Barbara Whitley, RIP

An article about Barbara Whitley in the Montreal Gazette of 04 June 2018. 

My interest in Miss Whitley is because she knew the Morrisey family; Darrell Morrisey is one of the "lost" Beaver Hall artists. I met Miss Whitley at St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, on Ste. Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, when the memorial to F.R. Scott was unveiled there. By chance I asked her if she knew the Morrisey family (no relation to me) and she had known them; she had known Darrell's brother T.S. Morrisey but not Darrell who died in 1930. 

Here is my essay on Darrell Morrisey:
https://archive.org/details/DARRELLMORRISEYAForgottenBeaverHallArtistByStephenMorrissey

St. James the Apostle Anglican Church, 1890

Life Stories: Barbara Whitley had an eye 

for penmanship and philanthropy

Whitley spent decades as a volunteer with the Montreal General Hospital, one of many places she touched

SALIM VALJI, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE

Updated: June 4, 2018

Barbara Whitley felt that writing was sacred.

With an eye for detail, she adored the graceful and elegant italic penmanship style she grew up learning. Whitley, who died in May at the age of 100, went to school at The Study, a private all-girls school in Westmount, graduating in 1936. Even after her studies, Whitley remained deeply involved in the school as a volunteer.

In a world increasingly reliant on technology, Whitley wanted to preserve the art of penmanship. At one point she approached the school’s headmistress, Katharine Lamont, about rewarding students for outstanding penmanship. Two years later, the Barbara Whitley Handwriting Prize was created.

“She decided to donate this prize to the school one day on a whim, thinking that the art of handwriting was lost,” said Pattie Edwards, director of Alumnae Relations at The Study. “She didn’t think it would become a tradition, but we’ve been carrying on that tradition for a very long time.”

In 1973, Whitley helped create The Study School Foundation to help enhance the education of its students. Decades later, its endowment stands at more than $5 million.

“She was a really amazing, amazing woman,” Edwards said.

Whitley completed her undergraduate studies at McGill University. McGill’s Schulich School of Music held a special place in Whitley’s heart, and in the early 2000s she financially supported the creation of the Gertrude Whitley Performance Library, named in memory of her mother. The library now has more than 5,500 ensemble scores and parts in its collection. It also provides all the music material to the McGill Symphony Orchestra, the University Chorus and the Jazz Orchestra. She also gave frequent gifts to the MUHC and other parts of the school.

In her youth, Whitley was a stage actor and worked with famed humorist Stephen Leacock. She even joined him on his radio broadcasts. Whitley was heavily involved in the Centaur Theatre and Geordie Productions. One of her final stage roles was as a poisonous sister in the production of the thriller Arsenic and Old Lace.

“She was a really great artist,” Edwards said.

For Whitley, giving back to the community was almost instinctual. Her father, Ernest, had experienced eye problems when she was growing up. Later on, she supported causes related to vision and service dogs.

“Eye health was very close to her heart,” Edwards said. “She was just one of those people who just believed that if something needed to be done, she would do it. And she would get it done, and make it beautiful and special.”

Whitley was also known to help individuals, rarely taking credit for the work she did. Eventually, her trophy shelf became filled with honours from the Governor General (Caring Canadian Award in 2004), Queen Elizabeth (Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013) and MUHC (Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016).

“When I sent out the notice for her death, there were a number of people writing back to tell me about how they spent time with Miss Whitley, about how Miss Whitley got her their first job, about how Miss Whitley touched their lives in some way or another,” Edwards said.

Beyond her philanthropy, Whitley was a riveting storyteller. She’d often hold court in her Westmount apartment, telling tales of Montreal’s good old days.

“Stories about the history that we didn’t know existed,” Edwards said. “The community, Montreal, people in fundraising, and everybody’s brother, sister, cousin. She knew everybody. You could listen to her talk all day long.”

A month before she died, Whitley celebrated her 100th birthday. It was a grand occasion, taking place at the Atwater Club, and dozens of relatives from Ontario made the trip to toast Whitley. It would be the last time many of them saw her, but she won’t soon be forgotten.

