Photographs of St. Michael the Archangel Church, Montreal

There is much that could be said about St. Michael the Archangel Church; it is unique in its design, its history, and it is still operating as a church. Here, I just want to give some photographs of the church, most of which I took in the early 2000s. If you stand on Mount Royal, in Mount Royal Cemetry, near the graves of Mordecai Richler or Boris Brott, you can see St. Michael's in the distance, it is a prominent feature on the Montreal landscape.

Rosette window above main entrance

St. Michael's Church on St. Viateur

Guido Nincheri must have felt like Michelangelo when he painted this

About this painting, Fr. Luke Callaghan wrote: 

The dreadful fall of the angels is ingeniously represented: from the four corners of the dome they are hurled into space studded with stars, stripped of their perfect beauty and their spiritual charm; their draperies, torn by the terrible cataclysm, reveal the animal hidden below. They are enveloped in flames that lick the base of the cornices of the arches and the vertical bands that support the dome.

The original statement in French:

La terrible chute des anges est ingénieusement représentée : des quatre coins du dôme ils sont projetés dans l'espace constellé d'étoiles, dépouillés de leur beauté parfaite et de leur charme spirituel ; leurs draperies, déchirées par le terrible cataclysme, révèlent l'animal caché en dessous. Ils sont enveloppés de flammes qui lèchent la base des corniches des arcs et les bandes verticales qui soutiennent le dôme.

I took the following photographs inside St. Michael's Church when it was open to visitors. 

 

That's my wife sitting in the pews...

That's me beside the young woman who was at the door
welcoming visitors to the church

The Luke Callaghan Memorial School

When I visited Luke Callaghan Memorial School in the fall of 1998 it had already been closed as a school; the building is just a block from St. Michael's Church. At the time I visited it was the location of various art and public service organizations. It had been an English-language school in the Catholic School Board of Montreal; it closed (like many other English-language schools in Montreal) due to a decline in student numbers caused by the Quebec government, the children of immigrants had to enroll in the French sector schools. Luke Callaghan was the priest who oversaw the building of St. Michael's Church and then he was the pastor at the church until his death in 1931. Luke Callaghan is my great, great uncle. There is more on him and his two brother on other pages of this blog, or click on www.morrisseyfamilyhistory.com.

Luke Callaghan Memorial School in 2009

Luke Callaghan Memorial School in 1927

Graduating class from Luke Callaghan Memorial School, 1930s, copied from Facebook

Graduating class from Luke Callaghan Memorial School, 1930s, copied from Facebook


Below: that's St. Michael's Church (on St. Viateur West), just a block away on Clarke Street, as seen from the Luke Callaghan Memorial School.

View of St. Michael's Church from Luke Callaghan Memorial School

Possibly Clarke Street, near Luke Callaghan Memorial Church

Luke Callaghan Memorial School

Luke Callaghan Memorial School

Luke Callaghan Memorial School

The following, from  http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/fr/ecole-luke-callaghan/ website, is of interest:

Luke Callaghan School, originally named St. Michael's, was the school for the Irish Catholic community in Mile End. Opened in 1907, it was initially located on rue Boucher, at the corner of rue Drolet. The Sisters of Saint Anne teach the girls and the Marist Brothers, the boys.

After the construction in 1915 of the new St. Michael 's Church at its current location, rue Saint-Viateur Ouest, the school moved in turn. Classes were first held in rented stores on rue Saint-Viateur until the opening in 1922 of the current building, located on rue Clark, between Saint-Viateur and Bernard. The Sisters of Saint Anne still teach girls there, who use a separate entrance. After the withdrawal of the Marist Brothers in June 1925, the parish priest, Luke Callaghan, entrusted the teaching of the boys to a community from Ireland, the Presentation Brothers. The school was renamed Luke Callaghan Memorial after the priest's death in 1931.

The departure of the Irish population from Mile End during the 1950s and 1960s led to a transformation of the school clientele. The secondary level moved to the new Pie ​​X school, located in Ahuntsic, in 1960. The Presentation Brothers left the premises in 1968, because the children of the Italian community in the neighborhood replaced the Irish. The strong Italian immigration of the 1950s and the baby boom meant that the school was quickly overcrowded. Classes must be transferred to French schools in the neighborhood, but they do not meet demand. This situation led to demonstrations against the management of the English sector of the Catholic school board by Italian parents during the spring and summer of 1968.

