my Amazon review of Flint & Feather (Charlotte Gray's biography)

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5.0 out of 5 stars then Purdy's best friend, Milton Acorn July 5 2014

By Chris Faiers

Format:Paperback|Verified Purchase

This is a book every Canadian should read. Biographer Charlotte Gray reminds us that in Pauline Johnson's time a century+ ago, there was still the fading hope that the 'settlers' of Canada and the First Nations peoples could create a nation based on sharing and trust.

Pauline Johnson tried to straddle the divide between being half settler, with an English-born mother, & a father who was a Mohawk chief. Her parents encouraged their children to give equal value to both cultures, which Pauline tried to exemplify with her poetry. Pauline's poetry has been in & out of favour several times, & thanks in large part to Gray's fascinating biography, Pauline Johnson's poetry is again finding a new & intrigued audience.

I help organize an annual summer gathering of Canadian poets, & we've been working our way back through the history of Canada's "People's Poets" by studying the leading lights of this movement. Our symposiums started with a discussion on the life & legacy of "The Voice of Canada", poet Al Purdy. The next summer we featured Ted Plantos, then Purdy's best friend, Milton Acorn. We've reviewed the legacy of Raymond Souster, and last year we honoured Dorothy Livesay. This summer we are honouring the life & legacy of Pauline Johnson.

There was some initial questioning in our gathering over the validity of claiming Pauline Johnson as a People's Poet. After reading Gray's biography, there is no question in my mind of the seminal influence of Johnson on Canadian poetry. Pauline Johnson was an early advocate for First Nations issues, a proto-feminist, and a true trooper, in that she earned her living for well over a decade by giving public poetry recitals in venues as varied as barrooms to chic Victorian parlours.

Charlotte Gray's bio of Pauline is painstakingly researched, & yet she has managed to write Pauline's story in an incredibly readable style. One night I began reading late, anticipating a half hour session at most. When I glanced at the clock, I'd been reading until 3 AM, and it was with reluctance that I let the book fall next to me as I finally drifted into sleep with dreams of canoeing with Pauline ; )

Read this book and you'll be a better person and a better Canadian!

 

(I parallel read Pauline's complete works while enjoying the historical narrative of her life as carefully detailed by Charlotte Gray.)


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On 2014-07-05, at 12:25 PM, Charlotte Gray wrote:

This is wonderful, Chris. Many thanks!
I'm busy with a big history project right now, but I'll think seriously about your poets!
Sent from my iPhone


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Thanks, Charlotte  ;  )
As Pauline might have put it, 'booming' is just a part of the poetry business. I hope you will write a joint bio on Milt & Big Al. So far as I know, there isn't a bio on Al, altho there are at least 2 or 3 already on Milt. Of course Purdy wrote the start of his own history with his auto bio SPLINTER IN THE HEART.

best wishes on the current project - it sounds major!

peace & poetry power!
Chris .. & Chase Wrffffffffffffffffff!  (we were halfway out the door on the way to ZRG, but remembered to check my machine to turn it off & got your kind note)

       
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Gwen Hauser, 1944 - 2012 (James Deahl)

Gwen



         Gwen Hauser, 1944 – 2012




What you remember from the farm

is the annual slaughter of steers,

the screams of pigs being castrated,

your father’s blood-streaked hands working

the sausage machine, is your own mother

reduced to someone less than human.

And being piss-poor, always piss-poor.

Of your high school years in Medicine Hat

you remember — can never forget —

the provincial mental hospital,

whose doctors prescribed medications

you refused to take. You fled the Prairies

and that hard-scrabble farm for Toronto,

running all the way, to find what?

A girl does not run from something;

she runs to something. Toronto.

In the Big Smoke you found Bergman’s Silence,

that pervasive Swedish despair.

You found men who would not love you enough,

and a hard-scrabble life on the streets.

Poor Gwen, we sympathized, poor Gwen,

but sympathy and gentle thoughts

have never healed a broken heart.

And, yes, you found poetry and courage

to speak it: a strong voice, and true.

Early this morning I learn of your death

and watch winter’s rain soak the fallen leaves.

You hammered out poems laced with pain

— yours and the sufferings of those you loved —

a poetry of survival on the margins;

I pray your divided heart’s been healed.

James Deahl



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December 7, 2013
Dear Chris,

         Late last night this came in from our old buddy Krisantha. Best thing that has come my way since I spread the news of Gwen's death. It captures Gwen and her total commitment to poetry. Thought you might like to post it.
         . . . James

Dear Jim,

I woke up this morning in Colombo to this, telling me of Gwen's possible 'cease and desist'.

Still trying to digest. Are you sure she has passed away? She has a way of showing up in unexpected ways and in new disguises.......:)

I guess I first met her in 1976 at the Parliament Street Library where Ted Plantos would do a regular gathering, and she was an active presence.

Funny but I had a dream just the other day of another PSL poetry partaker who I barely knew who then jumped off the Bloor Viaduct. I remember Gwen talking about her situation and writing about what may have driven a young woman to do such. She had truly 'Canadian experience' of the horrible treatment of 'mental' patients. She also would openly take on those who wrote sexist or fascist crap.

I also remember an argument between her and the CP cartoonist Mike Constable (with Mike arguing Canada was 'liberal' and Gwen insisting it was truly 'fascist'!)

Gwen wrote about the city, and about work in factories and laundries, and yes, of Toronto and Alberta and Canada in ways no one else did. Ardent is the second word that most comes to mind. And yes, it's a tribute to Fred Cogswell, that despite the wasteland of vapidity of what he or others usually published, that he published her).