“Our slogan at the school is, ‘The world needs great women,’ ” Edwards said.

“She really was a formidable woman.”

Barbara Whitley

Born: April 8, 1918

Died: May 18, 2018

Barbara Whitley, 1918-2018

The Pond at Westmount Park, 1916, Notman photograph

I met Barbara Jane Whitley by chance, it was in October 2011 at the memorial service for F.R. Scott at St. James the Apostle Anglican Church in downtown Montreal. I was researching one of the "lost" Beaver Hall artists, Darrell Morrisey (no relation), and although Miss Whitley never met Darrell she had been a friend of other members of Darrell's family. Now Barbara Whitley is gone and gone as well are her memories of Stephen Leacock and other writers and artists of a long passed era. Barbara Whitley was two years younger than my mother, and it was my mother who told me that a Colonel Morrisey had phoned her in 1940 asking if we were related to their family and also looking for family history information. None of the dots were connected until Evelyn Walters contacted me in 2010 regarding Darrell, who I had never heard of, but I realized that Colonel Morrisey was the older brother of Darrell. Sounds complicated but it really isn't. A lot of coincidences came together; it was a celebration of art, history, and synchronicity! The essay, "Darrell Morrisey, A forgotten Beaver Hall artist", is online at archive dot org. 

Updated on 31 August 2022: It was October 2011 when I was at St. James the Apostle Anglican Church for the F.R. Scott event; not sure if I had seen T.S. Morrisey's name on a plaque at the church at this point, which is when I met, by chance, Barbara Whitley; just on a hunch I asked her if she knew T.S. Morrisey who was also, at one time, a parishioner at this church and she replied that she had known him. I asked her about his younger sister, Darrell, but she didn't remember ever meeting her. She suggested going to Knolton to find, if possible, the lost painting by Darrell; Miss Whitley's attitude re. Darrell was pragmatic, if her paintings were all "lost" then maybe she wasn't that good an artist. 

Here is the obituary as published in the Montreal Gazette:

BARBARA JANE WHITLEY

1918-2018

Following a life of extraordinary involvement, generosity and devotion to her family and community, Barbara Jane Whitley quietly passed away at home on Friday, May 18th, in her 101st year.

Barbara, the only child of Ernest Whitley and Gertrude McGill, was a lifelong Montrealer. She attended The Study and went on to earn a degree at McGill University. Here she attracted the attention of famed humourist Stephen Leacock, who invited her to join him on his popular radio broadcasts. This experience ignited her lifelong love for theatre and her talent as a thespian. This passion carried on though her decades-long involvement with the Centaur Theatre and with Geordie Productions. Who could forget one of her final roles, as one of the poisonous sisters in ?Arsenic and Old Lace?? All who were fortunate enough to have known Barbara will also remember her as a captivating story teller and great orator.

Barbara's enduring legacy is her steadfast support of numerous Montreal institutions, both as a volunteer and as a philanthropist. Her community involvement began in the Second World War, when she served with the Canadian Red Cross. She then took on leadership roles within the Women?s Canadian Club and the Junior League.

As a philanthropist, Barbara supported numerous causes, including St. James the Apostle Church and McGill University. In honor of her father, she established the Whitearn Foundation, which supports research of diseases of the eye. She was a devoted ?old girl? and loyal supporter of The Study, co-establishing the school?s Foundation in 1973. 

Barbara's most notable contribution was her 70 plus years of service to the Montreal General Hospital, where she served as president of the Auxiliary and was the first woman ever to serve on the hospital's executive committee. In recognition of her incredible service, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the MUHC in 2016. 

Barbara never sought recognition for her generosity. However, her long list of honors and awards cannot be overlooked. Most notably, in 1992 she received an honorary doctorate from McGill University, in 2004 the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award, and in 2013 the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her outstanding contribution to the community.

Barbara left a lasting impression on all who came to know her. She will be deeply missed by her adoring family and friends, many of whom gathered to celebrate her 100th birthday on April 8. Her family extends a special thank you to Dr. David Mulder, for his care and friendship.

