Re. Robert Bly and F. Scott Fitzgerald: their snow

At a time of human-caused global warming, the connection between Christmas and snow is based largely on nostalgia.  But unless you live south of the equator, Christmas is a winter holiday and winter gestures towards snow, even though many places in the northern hemisphere will not receive snow at Christmas.  In fact, in many of these places, if snow falls at all during winter it's freakish, city-stopping occurrence.  Yet there remains a strong desire to see snow at this time of year.  And not just any snow either: not the snow that you must shovel from your driveway, not the snow that makes your feet feel wet and cold, not the snow that turns to brown slush at the curbside--but a pastoral, picturesque snow, the kind of snow that, say, blankets a meadow in some not-too-distant countryside. The snows of yesteryear, to borrow a phrase from Villon (albeit via translation).

*

The other day I was leafing through a poetry anthology and came across Robert Bly's 1967 poem "Looking at New-Fallen Snow from a Train."  I hadn't read it before and it made a strong impression on me.  The poem's title sets the scene and in the opening lines the poet expands on the scene: 

Snow has covered the next line of tracks, 
And filled the empty cupboards in the milkweed pods; 
It has stretched out on the branches of weeds,
And softened the frost-hills, and the barbed-wire rolls
Left leaning against a fencepost---
It has drifted onto the window ledges high in the peaks of barns. 

The poem is somewhat pastoral, albeit a compromised pastoral: the train itself and the barbed- wire are signs of industrialization.  And then the poem jumps the track, so to speak, as suddenly Bly imagines a man who "throws back his head, gasps/ And dies," and "A salesman [who] falls, striking his head on the edge of the counter."  I must admit that I can't account for the sudden switch from one set of images to the other, except to say that this might be a kind of "Deep Image" tactic to rattle our expectations. 

In the poem's third section we return again to the scenes flashing by in the train's window.  We see the snow as peaks on rotten fence posts, as sloping down towards the slough, as lining the steps of a ladder leaning against a building.  This is a return to the pastoral, until we reach the final line of the section: an image of the snow resting "on transformer boxes held from the ground forever in the center of cornfields."  And on that note, the poem changes direction once more: 

A man lies down to sleep.
Hawks and crows gather around his bed. 
Grass shoots up between the hawks' toes. 
Each blade of grass is a voice.
The sword by his side breaks into flame. 

Although I can't explain what's going in the poem's final lines, I can at least say that they remind me of an old Christmas carol - not sung very often - sometimes called "The Corpus Christi Carol,"  sometimes called "Down in Yon Forest."  There are several versions of the song, as is often the case with true folk songs.   Here are the lyrics from the version recorded by Bruce Cockburn on his wonderful album, simply titled Christmas.  The lyrics, which are traditional, can be found on the all-things-Cockburn website http://cockburnproject.net/: 

Down in yon forest be a hall
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
'Tis coverleted over with purple and pall
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, in that hall is a pallet-bed
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
'Tis stained with blood like cardinal-red
Sing all good men for the new born baby

And at that pallet is a stone
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
On which the virgin did atone
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Under that hall is a gushing flood
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
- From Christ's own side, 'tis water and blood
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Beside that bed a shrub-tree grows
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
Since he was born it blooms and blows
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, on that bed a young squire sleeps
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
His wounds are sick and sick, he weeps
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, hail yon hall where none can sin
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
'Cause it's gold outside and silver within
Sing all good men for the new born baby 
    

*

Although the go-to novelist at this time of year is, of course, Charles Dickens, I like to turn to the end of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to reread the portion where Nick Carraway remembers travelling back home by train to the American Mid-west at Christmastime. The passage is rich with nostalgia, with the sense of home-going, and rich with snow. FSF writes: 

"When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again." 

My parka, my friend

The weather has been quite wintry lately.  The temperatures have been in the double digits below zero for at least a couple weeks now.  For northern Manitoba, however, that's not surprising.  Now that we're stepping into December, it will simply continue to be cold and stay cold.  And so I once again to reacquaint myself with an old friend--my parka. 

My parka is nothing fancy.  It's not one of those grand Canada Goose jackets.  It's just a serviceable number that I picked up at an Eddie Bauer store in Saskatoon one February (thus getting it at a sale price).  It's black and it still looks new-ish, though it's seen me through roughly seven winters now.  And though the zippers are starting to go (they're becoming rather temperamental about zipping and unzipping), I think it will see me through another winter.  

