Today, heavy wet snow that sticks to the snow shovel, it takes some of us two shifts to get rid of this snow; begin at 7:30, take a rest, finish later this morning; but milder weather is forecast for later this week. It’s a monochromatic world out there, gone the flowers of summer, gone the garden of 2023.
Photographs taken on 4 December 2023.
It was -6 C and felt like -12 when I took these photographs on November 24, it wasn't even winter, it was a first taste of winter but without snow. As you get older you wonder if you can take another winter; it will be like this, and colder, all of December, January, February, March, and the first days of April. Too much, too long, too cold.
It is what we, in Canada, must endure.
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| Hand/Grenade by Joan Thornton |
6 am
damp
in darkness
North Sea
slapping
on the rump
of
Europe
In
Montreal
not
so far
we cannot
feel
that strain
as
Real
riot-
ous im-
mediate
as
the States
whose sharp Spring
tremor
like
a
subterran-
ean
shiver
-- shifts
our centres
of
atten-
tion
NOW -far
out along
dark
borders
where
for miles
un-
easy
migrants
perch
the ragged
edges
of
a storm
Thornton, Joan. Hand Grenade. Ottawa, The Golden Dog Press, 1973
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| 20 January 2016, Blvd de Maisonneuve, Montreal |
I like to sit and write, I like to put words on a page and form sentences, paragraphs, statements, poems, inconsequential scribblings, or meaningful insights, body, coherence, expressions of what I think and feel, or where something is uncovered or something unfolds out of apparent nothingness, something is born to awareness or something is created where there was nothing, and slowly something meaningful is written down, slowly I uncover who I am with words, words that are ink, squiggles, scribbles, sentences, shapes, and shadows on a sheet of lined white paper, and this is done in this room where I am alone, and the room is a place of solitude, (writers must love solitude, must love the physical act of writing), and something new is created as this writing forms a single entity, and I am no longer alone, there is also this new entity, it is this writing that seems to have come out of nowhere. And that is how a poem or this paragraph are written.
Preface
—John Milton
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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.
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
Snow expected tomorrow; today, rain, 1 degree C. And here is what it’s like outside a few minutes ago.
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I am very happy to announce the publication of my new book, Farewell, Darkness, Selected Poems, published by Ekstasis Editions, Victoria, BC. Thank you to all who helped bring this book to publication, including Richard Olafson, the publisher of Ekstasis Editions, my wife Carolyn Zonailo, and thank you, Nellie McClung, whose painting "Sailboats off Kitsilano" is the cover image. The poems in this book were published between 1971 and 2021, and best represent what I have tried to do in poetry.
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| Late November snow, 2018 |
The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.
The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.
The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,
And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,
And small birds chirp and startle with affright;
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,
Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.
Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings
Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud;
With sudden stir the startled forest sings
Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud,
And the horizon throws away its shroud,
Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;
Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,
And o'er the sameness of the purple sky
Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.
At length it comes along the forest oaks,
With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;
The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,
And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,
While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.-
The hedger hastens from the storm begun,
To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;
And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,
Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.
The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,
While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.
The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves,
Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,
Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.
There he doth dithering sit, and entertain
His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,
And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again.
Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods,
Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;
One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods,
The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;
A dreary nakedness the field deforms -
Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,
Lives in the village still about the farms,
Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night
Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.
At length the stir of rural labour's still,
And Industry her care awhile forgoes;
When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task, at bleak November's close,
And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay,
And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,
For little birds - then Toil hath time for play,
And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.
.jpg)
Preface
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T |
he Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche is a
collection of essays and short statements on poetry and poetics. This book complements my previous book, A Poet’s Journey:
on poetry and what it means to be a poet
(2019) also published by Ekstasis Editions. I’ve spent many years in the
solitary work of writing poems and thinking about poetry; this book summarizes,
explains, and enlarges on that subject. The book is divided into three
sections; they are: ideas about poetry and writing poetry; a discussion of several
Canadian poets, including F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Louis Dudek, and the poets
I knew from the early days at Véhicule Art Gallery; and shamanism, psyche, or
soul in poetry.
1 H.W. Garrod in his book, Poetry and the Criticism of Life (1931),
writes that it was Seneca “who first said, what Ben Jonson and many others have
said after him, that the critic of poetry must be himself a poet.” There is a tradition
of poets writing about poetry; Louis Dudek’s writing is full of a contagious
enthusiasm for poetry; Irving Layton wrote with bravado about the importance of
poetry in Waiting for the Messiah
(1985), and there are important statements on poetry in the prefaces of some of
his books. Three other books of essays and commentaries on poetry need to be
mentioned: co-edited by Louis Dudek and Michael Gnarowski, The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada (1967); An English Canadian Poetics
(2009) edited by Robert Hogg; and On
Poetry and Poets, Selected Essays of A.J.M. Smith (1977). I also recommend George
Whalley’s extraordinary Poetic Process,
an essay on poetics (1967).