We worked together putting readings at the grey 519 (former Granite Club!), (in fact, Partisan organized an early gathering there where I read) and then together we did a huge (100? I exaggerate perhaps) Toronto Festival of Poets in 1978 (?), and also did another (crazy) day long fest called the Goldflower Festival (named after a Chinese red feminist) in 1979, but was ahead of its time in the sheer compass of the people involved.  We also helped facilitate the set up of the women's poetry sessions at the 519 as well... And it is through her I met Himani Bannerji and Dionne Brand, etc......and then came the 'multivultural' 1980s.....

After I launched my last poetry book, Cheqpoint in Heaven, in Toronto in 2005, she came and read some poems, brilliant in many ways and as always – but I did disagree with her take on history ( I thought she had taken to defending the Nazis versus the Soviets!) ..she had also taken to going to church, which I thought odd, even tho it was the MCC....

Still, her commitment to writing about the here and the now and what she thought would come next, was truly inspiring, and regardless of who remembers her and how, she was more than anyone I knew a truly 'Canadian' and 'Toronto' poet, for she talked of real people and real things..

I hate writing about people after they have passed away. But I do think she will still jump out of bush and hit someone with one of her many bags overflowing with poems.

Funny, I am about to go to a monthly poetry gathering Poetry P'lau we organize in Colombo (called by most people, Kolamba) and I woke up early to send a final note about it, and now, I am not sure I can go back to sleep....

Krisantha

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"Yours, Al": CanPo gossip then (and now)

Hi James,
I'm pretty sure I copied you on my report on the meeting Terry & I had with Howard Aster a few weeks ago re the 'second' Mosaic book on Milt (the Festschrift, or more accurately when it's posthumous, the Gedenkschrift). Howard seems keen on the book, & so far we've collected material from 20 - 25 contributors.

Terry & I chatted briefly yesterday (St. Patty's Day). I was beginning to feel we are losing momentum with the second book, but Terry said he believes the lull in activity is because so many contributors are professors, & it's now mid-semester & 'busy time' for them. I hope this is an accurate assessment, as we all know how crucial this book will be to continuing the resurrection of Milt. Also Bruce Meyer has been very ill (Howard eagerly accepted our recommendation of adding him as an editor).

Part of why I signed on for the project is to maintain & re-establish contact with other poets, & in the past few weeks this aspect has been very enjoyable. I've exchanged a # of emails with our old friend, Sheila Martindale, who's now out in Victoria. Last week I finally reconnected with George Miller (& thus Don Cullen). George is looking to buy a place outside of TO, & we spent a day or so looking at properties in the Marmora area. There's a very affordable power of sale about to come on the market in the village ($80K on a very desirable street!), & I'm hoping George will buy it & join our gang of local literary miscreants.

A sooprise just arrived by snail mail. A letter from Wayne, asking if we can be friends again? He's very open about his conviction & jail time, & has written extensively about this & god knows what else ... Hmmmm on this for the time being ...

Chase & I had a great visit in TO, & Sylvia & I enjoyed our usual whirlwind of dog walks, seeing Jim Christy's play, JACKIE & JACK, N. Viet dinner with Terry & Kent Bowman, etc. . On a seasonal wardrobe updating mission to the local Value Village (VV), I found a pristine copy of YOURS, AL, the collected letters of Al Purdy, edited by Sam Solecki in 2004  ... cost me $3.99!!!

I immediately found a letter between Milt & Al, in which Milt proclaims his First Nations heritage, & dubious as that may be, it was a key part of Milt's personality, which is what
the letter emphasizes. If we need to, we can fill in potential gaps in the second Milt book from sources such as this book, altho this would be a last resort.

Have you read the book? I'm about a third of the way thru. Some letters I've read twice, & many I just skim over. Lots of great stuff - it's such a Who's Who of that era of CanLit & CanPo (Purdy uses the term CanPo - I thought I'd invented it, & Conrad DiDiodato once even credited me with this on his blog - sorry, Conrad, but Big Al was there decades before me).

Anyway, I'm hoping to do some sort of book review on my  blog of YOURS, AL when I've finished reading it. The blog is now averaging over 100 hits a day, which is very gratifying (altho not as ego stroking as it could be, as most of the visits are on postings other than my writings - altho the good news is that recently almost all the daily top 5 hits have been on postings about Milt!).  I've explained to Terry that getting Milt a major internet presence is probably more important for his legacy than publishing more printed books, but of course both types of exposure overlap & reinforce each other.

Anyway, I'm very interested in your opinion of YOURS, AL. So far there hasn't been a lot of correspondence between Milt & Al in it. When I mentioned this to Terry, querying
if this was a deliberate omission of Milt on Solecki's part, Terry replied that Solecki prob. just didn't think Milt was that important, that Solecki's focus was on the great poet, Big Al.
As I'm only a third of the way thru, I can't fully comment yet on Milt's role in the book, but again, would love to know your opinions* on the book, etc. . 

Trust all well with you & Norma? All as healthy with Chase & me as can be expected of a 14 - 15 yr-old dog & his crazy 'golden age' human  :  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris ... and Chase Wrfffffffffffffffffffff! (who's old! - you just about passed out on the trail today, while I RAN ahead - looking for help?)

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March 19, 2013

Dear Chris & Chase,


            Many thanks for your big e-mail of late last night. I have never read Yours, Al. I do, however, know that there was a lot of correspondence between Milt and Al over the decades. As an aside, I have never respected Sam Solecki even though I know Big Al liked the fellow. It is quite likely that Milt was either one-eighth or one-sixteenth Indian, depending if Mary Musich or Musick (1827 – 1914) was a full-blooded Micmac or not. Milt was born 9 years after his great-grandmother died, so he never knew her. He liked to think of her as a full-blooded Micmac, but who knows?

Happy Spring!
...James (Deahl), Norma & Rocky

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