But my parka is more than just a coat: from November til April, it becomes my home base. Like Tom Baker's coat in the Dr. Who series from the 1970s, my parka is full of pockets with a seemingly unending amount of storage space.  And I put all sorts of good, useful things in those pockets: naturally my wallet and keys, but also a pen or two, a notebook, matches, a handkerchief or two, a Swiss army knife, a small flashlight, binoculars - maybe even a bird guidebook - and a slender thermos-bottle. When I'm travelling my passport slides into a pocket effortlessly, as does a spare set of glasses or sunglasses.  I can tuck a sandwich or granola bar easily away into one of my pockets.  And when I'm not wearing my toque or gloves, they can be shoved down into the pockets as well.  My world seems to revolve around my parka and the things I put into it.  

I take my parka all over the place, too.  All across northern Manitoba and down to Winnipeg.  I bring it with me when I'm snow-shoeing or taking a quick run to pick up some groceries at the Northern Store.  It's been with me in Saskatchewan.  It's been with me in Labrador.  It's been with me in Ontario.  I wear it at Christmas. I wear it at New Year's.  I wear it (often) at Easter, too.  It has been a kind of faithful and constant companion--like a good old-fashioned side-kick, like a good old-fashioned dog. 

How it begins (again)

During my first year in northern Manitoba - back when I was living in Flin Flon - I recall being told that when it snows after Hallowe'en, it stays.  The snow stays and that's winter.   And it can come very quickly. 

Since last Thursday winter came and took hold.  At first it was picturesque, with a few flakes glinting in the sunlight.  On Friday morning Norway House was an image of Christmascard pastoral: every treebranch lined with soft snow.  Soft snow softly falling.  But by Friday afternoon the wind came--hard, fierce and sharp.  The lake began to freeze.  And that sharp wind stayed all weekend, freezing the river that flows past our home. The snow is now ankledeep in places.

This is how it begins. And this is how it will stay, staying with us until April.  And I admit I don't look forward to month after month of wondering, Will the car start? Months of frozen fingertips and cold ears.  But all the same, there is, to my mind, something calming and peaceful about winter. 

Re. Cheever's "The World of Apples"

When I was 19 years old I read The Letters of John Cheever. I don't believe that I'd read any of Cheever's fiction at that point, but I suppose I'd come to believe that the collection of his letters was an important thing to read.  We do that sort of thing when we're young, don't we? We come to believe that a book or an author is worthwhile, important, valuable, and so we doggedly, painstakingly read--reading every word thoughtfully, thoroughly, dutifully. 

However, some real good came of it.  My 19 year-old-self was right about Cheever. I must have intuited something about him when I picked up that book of his letters--for Cheever is a good writer. And every time I read one of his stories, I'm deeply impressed.  Just the other day I read Cheever's "The World of Apples," about an aging American poet living in Italy, and was moved by the story's quiet power.   It's one of those stories in which every word seems to be well-placed, perfectly placed, and every scene beautifully rendered, building towards a powerful - though understated - conclusion. 

Re. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth"

As Hallowe'en approaches, I enjoy reading something festively macabre.  This year I've been reading H.P. Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow over Innsmouth." And I've been enjoying it immensely.  One thing that strikes me about H.P.L.: yes, he over-writes, but he knows how to over-write, which is a real skill, a real talent.  

To read the long story, please see: 

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/soi.aspx

The view from here

After the events of this past week - the shooting on Parliament Hill being large in my mind - plus international events - the spread of the Ebola virus also being large in mind - I can't help but feel particularly lucky to be where I am. 

Today in Norway House it is grey and misty. The snow that I wrote about earlier this month has melted away and the temperature is relatively mild.  The trees and shrubs, now bare, clustered leaflessly together, look like woven baskets.   As I walked back and forth from the college where I teach, only a few ravens were out and about, lazily coasting over the treetops. 

It is, in a word, peaceful.  And that's nothing to take lightly.  

How it begins

It takes more than one swallow to make a summer, the saying goes.  And it takes more than one snowfall to make a winter.  On Sunday, I was willing to say that it was just one of those early snowfalls that one gets in northern Manitoba in October.  A snowfall that would come and would go, sloppily melting away as the temperature crept back up over zero.  But now I'm not so sure: it's snowed off and on throughout Monday and today it's still snowing.  Is this it? Is this winter?  Not all the leaves have fallen yet.   

*

A few words from Patrick Lane, from his poem "Winter 1," a peaceful moment taken from his short, fierce book simply titled Winter: 

The generosity of snow, the way it forgives

transgression, filling in the many betrayals

and leaving the world

exactly as it was. 

Franklin discovery

Last week's big Franklin announcement - the finding of a significant shipwreck from Sir John Franklin's fated 1845-46 expedition in Canada's Arctic waters - left me rather cold (pun intended).  As a student of Canada's north, I suppose I should have been excited, but I must admit that I wasn't.

The story of the Franklin expedition is one that Canada loves to tell (hence Prime Minister Harper was on hand to help make the announcement).  It seems to say something about us.  A kind of national narrative.  Of course, if it says something about Canada, its message is rather oblique: after all, Franklin's expedition was British, not Canadian.  And as it was a mission to find the Northwest Passage, it's worth keeping in mind that the whole purpose of the journey was to avoid Canada.