"The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward." (Carol Ryrie Brink)

Funeral services will be held at Mount Royal Cemetery Complex (1297 Chemin de la Foret) entrance only possible through the Outremont Gate due to closing of Camillien-Houde) on Saturday June 9th at 11 am. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in memory of Barbara Whitley to the Montreal General Hospital Foundation. Donate online: http://www.mghfoundation.com/en/donate-now/give-in-honour, call (514) 934-8230 or mail your donation to the MGH Foundation, 1650 Cedar Avenue, E6-129, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1A4.

Barbara Whitley

Published in the Montereal Gazette:.http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/montrealgazette/obituary.aspx?n=barbara-jane-whitley&pid=189093990

Poems are Reports from Inner Space

   Yew Tree Inn, 1 Beardwood, Blackburn, Lancs,
owned by my great great grandfather Thomas Parker, 1881 

There is no consensus of intelligence anymore, but there is Inner Space.

The first experience we have of Inner Space: our dreams.

Of course, if we censor our reports from Inner Space we end up with poetry that lacks authenticity.

I come from a dark place—I know that it will always be dark—I have spent too long in Inner Space.

Poetry has its own archaeology: it's what we excavate in Inner Space.

Did you follow your vision? Did you hear the voice calling you from Inner Space?

We fear the unconscious; it is a portal to Inner Space.

It was not a part of my repertoire of emotions; I was trapped in Inner Space.

Poems are reports from Inner Space.

November is "Inner Space Month".

Artifacts and the detritus of Inner Space wash up on the shores of consciousness.

One day everything you said from Inner Space will be used against you.

All artists are nihilists; they destroy the old in the act of reporting from Inner Space.  

The poet's journey in Inner Space is the shaman's journey. 

I live at the inn of Inner Space, the inn on the road through a forest; few come this way, few visit the inn, the Yew Tree Inn.

Where we live, those outposts of Inner Space.

I am sending out probes into Inner Space.

Someone emerges, one born from the genetic debris of Inner Space.

                                                                                                            2015

First Published: Urban Graffitti, http://urbgraffiti.com/writing/poems-are-reports-from-inner-space-by-stephen-morrissey/#more-6185, Edmonton, November 2015.

NOTE: A year after this was published I posted it on this blog, today I see that it is no longer online where it was originally published at Urban Graffitti. This is what is seriously wrong with online publishing and digital archives, they are subject to change without the author's notice: they can be deleted, altered, rewritten, removed, gone... Mark McCawley published this essay in good faith that it would stay online; after his passing his web zine, Urban Graffitti, was eventually taken offline. Losing UG we lost all the graphics, short stories, essays, etc., that were online. If Mark had these archived at LAC then I stand corrected.  

SM

11/05/2018

Guy Birchard's "Aggregate :Retrospective"

Cover, Aggregate :Retrospective by Guy Birchard

Congratulations to my old friend Guy Birchard on his new book, Aggregate :Retrospective, published by Shearsman Books, Bristol, UK. This book brings together four of Guy's chapbooks published over the last thirty years. I think this is one of Guy's best books and a great introduction to his work. I bought my copy from the "Book Depository", they pay the shipping and they're efficient and dedicated to small press publishing. Guy and Artie Gold were friends and Guy introduced me to Artie back in the spring of 1973, happy days 45 years ago!
trospective=, published by Shearsman Books, Bristol, UK. This book brings together four of Guy's chapbooks published over the last thirty years. I think this is one of Guy's best books and a great introduction to his work. I bought my copy from the "Book Depository", they pay the shipping and they're efficient and dedicated to small press publishing. Guy and Artie Gold were friends and Guy introduced me to Artie back in the spring of 1973, happy days 45 years ago!

Vehicule Days, part two

More of my photographs of "Vehicule Days", exhibition and reading, on the evening of April 26, 2018 at McGill University's Rare Books and Special Collections.