But the Italian community in turn deserted the Mile End for the suburbs; in addition, the Charter of the French language (law 101), promulgated in 1978, ensures that the children of immigrants now go to French school. During the 1980s, it was the neighboring primary school, Lambert-Closse , which would become the multi-ethnic school in the district. The Luke Callaghan school was empty, and when in 1983 the number of pupils fell below the 200 threshold, the English sector of the Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal (CÉCM) decided to transfer them to the Nazareth school , located on rue Jeanne-Mance, between Laurier Avenue and Saint-Joseph Boulevard. A petition of 600 names, which denounces the influence on children of pornography present in bars and cinemas of the adjacent avenue du Parc, does nothing about it.

The building now houses an Early Childhood Center (CPE) and the Educational and Pedagogical Resource Center, which offers training for adults. The facade of the building, at risk of losing bricks, has been covered with a net since 2015 pending restoration.

Crow keeping out of the rain

It was raining and this crow was sitting under the apple tree in our backyard keeping out of the rain. I know how he felt, I was just leaving for a walk and I was already wet. I had something in common with the crow. 

 

Possible new St. Pierre River sighting

Leaving Meadowbrook Golf Course--anyone who has been there knows where this area is located--I could hear running water, but where was it coming from? Then I noticed a drainage ditch on the other side of the train tracks. Above the tracks is the Montreal West town maintenance department and other buildings. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that this water could possibly be from the buried St. Pierre River on that side of the tracks. It's too late for this to be melting snow or spring run-off so the river may be the source of this water. Of course, I could be totally wrong and this is just wishful thinking. . .

This is the trail out of the golf course

On the right are train tracks and below are more train tracks

That is quite a lot of water emptying out of a drainage pipe

This is just about thirty feet east of the train bridge as you exit the golf course;
the train tracks going east and west are directly below the source of water

As I was watching this, a ground hot crossed the water; there
is still a lot of urban wildlife 

I make a stew

On this rainy and sleighty chilly May day, I've made my first stew, something I've wanted to cook for some time. And it was really good!

The garden in mid-May

I always enjoy seeing photographs of other people's gardens; here are some photos of my Canadian cottage garden taken on May 21, 2022.

At the side of the house, a path, and then this lilac bush that I cut  
to about one foot in height and was told it might not survive. That
was about eight or so years ago; it took all of this time to grow back  

There is a special quality to water
in a garden, even as little water as in a bird bath

Last fall I planted this row of hostas in the very rear of the garden; 
all of the plants survived the winter and are flourishing

Hostas

This row of hostas pulls the garden together, frames it so that there is something
where before there was nothing but cedars, shade, and dirt

I added day lilies to another area of the garden in addition
to what you see here, soon the day lilies will be in bloom

A row of miniature irises

The garden is being pulled together; not sure there is any need for
more expansion, mainly maintenance, and dividing and moving
plants when they get too big plentiful for where they are now

View from Toe Blake Park

This isn't quite my final installment of what's happening at the St. Pierre River, only an update; now the section of the river that crosses Meadowbrook Golf Course is buried some landscaping is in the works. Planting some shrubs and bushes over the area that was buried. Photos taken on May 18, 2022.

What has been taken from nature can be restored to nature

I write about what interests me, what I see when I go out walking, what catches my eye, what I'm thinking about, what I like and what I don't like. I like nature, not the great outdoors but what's left of urban nature; I don't like more urban development. I haven't walked at Meadowbrook Golf Course very often but I was there a few weeks ago and it occurred me to that the remains of the river located there, and that were recently buried, can just as easily be restored; they haven't destroyed the St. Pierre River, they have only buried it. Remember that television show, what various cities would like if the population disappeared and civilization came to an end? It doesn't take long for nature to assert herself and civilization to disappear. My God! Just drive around Montreal and experience the craters in our city streets! There is one street where it's like an obstacle course, where I swerve around the potholes.

At the garden centre

Last week I visited our local garden centre, then I returned a few days later for what I didn't get the first visit. Don't be cheap; within reason, buy more than you think you'll need, that blackberry bush won't be there the next day or, if it is there, only the plants that other people have picked over will be left. Vincelli's Garden Centre is gone, now it's just an overgrown city lot where, two years ago, you could buy perennials that weren't sold at larger garden centres. BTW, last fall we saw a rabbit near Vincelli's, we thought he must have been someone's pet that had escaped and that he wouldn't survive the winter; about a week ago we saw him again, worse for wear but still alive. Here are photos from the garden centre at Reno Depot on rue St-Jacques; I've come here for years. Prices this year are about 40 to 60% higher that what you paid a year ago. If you have mostly perennials this won't matter, there may even come a day when you won't buy any plants. 

The first photos were taken on May 5, the garden centre was still being set up; return visit was on May 8. 