But, that aside, it offers some suggestion about Canada that we seem to enjoy.  Perhaps because the Franklin expedition provides a message about the harshness of our country, about our northlands, about how we must observe humility in the face of this harsh northern region--because all hubris will be crushed.  But what if it's the wrong story to tell? What if it's too much of a cliche to still be telling that story in 21st century?  

One thing that I like about the news re. the Franklin discovery: it proved that the Inuit had it right all along. They knew where one of the ships could be found.  And maybe that should be the story: the story that we need to know and reflect on.

* 

In the Opinion/Commentary section of The Toronto Star, Kathleen Winter had this to say: "How long do we refrain from challenging a national government that uses sad, outworn tales of lost Franklin ships like a magic lantern, superimposing a narrative of patriotic swagger over the real north — a land whose elements, people and animals are trying to tell us something about what it might really mean to be Canadian in this melting global world."

For Winter's full piece:
 http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/09/15/the_true_legacy_of_the_franklin_expedition.html

Bears

In Norway House, as summer winds down and autumn takes hold, both teachers and black bears can be found returning to the community and roaming around at large.  Presumably the teachers are largely well-behaved--but the bears are a another matter.  They're usually shy and easily scared off, but the potential for danger is there.  

After a couple of encounters with a scrawny-looking yearling bear that was hanging around our property, I phoned the Conservation Officers to let them know.  After I made the phone call,  a bear trap - which is a wide culvert pipe with a metal grill at one end and a trap door at the other - was placed along our laneway.  But the bear never took the bait and after a day or two the trap was placed at a different location. 

One of the Conservation Officers told me that there are about 15 bears prowling around the community, all hoping to fatten up for the winter.  The COs try to trap and relocate them, but the bears have got wise this year and are largely avoiding the traps.  (I heard today that they had to start baiting the traps with fruit instead of meat because they were mainly trapping stray dogs.)   

In a few more weeks, of course, these bear sightings will grow less and less frequent. And then eventually the bears go into hibernation.  It's just part of the cycle of the year here.  

*

The bear photo (above) was taken by my wife as we were on Highway 373 (a.k.a., the Norway House Road).  It was just hanging out by the side of the road, no doubt hoping for handouts from passing cars.  As we slowed down to have a better look at it, the bear came out to greet us. Needless to say, we didn't give it anything to eat.  About 500 metres up the road we came to a construction zone and we told one of the workers about the bear nearby.  "We know him allright," the guy with the Slow-Stop sign said. "He's the friendly one." 

Backyard revisited

I should qualify my remarks re. the sacredness of the backyard.  I don't think that if we only loved our yards and gardens more we would then become more ecologically minded.  Instead we might just want to spray it all down with weedkiller--all in the name of love, of course.

However if we loved our yards and gardens the right way, then we might become more environmentally aware and sensitive.  My thinking on this is informed by William Cronon's well-known essay "The Trouble with Wilderness," in which Cronon argues that one of the problems that wilderness poses is that we tend to denigrate the nature around us (like, say, weeds growing in a vacant lot) in favour of what we perceive to be pristine, unspoiled and largely untouched distant wilderness regions.  Cronon points out that we often do terrible environmental damage close to home simply because we don't value the nature close to home--nature that might also be called wild.  After all, are sparrows or dandelions any less wild than grizzly bears or sequoias?

It seems to me that an appreciation for those weeds, for the scrubby greenery blooming in that so-called vacant lot - or for the birchtree in the yard or for the moss growing along the fence - might just give us a greater appreciation for the sometimes subtle but always powerful workings of nature. 

*

For more on this: here's a link to my poem "Slow Life."

http://www.tcr.gov.nl.ca/tcr/artsculture/artsandletters/2010/Slow_Life.pdf

Sacred space: the backyard in summer

On Sunday evening a friend invited my family and I over to his place for a barbecue.  His place, like ours and like so many others here in Norway House (which is about 8-10 hours north of Winnipeg), is located on the riverside.  As we sat on the back porch, the burgers sizzled on the grill and the brown river waters flowed past. At one point an eagle rose in the air above us, flapping languidly overhead. And with a cooling breeze keeping the mosquitoes at bay, all was well with the world as the sun went down. 

Admittedly the backyard vantage point for many of us here in Norway House is better than what many others have in  this world of ours: you don't get views like this in Toronto, that's for sure. But still, the backyard in summer - no matter where you are, deep in the heart of suburbia or somewhere on the outer edges of an expansive wilderness - is a sacred space. It's time away from the rest of the world: with beer and wine near at hand and meat cooking in the open air, there's something gently festive about such moments. 

