are always an affirmation of life.1.  What can be seen in the dark no matter how dark it is? What light will we follow when it is most dark? It took me many years to know what is obvious to many people; the light that is always present, even in the darkness, is the goodness of life, it is love. That light is love.

1. Because the act of creating something is, in itself, an affirmation of life.

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems (3)

 

Deleted:

Creativity has the capacity to heal; some have fallen into the darkness of existence, and writing poetry or making art is one way to find light in the darkness; what is the light? It is the discovery of love in one's life. It is greater than any darkness.

Deletions from an Introduction for a Selected Poems

 

Deletions:

3.  You don’t become a poet expecting to be liked for everything you write, or even for some of what you write. Why do people become poets? It is simple: people become poets because they are called to this work; writing poetry is an act of transcription, writing down what is given to you and, most importantly, writing poetry is to feel that truth is so important that it must be adhered to. This is why freedom of speech is so important; it is essential if literature is to have any meaning or relevance for either the poet or the reader.

4. Poetry isn't antiseptic, it's passion for life. Poetry is love and death and tears of joy and tears of sorrow. It's messy, it's stuff we don't want to talk about, it's betrayal and jealousy, it's love and sex and tenderness and grief and regret and awe and divine inspiration; it's the shadow falling across one's life. Poetry is nothing if not passionate; passion, not the intellect, not fashion, not popularity, not what other people are doing, defines poetry.

5.  In The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry (2022), I described how one's life can be reconfigured to something totally different from what one expected in life; I described this as the Great Reconfiguration. When I was six years old and my father died my old life became redundant, everything changed; I was one person and then I became someone else. His death has preoccupied much of my life, his passing reconfigured my life; this began the relentless journey of grief and understanding, love and loss, that I've been on, and trying to understand this existence and expressing it in poems.

6. To write not parts of a life but a whole life, that is what I have tried to do; it is an impossible task and can be attempted only if one refers to archetypes and a mythological approach to experience as a way to communicate this information. The poet's body of work is all of a piece, a single entity; it's a life that is transformed by poetry, it's the soul speaking through the poet. For John Keats life was a vale of soul-making, not a vale of tears; this was always the direction of my writing, my concern has always been with soul-making and I expressed this in my poems.