John McAuley and Tom Konyves

Endre Farkas and Carolyn-Marie Souaid

Adrian King-Edwards and Donna Jean-Louis

Chris Lyons

That's me.

Tom Konyves

Vehicule Days at McGill University

Here is my group photo of the Vehicule Poets from our reading on the evening of April 26, 2018 at McGill University's Rare Books and Special Collections. From left: Endre Farkas, Tom Konyves, John McAuley, Claudia Lapp, and Stephen Morrissey. Missing: Ken Norris.

Claudia Lapp at Blue Met Literary Festival

Claudia Lapp, one of the Vehicule Poets, reads her poem "Shivasana", at Hotel 10 in downtown Montreal, as part of the Blue Met Literary Festival, on April 28, 2018.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the 150th Anniversary of his Assassination

Today, 7 April 2018, is the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee in Ottawa. Celebrations of his life and memory are at present underway in Montreal. I made this video at McGee's mausoleum in August 2013, in it I read the Gazette's report from 1868 of the assassination that took place only hours earlier. We haven't forgotten him in Montreal, he is forever remembered. 

After reading F.R. Scott's Events and Signals (1954)

It's a different experience to read someone's individual books than it is to read their collected poems. For instance, F.R. Scott's Events and Signals (1954), which I've just read, gives the reader an insight into Scott's thinking that changes one's perception of Scott, it softens and humanizes him; perhaps this side of Scott isn't as evident as in his Collected Poems. In fact, the Frank Scott in this book is quite fascinating and revealing. "Departure" seems to refer to his separation from P.K. Page in the late 1940s. I think we only see now, after Peter Dale Scott's poem in last fall's Pacific Rim Review of Books, that "A L'Ange Avant Gardien" and "Will to Win" refer to the artist and dancer Francoise Sullivan, but if I'm wrong then correct me. And we know that he had also a romantic relationship with the artist Pegi Nichol which perhaps gives us a different perspective on his poem "For Pegi Nichol". There were so many affairs with or without the possibly silent approval of his wife, Marian Dale Scott. "Invert" and "Caring" give an insight into these affairs: it is that Scott was always looking for love but also afraid to leave his marriage with someone he also seemed to love and (of course) lose his social position. Even today we don't look on affairs with approval or kindness; affairs come across as sordid and someone is always betrayed and hurt by them.

Cover of Scott's Events and Signals

On Dreams, Poetry, and the Soul

I always assumed that everyone had “big dreams” at some time in their life. Everyone dreams but most people don’t listen to their dreams, they forget them as soon as they wake, or if the dream is remembered it is either ignored or sloughed off. They don’t want to be disturbed by dreams, or by re-visioning their life, or by becoming more conscious, or by the discomfort of psychological insight. This is how poets think: they allow for the presence of dreams as a form of communication from the unconscious, and the dream is then listened to.