Afterwards, it made me wonder about our relationship with land, with nature.  It made me wonder if our connection with the earth - with the soil, the water, the trees, those elemental things - could begin right there in the backyard.  One can, from the vantage of a backporch or a kitchen window, look upon the same tree, day in, day out, in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and get to know that tree closely: the shape of its branches become etched in the mind, become something so familiar it become a kind of face, like the face of a loved one.  Known, familiar, pleasing.  As a result, we come to feel connected to the tree and therefore responsible for it.  And perhaps through it we are connected to a wider world.  

I do recognize certain incongruities here.  The beef burgers that were being BBQ'd aren't a sustainable source of protein and the Australian wine that we were drinking doesn't exactly fall within range of the 100-mile diet, so thinking of this Sunday evening scene as an example of environmental bliss, of a "deep connection" with the earth, is simply erroneous and maybe even ridiculous.  But a few guilty pleasures are allowed, are they not? And that earthy connection has to begin somewhere, so why not with the humble view of the typical backyard birch tree?     

Comedy, energy and tears

Comedy is one of my favourite genres--be it literary, cinematic, theatrical.  And the defining feature of comedy: comic characters have boundless energy to meet life's diverse obstacles.  

Think of Laurel and Hardy's indefatigable attempts to move that piano up those flights of stairs. Think of Coyote's relentless pursuit of the ever-evasive Roadrunner.  Or think of Didi and Gogo in Beckett's Waiting for Godot: only in a manner of speaking are the two tramps actually waiting for the no-show Godot; for the most part they are consistently active, questioning, exploring, resisting and wrestling with their peculiar situation.  They are down, but not out.  They are, in short, energetic, in spite of their circumstances.  

On the other hand, tragedy is about ever-diminishing levels of energy. Tragic characters run out of steam and expire.  This is true of Oedipus, of Hamlet, of Willy Loman.  MacBeth might be the best example of this: he begins the drama as energetic and powerful, but his energy and power drain away as the drama progresses.  

*

Another defining feature of comedy, one that's too-often overlooked: comedy and the laughter it creates aren't expressions of happiness.  Why do people assume that comedians are cheerful, happy people just because they make others laugh? (As I write these words I'm thinking of Robin Williams, the actor-comedian who committed suicide earlier this week.) We too often think of comedy as all sunshine, but it's not.  Comedy and laughter emerge out of darkness, but from that darkness they offer (sometimes too-thin) bulwarks against unhappiness, helplessness and fear. And so tragedy and comedy are a kind of tandem experience.  As Beckett wrote in Godot: "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh."   

Weeding through the personal library

So I've been going through the personal library in order to do a little downsizing, to get an unwieldy book collection into better order.  A necessary task - one that we've had to do repeatedly as we've had to move a number of times over the years because of school and work - but it does inspire a certain quality of dread. 

After all, books aren't just papers bound with cardboard or cloth, they're memories.  Our experiences with books go beyond the experience of reading the words on the page.  Books resonate with our total reality. When I leaf through, say, Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn, I'm not only reminded of the book itself and what I liked and disliked about it, scenes that I remember, the way that it informed my thinking (informed my experience of literature, my experience of other books), but I'm also reminded of what life was like when I was reading it.  

For example, I recall carting Capricorn around with me back and forth across Toronto during a very hot July in the late 1990s, reading it in coffeeshops, on subways, on the futon couch of my apartment in the wee hours of the morning when it was too humid to sleep. These memories might seem unexceptional - and I admit they are unexceptional - but it was a time in my life:  Tropic of Capricorn was woven into my experience of that July and my experience of that July is woven into Tropic of Capricorn.   

As I weed through the book collection, holding the books in my hand one at a time, these kinds of moments and memories come to mind, making it hard to put some books in the "TO GO" pile even if I didn't really like the book--which was the case with Miller's Capricorn.  In short, this is the book-lover's dilemma. 

An open field

Just back from a trip to Ireland and I'm dipping and redipping into the works of Ireland's finest: Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, to name just a few.  

Thinking of Ireland's literary history, it strikes me how difficult it would be to be a young Irish poet, to have to contend with such a weighty past of wonderful, powerful poets such as Yeats, such as Heaney.  A young Irish poet would really have to absorb the works of Yeats and Heaney and somehow position themselves in relation to them--not an easy task, I think.  

Do young Canadian poets have the same problem? There are few Canadian poets whose legacy makes the same demands as Yeats' and Heaney's legacies. Yes, certainly Irving Layton had been nominated for the Nobel Prize, but it's easy to imagine a whole host of younger poets writing today who pay his work very little mind.  They don't really need to contend with him.  

Don't get me wrong: This isn't CanLit bashing (a terrible thing to do in the wake of Canada Day). We do have writers who need serious consideration.  Younger Canadian poets who fancy themselves nature poets do have to seriously think about the poetry of Don McKay, for instance--and that wouldn't be an easy task either.  