2 In Canada we rarely celebrate our poets,
I refer to poets of previous generations; even poets who died only five or ten
years ago seem to have never existed judging by their absence from our cultural
or daily life, or their being mentioned for their poetry, or their poetry being
quoted. We don’t name bridges or airports after our poets, that’s reserved for
dead politicians no matter how dubious their contribution to our national life.
This collective amnesia does not augur well for our future; if we can't even remember
a few dead poets who helped define what Canada means, then what kind of a
country will we end up having?
3 What are the perennial qualities of
poetry? There is the dichotomy between two approaches to poetry, two types of
poets, Apollonian and Dionysian, classical and romantic, formal and informal,
cosmopolitan and nativist. No matter which group of poets one falls into one of
the things that makes for great poetry is if the poet has found his or her authentic
voice: has the poet written something that is true to their inner being and is
insightful of the human condition; and the corollary of this: does the poem
move us emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually? This is the type of poetry
that interests me; these perennial qualities make for great poetry.
4 My approach to poetry has always been
intuitive. Intuitive people know that intuition gives us knowing but without
proof, while intellectual knowledge is substantive but often lacks the insight
and originality of intuition. When intuition precedes intellectual
understanding, as it does, then it is necessary to find evidence for one’s intuitions. Most of my insights into poetry—for
instance, and I’m obviously not the first to
say it, that poetry is the voice of the human soul—originated intuitively. In
this book I am trying to substantiate my intuitive insights into poetry, this
has helped me to better understand my thinking on poetry and, I hope, it is of
interest to readers.
5 No real poet ever decided to be a poet,
it doesn’t work that way; if it was a decision they probably didn’t last long
writing poetry. I answered a call to do this work and now I ask, is there
closure on this activity that has dominated my life? This book is closure for
my writing about the meaning of poetry but, as for writing new poems, I don’t
want to end up as some old poets do, and that is publishing perfectly written
but meaningless poetry. I hope I will be long gone before that happens. Of
course, there may still be a few poems to write, and a few odds and ends to
write about poetry; there is no age for retirement for poets, there is just the
slow act of disappearing.
Stephen
Morrissey
Montreal,
Canada
16
November 2021
Preface
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Whether poets are born or made every
poet is on a unique journey, this is the journey to writing original poems in
an authentic voice. This journey
includes poets who are one's mentors; the poet friends of one's youth; the
poets who are an influence on one's work and thinking; and the varied
experiences of life that are important to the development of the poet. The art
of poetry includes ideas about poetry; poetry as the voice of the human soul; visionary
poetry; the purpose of experimental poetry; confessional poetry; and finding an
authentic voice in poetry.
Some
aspects of the poet's journey have changed over the years. We have more people
today writing poetry, giving poetry readings, and trying to publish their poems
than possibly ever before. Most of these people aren't reading or buying poetry
books but poetry is still very much alive, it's just not the same type of
involvement as it was in the past. The poetry scene today is less sophisticated
than it was forty years ago; back then there were fewer poets, fewer prizes and
awards, and fewer creative writing courses. I remember when new books by Robert
Lowell, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop and others were given extensive and
serious reviews in newspapers and periodicals.
New books by Canadian poets, for instance Irving Layton, P.K. Page, and
Earle Birney, were also given serious and intelligent reviews in newspapers and
periodicals. These poets from a previous generation had an important place in
our culture but there are no poets today with the same cultural relevance and
prominence that poets once had. This does not signal the end or even the
diminishment of poetry. Poetry endures for one specific reason: poetry is the
voice of the human soul and it gives access to the inner life both when reading
poetry and when writing poetry. For this reason, as well, poetry will never
die.
Many things have changed in this post-postmodern world in which we live; however, some things will never change. Are people really all that different now than they were five hundred or five thousand years ago? The human spirit endures, human kindness and human malice endure, and the fundamental vision of art endures when it is acknowledges the human spirit. All art is an expression of the visionary capacity to see what is below the mundane surface of things; indeed, all art is vision in its transformation of the complexity and depth of the unconscious mind. All poets who have set forth on this extraordinary journey of self-discovery, creativity, and writing poetry know they must find their authentic voice and that this voice is an expression of the poet's vision, and this expression has a perennial place in the consciousness of humanity.
Montreal,
Quebec
December
2018
Morrissey, Stephen. A Poet's Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet. Ekstasis Editions, Victoria. 2019
O, I would tell soul’s story to the end,
Psyche on bruised feet walking the hard ways,
The knives, the mountain of ice,
Seeking her beloved through all the world,
Remembering – until at last she knows
Only that long ago she set out to find –
But whom or in what place
No longer has a name.
So through life’s long years she stumbles on
From habit enduring all. Clouds
Disintegrate in sky’s emptiness.
She who once loved remembers only that once she loved:
Is it I who wrote this?
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| 2012 |