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God communicates to people in two ways: through angels and through our dreams. If you want to communicate with God, or receive a message from God, then be open to your dreams. Dreams coming from God are the “big dreams”, and we may have only a few of these during our whole life. Dreams have some interest for poets and artists, dreams are psychic collages juxtaposing images that one would probably never put together. They are of interest in an aesthetic sense, as a curiosity, and importantly for therapists as a door into the psyche of their client. Discussing a dream is a way—an entrance, a door—into the psyche, it is a catalyst for discussion. Surrealism as a movement grew out of Freud’s positioning of dream interpretation as an important part of therapeutic work. The Surrealists were more fascinated by the dream as an aesthetic event than by its therapeutic value. Dreams, then, as life changing events, can be an important aspect of how poets think; as well, dream imagery can be transformed into a poem.
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Two other minor examples of poetic thinking: when I returned to live in the neighbourhood where I grew up, I would regularly see people who I used to see in the streets when I was young. They were not older versions of themselves, they were the same people that I used to see, as though, over the intervening years, they had never changed. I no longer see these people, they seem to have departed, where they have gone to I don’t know, but I would often see them, just as they were so many years ago. A second example: I have always believed that when we think of someone we used to know, but have lost contact with them, and they suddenly come to mind, for no reason at all, at that same moment they are thinking of us. For example, sometimes we think of an old friend with whom we have lost contact and then, only a few seconds later, the phone rings and it is the person we have been thinking of. Synchronicity reminds us that there is some kind of cohesion and meaning in life if we can see it.
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It is the essence of the shamanic journey that what is perceived is not a product of the imagination but is “real”. The important thing is the experience in which our awareness and consciousness is not always subject to cause and effect. Dreams juxtapose images that are usually not associated with each other. In essence, the dream is a collage or a "cut-up" (see Brion Gysin). Dreams fascinate us when they open the door of archetypal association. A door, for instance, allows us to enter a room, but a "door" for William Blake is an image opening our awareness and our perception of the symbolical world of the psyche. Almost two hundred years later Jim Morrison resonated to Blake's perception and the music of The Doors followed, music that is shamanic and archetypal.
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Dreams, Tarot cards, Sabian Symbols, the Aquarian Symbols, archetypal images, paintings by Odilon Redon, Magritte, and others, photographs by Man Ray, all help open an entrance into the deeper levels of the psyche. At this deeper level we become conscious of people, we can explore events that were formerly left unconscious, and a narrative becomes available to the conscious mind. I would include fairy tales and mythology as ways to access the unconscious mind.

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Poetry deals with the soul and soul making. Just about any subject can be transformed into poetry, but a poet’s soul is needed for this transformation of the everyday into poetry. The poet is the soul's alchemist. Poetry is transformation. Dreams are another form of alchemy; they transform everyday reality into an expression of the psyche or the soul, and these dreams can sometimes give us access into our own souls.

                                                                                                     

I'll be glad when I've written my last poem and I can put this behind me

I'll be glad when I've written my last poem and I can put this behind me

Stephen Morrissey

I've been writing poems since I was fifteen years old, over a half century of writing. Writing poems was never a choice or a decision, it was a calling. Where does the "call" come from? It comes from the soul.

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The "call" to poetry came to me in a dream that told me to write down what had happened in my life or my life would be forgotten; waking after the dream I knew that to forget meant to lose my inner being. It is not just writing poetry that was a part of the call, it was also writing a journal and I began page one of my journal on January 14th, 1965; a few months later I began writing poems. Writing my journal and writing poems was a gift to me from the unconscious mind, it began with the dream.

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First you write the single poem and then a lot of poems, and then you gather these poems into a book, and then you have several books and that is one's body of work. If this is your calling then what you are doing is fulfilling your destiny.

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My poetry is concerned with soul making and it is also soul making itself; soul making is concerned with realizing one's potential as a person, with expressing the deeper meaning of one's life.

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The unconscious mind has a proclivity to wholeness. Whether in dreams or day dreams or writing poems or other forms of artistic creativity, we are driven to wholeness. That is the basis of my writing, when I speak of soul making I am also referring to wholeness, life affirmation, and healthy-mindedness.

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I write poems because writing has been a calling for me and one ignores a calling at risk to one's integrity as a human being. You can ignore many things and not damage your inner being but you can't ignore a calling; ignoring a calling is like having a limb amputated; no, it's worse than that, it's like amputating one of one's own limbs.

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I've been fairly passive in life but that may be because I am also introverted. It may also be because I knew all along what I wanted to do in life, and that was to write poems. Whatever poems I've written have been the result of having to write them; indeed, I had no choice but to write. I have been driven to write, but what drove me? What drove me was the urgency of finding meaning and wholeness in my life, of affirming life.

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Writing poems is what I've done with my life. It wasn't my choice since writing poems was a calling. It came to me, not me to it, and if the writing ended this afternoon I wouldn't care. Now I welcome my final years. I've been along for the journey, not in the driver's seat. I've been an observer and not much of an organizer or initiator of events. But I'm getting old and need a rest. In truth, I'll be glad when I've written my last poem and I can put this behind me.