What I mean is this: it seems to me that the field is open, the possibilities are there, the past doesn't make the same heavy demands.     

Re. Glenn Gould's Reader

I have been reading, enjoying and admiring The Glenn Gould Reader (1985) edited by Tim Page. I'm surprised that Gould isn't read more widely, isn't really thought of as a literary man.  Did only B.W. Powe take him seriously as a writer? (C.f. Powe's The Solitary Outlaw from 1996.) I think Gould's "The Search for Petula Clark" is one of the most interesting pieces written about Canada's north--and I suspect one of the most interesting pieces written about Petula Clark.  

"Excrementitious" Spring

Spring is largely a myth, isn't it?  The myth, of course, is the sort of stuff you see on Easter cards: green grass, sunshine, flowers and lush leaves.  For many parts of Canada, especially the great swath of land once called "the north west," spring is not so cheerful and sunny.  Instead spring is the muddiest, dirtiest, wettest, sloppiest, slushiest, filthiest season.  And even in May we can be weeks away from new leaves.


Yet it is still, in its muddy way, beautiful.  What amazes me every year at this time is just how many, many shades of brown there are: the grass on the lawns, the leafless branches, the sandy ditches, the bare fields, the churned-up mud, the turbid puddled water.


What also amazes me is how few expressions there are about this time of year--the real spring.  The spring that begins in March and slowly, muddily churns its way through to April and into May.  There is E. E. Cummings' "in Just-spring" in which "the world is mud-/luscious" and "puddle-wonderful."  Or Wm. Carlos Williams' "By the road to the contagious hospital," one of my favourite poems, where:


"Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches---"


But perhaps one of the most profound discussions of the nature of spring is Henry David Thoreau's "Spring" chapter from Walden, in which the dirty and the beautiful mingle evocatively.  Here is a quote from "Spring" (the word that delights me here in its aptness is "excrementitious"):


True, it is somewhat excrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps of liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side outward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and there again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit — not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviae from their graves. You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into.


For the full chapter, visit: http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden17.html

Farley Mowat (1921-2014)

Farley Mowat had lived a long life.  And as a literary figure - a very public literary figure, at that - he'd had a long and productive career.  He'd lived a full and rich life, it seems to me.  

After his passing earlier this week, in many of the tributes I saw about Mr. Mowat, most admirers focused on his work as an out-spoken advocate of Canada's natural environment.  He was that, for sure.  But it seems to me that fewer focused on his legacy as a writer.  It is quite a legacy--and a problematic one with serious controversies.  His tempestuous relationship to truth (he's known to have said "fuck the facts") I suspect will dog his reputation for years.  And this is no small concern as he is often regarded as a nonfiction writer.  

But problematic grey areas, serious controversies, a sometimes questionable reputation--these don't discredit him.  Not in the least.  These don't cloud his legacy at all but instead point to the very nature of that legacy: he was one of the most complex Canadian writers of our time. 

*

On a personal note, Farley Mowat was an important figure on the family bookshelf when I was growing up.  My father had many of Mowat's books in paperback (Dad kept these Bantam-Seal editions in mint-condition).  To name a few: Never Cry Wolf, A Whale for the Killing,  And No Birds Sang, The Boat Who Wouldn't Float.  

I still recall how saddened my Dad was after he had finished A Whale for the Killing.  I can still see him sitting on the edge of my bed one night when I was about 10 years old or so, telling  me about the book he'd just read.  The story had clearly moved him.  

Nearly 30 years later when I got around to reading it myself (I have no excuse for this procrastination), I was also disturbed by it.  No book I know reveals in such stark and memorable detail how the pastoral promise - that humanity might live amicably with nature - is just a pipe dream.  Human nature won't allow it. 

But that's all beside the point.  When I'd heard that he'd died, I thought of those pristine paperbacks, I thought of my Dad, and I thought of home.  And that's at the heart of my modest tribute to Mr. Mowat: When I thought of him, I thought of home.   

Re. Wilson's Swamp Angel (and the joys of leisure reading)

I teach English with a small university-college in northern Manitoba.  Although I do love my work, I will admit that it leaves me with little time for leisure reading.  Throughout the fall and winter months, most of the reading I do is re-reading novels, poems, short-fiction, articles, etc., in preparation for classes.  There's not a lot of time for much more than that.  So when spring and summer roll around, they arrive offering a luxury--the luxury of extra time for leisure reading. 

Now that teaching is once again behind me, what did I wind up picking up recently? Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel.  

Perhaps because I always thought of the novel as a Can. Lit. duty-read, I dutifully avoided Swamp Angel for years.  But the time had finally come to end avoidance and open up the novel to see what I might find in its pages.   