What I bought a few days after my first visit; geraniums, a lavender plant;
a stringy blackberry bush that has since flourished.

Zoom book launch for Ekstasis Editions books

Here is the text I read at the Zoom online book launch for several of this years new Ekstasis Editions books, including my own The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry, on poetry, poets, and psyche. This event was online on Sunday, 15 May 2022 at 2 p.m.

----------------------

Book Launch, Zoom, 15 May 2022, 2 p.m.

Place in Poetry

Thank you to Richard Olafson for publishing these books that are being launched today, and thank you to Endre Farkas and Carolyn-Marie Souaid for organizing this book launch.

This book, The Green Archetypal Fields of Poetry, on poetry, poets, and psyche isn't poetry so maybe I should just say a few words to introduce the book.

This is my second book with Ekstasis Editions on poetics and memoir, on becoming a poet. The first book was  A Poet's Journey: On Poetry and what it Means to be a Poet. Thank you Richard, I really appreciate your work for poetry.

The background to the book, what created it, its reason for having been written, is that we live in a place, a city or a community, and this is a commitment to a specific geographical location, it is also a spiritual location. For me, this location, this place, is Montreal. In fact, the whole book refers to Montreal. Montreal is my psychic centre.

But think of place in the work of Charles Olson, it's Gloucester; or William Carlos Williams, it's Paterson; or Raymond Souster, it's Toronto; and for Louis Dudek and John Glassco, it's Montreal.

Montreal is where modern English Canadian poetry was born. If you were a poet in Canada you wanted to live, even for a short time, in Montreal. PK Page, Phyllis Webb, and many others lived here for a while, and this is the birth place in the 1920s of the Montreal Group of Poets at McGill University; they included FR Scott, AJM Smith, and John Glassco; also in Montreal were others, Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, and AM Klein.

This is where we came from and we haven't left.

I also wrote about the Vehicule Poets, "Starting Out from Vehicule Art Gallery", a history of our early days as poets, the Sunday afternoon readings, and that essay is in the book. Of course, the Vehicule Poets are in the line, the lineage, of the Montreal Group and other groups of poets that started here. That is our canonical lineage because all poetry is a part of a canon and a lineage of poets and poetry, however poetry changes it is always in the context of a lineage.

There is also our ancestral heritage in Montreal. For me, personally, my family have lived and worked here since 1840; not as long as my Quebecois and Quebecoise friends, and certainly not as long as the Indigenous people, but still a long time, and I have written about this as well, for instance the Morrissey Family History website.

Poets aren't nomads and we're not from nowhere. We're from a specific place, but this specificity of place is being lost in the economic and political globalism of the world, in every city you visit the condos are all the same, the stores and music we hear is the same, the politics is divided, and what is specific and local is being lost.

More specifically, my psychic centre, what made me the person I am today, is my family history but this is located and symbolized in my grandmother`s home on Girouard Avenue in Montreal`s West End. No one had money but family kept us together.

So place works on a number of different levels, it works as a geographical place, but it's also an ancestral and spiritual place, it's what formed us as people, it's the the birth of psyche.

That's how I became a poet, it began here in the City of Montreal.

Montreal is our home as poets, it's our centre as poets. 

Here is a short excerpt from The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry:

We are increasingly living in a deracinated world, in a global community, but a global community is an abstraction, an invention of committees and legislation and driven for profit and by people’s personal ambition; it is an intellectual construct, it is not born organically, a process that may take hundreds of years of human migration, political and military strategies, layers of cultural change, and spiritual vision. There is also a spirit of place; spirit of place manifests in the natural world, but it also includes our ancestral memory and family history and stories. If we are not careful we will soon be living in Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984 world of geographical regions and the repression of creative individuality, not places of vibrant specificity that are containers of soul. A geographical place is specific and local, it is not abstract but concrete; globalism is an abstract concept that has little or no connection to community or place. Abstraction denies the specificity of place; place emphasizes the diverse world of things. Poetry requires community; it requires the diversity of a specific place.

Thank you all for being so patient and listening to this.

 

Walking to the golf course

Here is the trail along the train tracks to the back entrance to Meadowbrook Golf Course and then to the St. Pierre River. This was my walk on May 10th. There is a long history of people having gardens along railway tracks, you can still see some of them from the Westminster Bridge. In recent years the Canadian Pacific Railway has forced people off of this land which belongs to the railway. People grow vegetables, they aren't squatters. This trail (below) is on a ridge adjacent to the tracks, let's hope it remains as it is in perpetuity... because they're building condos on every square inch of land everywhere else.