Some Notes on Poetry and Soul (edited and revised)

Many of C.G. Jung’s psychological concepts and related interests—for instance, shadow, archetype, symbolism, alchemy, animus and anima, mythology, the collective unconscious, and so on—are also interests of many poets. The major difference between poetry and psychology is that poetry is the voice of the human soul, while Jungian psychology tries to explain how the soul works; most other schools of psychology don't acknowledge the existence of the soul.

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Poetry and psychology are two very different disciplines. The Irish poet, Patrick Kavanaugh, writes in one of his poems, “He knew that posterity has no use/ For anything but the soul…” Kavanaugh’s poems resonate for us because we recognize in them, as we do in all great poetry and poets, someone who speaks to our inner being. We can tell if a poet is genuine or not, inflated or not, and if the poet’s work is an authentic expression of the soul. We resonate to the authentic expression of the inner being of a fellow human being. Great poetry is an expression of “where psyche is leading one.” This phrase, from one of James Hollis’s books, that we need to find “where psyche leads us,” is the quest for an authentic life, an expression of where soul will lead us if only we follow.

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C.G. Jung’s comments on the relationship of the collective unconscious and poetry in Modern Man in Search of a Soul are worth referring to in relation to poetry, they also help explain something of the importance of Patrick Kavanaugh’s poetry.

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Great poetry draws its strength from the life of mankind, and we completely miss its meaning if we try to derive it from personal factors. Whenever the collective unconscious becomes a living experience and is brought upon the conscious outlook of an age, this event is a creative act which is of importance to everyone living at that age. A work of art is produced that contains what may truthfully be called a message to generations of men. 
                                                                                           --C.G. Jung
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James Hillman’s “idea of psychopoesis” is also important; Hillman suggests that a poem is always at the heart of things. Depth psychology is referred to as soul making; however, poetry doesn't "make" the soul, it reveals the soul. One of the concerns of both poetry and depth psychology is the human soul: the intention of depth psychology is to unfold the complexity of a person’s life so that it can be better understood, and perhaps placed in a mythopoetic context; the poet’s intention, also to do with the soul, is to write poetry that is authentic to his or her soulful vision.

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Some poets are wounded healers; however, these wounds may also be the source of the poet’s creativity and, as such, something that he or she may not want to give up. Poetry isn’t therapy— poetry is a form of art—but as anyone who reads literature knows, poetry can have a healing and transformative quality.

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The intention of poet and psychologist is substantially different; the difference is that while poetry is an expression of the soul, psychology speaks about the soul if it mentions the soul at all. The two disciplines should not be conflated or confused; we need to remember that poetry is the oldest art form while psychology is about a hundred years old and, in some ways, it is still in its infancy. With this perspective in mind, we need to re-evaluate the importance of poetry and remember its relationship to soul.

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                                                          Edited and revised on 23 March 2018

                                                          Stephen Morrissey

Meeting F.R. Scott in 1971

Reading one's old diaries or journals is like meeting a stranger you used to know, that stranger is yourself when younger. Back in November 1971 I was at a reception at Thomson House, part of McGill University, for the English poet Michael Horowitz. I remember this only because I wrote about it in my journal. I met Marian Dale Scott, F.R.Scott.'s wife. She was very nice as was Frank Scott who I met later that evening. Apparently, and I don't remember this at all, Earle Birney was also there. What I can see from this diary entry is that all of these were lovely people who were kind and considerate to this kid they'd never met before. I heard Patrick Anderson read a few days before and Frank Scott said that Anderson regretted not knowing the younger poets. One thing that might interest Brian Busby is that Marian Scott said that her husband and John Glassco would walk on Crescent Avenue and talk about the past, the days of the Montreal Group of poets. Let's see, that was almost fifty years before the Thomson House reception and right now is about fifty years after the same reception. Time flies but you have to write something down or it's all forgotten. 