Although Ethel Wilson's book had many fine moment, it must be said that it simply didn't satisfy me.    

The novel's title is taken from the name of the Swamp Angel revolver, a gun highly prized by one of the novel's characters, Nell Severance, who used to juggle the gun in a circus act.  She later gives the Angel to Maggie Lloyd, the novel's main character, who has recently left her husband in order to start a new life as a cook at a down-on-its-luck resort in the British Columbia interior. Even though there is conflict between Maggie and Vera, the resort owner's wife, who is fiercely and angrily jealous of Maggie, the gun never comes into play.  

Spoiler Alert: at the novel's end Maggie mildly drops the Swamp Angel into the lake and watches it submerge below the surface.  And so for most of the novel, the Angel feels like a Chekhovian gun--one that's bound to get used.  And yet it never goes off, is never fired.  

Of course, I don't doubt that there are nuance and subtleties to Wilson's use of the gun in the novel that I'm not taking into account.  All  I'm taking into account is the overall impression that the novel left.  And that impression is, to use an old Labradorian word, that it's a bit "dunchy," meaning under-baked.

And this is one of the pleasures of leisure reading.  Overall impressions are good enough.  I don't need to interpret the book, analyze it, theorize about it, prepare a lecture on it, devise discussion questions about it, write a conference paper on it---nothing of the sort.  All that's required is to read and decide whether or not I like what I'm reading.  To see whether or not the story, the play, the poem, the novel - to borrow a bit from Dylan Thomas - makes my toenails twinkle. 

A walk in the snow

On Easter Sunday my wife and I wrestled our toddler son into our Baby Trekker and walked into the snowy woods near our home in Norway House, MB.  

I always love the woods with snow, so it's important to see them again in this state before it melts away for another year.   Most people are more than eager to see the snow disappear--and I can understand that sentiment, absolutely.  I'm also looking forward to the spring.  But there is a certain serenity about forests and snow, forests in snow, and I'll miss that when it's gone.  At one point during the walk, we let our son out of the carrier and stopped for some tea and homemade gingersnap cookies. Don't tea and cookies taste best when eaten outdoors in cold weather? 

Yes, the charms of spring and summer are many--but I'll miss this wintry weather when it's gone and I'll enjoy seeing it once more when it comes around again next November.  

Eagles (have landed)

And now I can say that I've spotted that other harbinger of spring--Bald Eagles.  First come crows, then eagles.  On Sunday, while on a hike with my family on the still frozen Jack River - perhaps our last trip out onto the ice for the year - we saw three Bald Eagles cruising above Johnson Island.  I had binoculars handy, so we had a great view of them.  As always when I spot them in the rather wintry northern springtime, I wonder: What do they eat? How do they get by when everything is still under ice and snow? 

 

Sign of spring

In this part of the world, the harbinger of spring is not the American Robin but the American Crow.  And we've started to see and hear crows around Norway House.

Re. Wells' Career Limiting Moves and Can. Lit.

I've been reading Zachariah Wells recent book of reviews and essays titled Career Limiting Moves  and enjoying it immensely.  As with Carmine Starnino's Lazy Bastardism, another collection of reviews and essay on Can. Lit., I find myself eagerly reading it, going from one piece to the next to see what he'll say next.  Because Wells' evaluations of Canadian poets and poetry are so bracing and at times critical, I find myself quite curious to hear more of his thoughts.  

Does that mean I agree with him? Sometimes, yes.  Often, no.  Don McKay's poetry gets a bit of a drubbing in Career Limiting Moves--an undeserved drubbing, I think.  But books like Wells', like Starnino's, do some real good in Can. Lit. circles because they remind us that the die is not cast, the canon is potentially shifting. They remind us that debates about aesthetics and poetics are worth having.  They remind us that we ought to employ rigorous reading, rigorous discussion and a keen critical eye toward the literature presented to us.  

Best of all, when I read books like Wells', I'm reminded that Can. Lit. matters.   

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For more about Wells, visit his blog:  http://zachariahwells.blogspot.ca/

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UPDATE: 
Please see my interview with Wells at the Humber Literary Review's webpage: 
http://humberliteraryreview.com/in-conversation-zach-wells/

Alternatives

There are, of course, alternatives to the clipped, brittle Canadian style.  I'm thinking of Christopher Dewdney's early work, especially "The Natural History of Southwestern Ontario" long poem.  I'm thinking of Tim Lilburn's early work, as well.  But these seem like streams that branch off of the main current in our literature.  

The Canadian style

In his short book on Stephen Leacock, simply titled Stephen Leacock, Robertson Davies discusses what it means to speak and by extension to write "like a Canadian":  

It means that one speaks or writes "simply, in sentences usually brief, avoiding slang but by no means unconscious of the flavour and impact of simple words used in unfamiliar contexts." 

The quotation can be found on page 54, near the end of Davies' study.  This brief passage has stayed with me because I feel that it nails the Canadian voice, nailing the style of so much Canadian literature.

It makes me wonder, Are there alternatives? Can one be verbally baroque and still be recognizably Canadian?     

What is Can. Lit.?

Just as there's always much talk, talk, talk about what a Canadian is (my favourite definition, which is, I think, attributable to Pierre Berton: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe"), there is also always considerable ink spilled regarding what Can. Lit. is, regarding what the lit. of here is - what it is and what it ought to be.

For what it's worth, here's my own go-to definition: Canadian Literature is anything that Margaret Atwood can read aloud in that dry voice of hers without straining her vocal chords.

Put the definition to the test. Open up any Canadian anthology and imagine M.A. reading the pieces aloud. If it's easily imagined, then you've got yourself some prime Canadian Literature there.  And you can easily imagine Atwood reading, say, Irving Layton's "The Swimmer," albeit with some irony in her voice.  Or Leonard Cohen's "I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries." Or all of Alice Munro's story "The Bear Came over the Mountain."  You can easily imagine her reading Ondaatje's poem "The White Dwarfs" (though perhaps less so "The Cinnamon Peeler," which might be a reason for not including it in further anthologies). And on and on it goes.

This isn't meant to diss Atwood.  I'm having a bit of gentle fun with her, yes. But she is a treasure - and I mean that. She has written a body of work that has helped to define Canadian Literature and Canadian culture, a task she took on almost single-handedly.  Her work can be uneven, but the best of it is worth going back to and paying close attention to.  And there is something in the tone of her work - like her voice - which seems quintessentially Canadian.  A certain dryness of tone, a certain flatness - a certain suspicion regarding excess and exuberance - that typifies so much Canadian literature, at least the lit. that gets taught in universities.

After all, can you imagine Atwood reading Hopkin's "God's Grandeur" or Pound's "Usura" canto aloud? E.E.Cummings aloud? Dylan Thomas? And you can't imagine any of these writers or their poetry coming from Canada, can you?  In short, why is that? How did our national tone become so flat, dry, clipped?    

Signs of not-winter, of winter-end

Slowly signs of spring are revealing themselves.  They're subtle signs, but they're there.  Maybe calling them signs of spring is a little too strong.  Perhaps it would be best to call them signs of not-winter, of winter-end. As Robert Kroetsch wrote in his poem "Seed Catalogue":

Then it was spring. Or, no:
then winter was ending.

For now the air is a little softer, a little milder.  Also, it's snowing. While this is usually a sign of winter, up here for much of the winter it's too cold to snow.  The birds are now making their presence known.  There's a bit more life in the tree branches as the chickadees have come out of hiding.  The sun has some warmth. The other day I noticed the eaves were dripping.


 

A northern flaneur?

I suppose that my use of the term "flaneur" isn't very nuanced.  I tend to think of the flaneur as largely an aesthetic position (albeit a rambling position), i.e., a leisurely peripatetic observer who enjoys what is observed. And yet the flaneur, by the very nature of observing, is also part of the scenery, part of the scene, albeit on the fringes or margins of the scene.  Usually the flaneur is found strolling along in an urban environment.

In his essay on the Canadian poet Don McKay, Carmine Starnino referred to McKay as a "pastoral flaneur." I suppose Starnino intended it as a bit of a gentle gibe at the older, more established poet (not all Starnino's gibes in the essay were so gentle).  The phrase got me thinking, though: what would a non-urban flaneur be like? What kind of flaneur-ing would that be?

To take it another step further: what about a northern flaneur? A wintery flaneur? Loafing along in snow-shoes, enjoying the sight of evergreen trees draped with snow?  It seems to me entirely possible.  And yet here the flaneur is pulled into the very nature of what is observed--because it can't be otherwise.  The flaneur can't be at a safe, aesthetic distance from where he is. The environment - its cold, its remoteness - is too demanding.  But as Heraclitus claims, "nature loves to hide," so the flaneur is always on the margins of the scene.

Once again, be sure to bring something hot in that thermos.  

 

Winter flaneur

The reasons why I love winter are many.  But all reasons are based on that simple exercise, that simple practice: walking.  And since I came to live in the northern portion of central Canada, my appreciation for winter has only grown deeper.  

What is the experience of that appreciation? Head into your nearest snow-covered boreal forest.  Let's go for a walk there, as snow-shoed flaneurs for a little while.  

The first thing you'll notice is the cold, of course.  This is when the air comes alive.  Breathing becomes something more than an automatic process. Instead, you inhale and the air freezes your nostrils as it makes its way down into your lungs.  You become physically aware of that most basic of processes.  