On the bravery of Luci Maud Montgomery

Walk in 2010

On International Women's Day both the CBC and CTV news mentioned this video of Luci Maud Montgomery who, they say, battled rejection, depression, and sexism and was "mentally ill". Negative emotions are now confused and conflated with mental illness, but they are emotions, not mental illness. Montgomery's husband, Ewan was mentally ill and Montgomery had to keep what was considered a stigma secret. She lived in an age of sexism but she also published twenty novels and was the most successful Canadian author of her generation; sexism affected the lives of all women but she seems to have survived and thrived as a writer. She also had to contend with her son acting up, he was a real bounder, and this was a concern for her. Earlier in her life she was conflicted about her choice of husband and she made what turned out to be a bad choice. Was she addicted to barbiturates? I've known people who were addicted to different legal and illegal drugs and they weren't mentally ill. Montgomery faced rejection in her writing but what writer hasn't received multiple rejection letters that make one question one's life work, continuing writing and publishing and also feel depressed? Montgomery committed suicide and if it weren't for legal doctor assisted suicide I would say that this is a mental illness, it is now a decision, an escape route from being kept alive in a reduced state. I see Luci Maud Montgomery as life affirming, she struggled to write her books and she succeeded. She was depressed over her husband's genuine mental illness, he ended up in a sanatorium, but anyone who has someone close to them that is seriously ill knows that worrying and extreme unhappiness, grief and sadness, are not mental illness, they are natural feelings and a by-product of being caught in an existential state that is possibly resolved only by the death of one's loved one. That's depressing but it's not mental illness, it is strength of character. I prefer to see Luci Maud Montgomery as a healthy-minded and brave woman. Hard times can be overcome, life can be affirmed, healthy-mindedness is more common than mental illness.



This is a one minute Heritage Minute on Canadian TV.

The Garden Myth

Bee balm in our garden, summer 2021

If there is a myth that speaks most directly to my experiences in life it is the Garden Myth, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden. I first learned of this from William Blake by way of Northrop Frye; we have all fallen from the innocence of childhood into a dark forest of experience, a state of self-consciousness. What can be done about this? Is there redemption? Is there a religious experience that will free one from suffering? What is the answer? How do we do it? Christianity? Buddhism? Carl Jung? Krishnamurti? 

__________________

There is a mythological basis to all of my work; the work, the poetry, returns to a central story, a myth. A myth is also a way of looking at one's place in the cosmos, of finding one's spiritual place, of understanding one's life. Finding one's myth is not so much discovering something new as it is rediscovering something that is essential to one's inner life; a myth gives order to one's life, it explains events, it is the foundation of one's experienced life. A myth is the soul's story and the soul loves a narrative, specificity, and order. The Garden Myth, the fall from innocence into experience, is the basis of my writing.

 

For those born on February 6th

When I heard that Gord Downie was born on February 6th I knew he was even more genuinely extraordinary than I originally thought. He also wrote one of my favourite songs , "The Poets", performed by The Tragically Hip. Who else is born on the 6th? Louis Dudek on February 6,1918, poet and McGill professor, who transformed Canadian poetry and also discovered Leonard Cohen and published Cohen's first book of poetry. Also the astrologer Axel Harvey, born in 1940, whose first wife was descended from Aaron Burr, and Aaron Burr was also born on February 6th. Ilona Martonfi, another poet, born on the 6th of February, she has bravely re-visioned her life through poetry and gone deeply into the interior. There is also my cousin, Herb Morrissey, born on February 6th 1938 in the Town of Mount Royal; Herb was a magician and businessman, founder of Morrissey Magic, and a truly unique man, loved and admired and missed by many.

This just in today: when I was growing up we used to spend the summer at a summer cottage in St. Eustache, QC, across the street from my grandmother, my Auntie Mable, and my Uncle Alex and Auntie Ivy. They were wonderful years. Next door to our cottage was where the writer Joseph Schull lived, in a cottage where he wrote behind his mother's house. Thinking back on it Joseph Schull was the first writer that I was aware of and I'm thinking of reading a few of his historical novels. He was born in North Dakota but grew up in Canada, he died in Montreal on 19 May 1980. He was born on February 6, 1906.