Then there's the stillness. I'm hesitant to describe it as silence, because it's not silence--just very, very still.  And as you take in the stillness, the smallest of sounds begin to approach.  You might hear, for example, the slight sound of a black-backed woodpecker tapping away at a tree.  

As you look around, trudging through the snow as you go, you begin to notice how even this stillness is illusory.  There are, all around you, tracks and other signs that animals have been passing through, using these woods, using these paths.  The winding track of the fox, for example. It might appear still now, but at other times this patch of forest is a hub of activity 

Looking around, you see something worth contemplating, something that painters like Tom Thomson saw so clearly in their own wintry travels: that snow is only very rarely white.  As the sunlight increases, shifts and fades throughout the day, the snow takes on a surprising array of colours--gold, pink, blue in varying shades.

This can only be had be walking through the winter, by walking through the woods.  You can't get this on a ski-hill, from a parking lot, or from looking out the living room window.  You need to be out there, flaneur-ing among the evergreens.  

Just be sure to bring a good thermos of something hot. 

  

On "hygge"

Why am I hesitant to admit that I love winter? Is it because so many are so vocal in their hatred of it? Winter-bashing is a kind of national pastime here in the true-north-strong-and-free.  Thus it's hard for those of us who love the season to feel free to admit to our passion for it. So I gamely go along with others and decry the cold and the snow, but that's not how I feel in my heart.  Instead, I quietly love it, loving the invigorating cold and the serenity of the falling snow.  Yes, I do have my moments of frustration with winter, like when my car won't start for the umpteenth time since November. But all I need to do is put on my snow-shoes and head out into the forest ASAP.  Soon all is forgiven with winter.

One reason why I think we Canadians dislike winter is because we have no vocabulary for loving it.  No way of conceptualizing affection for ice, snow, cold.  The Danish - who know something about winter, too - have the lovely notion known as "hygge," which means, as I understand it, a feeling of coziness or comfort during the winter months, involving good food, good drink, good friends.  It seems to be an opportunity to embrace winter, a season which dominates the year for northern nations and their people.  Why don't we have "hygge" here?

One of the few Canadian expressions of a love of winter - or, perhaps, it's best to say that it's an expression of and a celebration of what winter can mean - is the short film "We Refuse to Be Cold," by Alexander Carson from 2011 (produced with the support of the National Film Board).  Here's the link so that you can watch it, too: http://vimeo.com/25082970. 

Perhaps the film's title can be read as a hygge-inspired rallying cry, one for both the winter-weary and the winter-adoring. 

On turning 40

I should probably warn you, this is the blog of a mid-lifer.  Last week I turned 40 and 40 is middle-aged, as far as I'm concerned.  So some kind of a crisis may be looming for me, if I'm to believe the mythos.  However, that aside, I figure it's a good age to be. The vitality of youth has not entirely disappeared (or so I like to think) and the wisdom of age is beginning to make its presence known (or so I like to think).  Thus there is a kind of harmony, balance and strength to be had at 40 -- a harmony, balance and strength that wasn't there to be had at 30. And certainly not at 20.  This is something to savour. And if a crisis should erupt, at 40 years of age one has that mental, emotional and spiritual resources to handle the situation -- or so I like to think.

Life in the north (via the south)

One thing that I should make clear: I'm not a northerner by birth.  I was born in southern Ontario and went north, like so many others, for work, for a change of scenery and to see what "the north" was all about. This means I have a different relationship to place - to this place.  I suppose that my outsider status is keenly felt because I'm also a non-aboriginal living on a Cree reserve: my family and I live in Norway House Cree Nation, an 8-10 hour drive north of Winnipeg. However, looking at a place through a stranger's eyes is not so terrible, not so lonely -- it opens up the possibility of seeing things as fresh, new, unfamiliar.  The presence of novelty - of seeing new sights/ sites - sharpens the senses, quickens the mind.

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That said, there's also something profoundly wonderful about seeing the same thing day after day.  Seeing the same tree in the same yard, day in and day out, in all kinds of weather, with new leaves in spring and snow-covered in winter. Through familiarity you begin to see the nuances of small change - the way a shift of light will make the leaves glow, will make the shade under the tree deepen.  And that's what I love about walking, walking the same streets, the same trails through different seasons, in different kinds of weather.  This kind of walking becomes a kind of training, which the Buddhists might call practice: to mindfully see something as both familiar and new (as changed/ changing) all at once.

Life in the north

Another featured topic for this blog will be life in the north.  I've lived in Canada's north - specifically in northern Manitoba and in Labrador - for about seven years now.  The experience has changed me and changed the way I look at the world. More on this in the days, weeks, months to come.

Welcome

With this blog, I hope to expand and explore the things that I do to make my living: reading, writing, teaching. And the thing I do to make me feel whole - walking.  Rambling is just part of the process.