What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Inscription:

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Fire in your hands,
From a Canadian writer,
Yann Martel

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

I met Al Purdy once. Or rather, he was pointed out to me at a small party at a literary festival in Eden Mills, Ontario. Purdy was sitting, I was standing; Purdy was elderly and revered, I was young and upcoming. I made nothing of the occasion because I had never read his poetry. He was just a name. I regret that now, not having gone over to shake his hand and chat with him. The writer as a man is like any other man until you’ve read him. It’s only once you’ve read him that the writer makes a greater impression. Had I read Purdy before that party, I would have approached him with a measure of trepidation. But I gather he was exceedingly generous with writers, especially younger ones. I’m sure we would have had a good conversation. 

Now I have read Al Purdy and I can see why he was revered. He’s an intensely Canadian poet, which I don’t mean as a limiting qualifier. Every poet comes from somewhere, but some feel more universal than others, their specific cultural origin leaving only a discreet mark upon the poetry. Not so with Al Purdy. He’s all about Canada. You see that right away in the places that inspired his poetry. The first poem in the collection I’m sending you is called The Road to Newfoundland. Other poems mention Vancouver and BC. Still others, the Canadian Arctic. And at the centre of this poetic geography, holding it together like the fixed point of a compass (I mean here the measuring instrument consisting of two pointed arms held together by a pivot, but the other instrument, to determine the cardinal points, serves the metaphor just as well), is Roblin Lake, near the hamlet of Ameliasburg, Prince Edward County, Ontario. Several poems evoke the lake, and one senses that the A-frame house Purdy built there was the capital city of his poetry (more on that A-frame a little later). Other geographies are mentioned too—Cuba, for example—yet even with these poems the sensibility is entirely Canadian. What this Canadianness means is that a reader from Canada reading Purdy’s poetry will likely recognize our country in it, while a reader from abroad will likely learn about our country. But to repeat myself using different words: there’s nothing local-yokel about Purdy’s work. You see that in the historical, literary and political references sprinkled throughout. Al Purdy clearly was a man who read widely and thought freely.

The language is colloquial, the tone conversational. There is therefore a deceptive simplicity to Purdy’s poetry. Just a guy talking on the page, with funny line breaks. But then an image hits you, and you (or, to be more accurate, I) go Wow! Take the first poem, the one I mentioned above. It starts:

My foot has pushed a fire ahead of me
for a thousand miles
my arms’ response to hills and stones
has stated parallel green curves
deep in my unknown country
the clatter of gravel on fenders registers
on a ghostly player piano
inside my head with harsh fraying music
I’m lost to reality
but turn the steering wheel a quarter
inch to avoid a bug on the road…

My foot has pushed a fire ahead of me/for a thousand miles—have you ever thought of a car in those terms? I’ll certainly never forget it. And then that modern image, of a man driving an internal combustion engine, is linked to an older one, when precious fire was carried from camp to camp in a moss-lined basket. You get an inkling here of how Purdy effortlessly spans history and geography with that startling compactness that is poetry’s forte. There are too many poems to discuss in detail, but if you want a taste, if you’re in a rush, I’d suggest you have a look at The Cariboo Horses, Late Rising at Roblin Lake, One Rural Winter, Interruption, Married Man’s Song, Fidel Castro in Revolutionary Square, Hombre, Trees at the Arctic Circle, Lament for the Dorsets, House Guest, At Roblin Lake, Poem, Wilderness Gothic, and Roblin’s Mills (2). That should give you an idea. But you shouldn’t be in a rush. That’s not the way to read poetry. No point either in reading one poem after another, page after page, like a novel. That would be like eating twenty good meals in a row. Best to read only a few poems at a time, like opening a window for a moment in the autumn to breathe in the invigorating air before closing it again. And poems thrive on increased familiarity. Repeated reading will make you comfortable with the cadence and help you unpack the imagery. I’ve chosen to send you a Selected Poems published in 1972 by McClelland and Stewart. It has a good and vigorous introduction by George Woodcock.

I will mention one other poem, Hombre, in which Purdy remembers meeting Che Guevara in Havana, actually meeting him, and shaking his hand—astounding. The mythical Che. Since when do poets and politicians meet and shake hands? Have you ever met and shook hands with a poet? Well, I guess that’s the prerogative of revolutionary politicians, ones who are willing to go off into the jungles of Bolivia to die for a dream. Purdy met Guevara in Cuba in 1964, when the charismatic Argentine doctor was the Minister of Industries. Was the poet in awe of the revolutionary? No. Purdy was a man of the people, for sure, but also a democrat and one senses in the poem, as one does in the other poems inspired by his visit to Cuba, a suspicion that Castro’s and Guevara’s dreams for the people might not take into account what the people actually wanted. Again, Purdy shows himself to be profoundly Canadian, preoccupied with the small details of common decency rather than the grand visions of truculent idealism.

This meeting between a poet and a politician brings me back to the A-frame house on Roblin Lake, where so much of Purdy’s poetry was written and where so many literarily inclined visitors came to visit. This A-frame is both a cornerstone and a crossroads of Canadian poetry. Purdy died in 2000 at the age of 81 and a campaign has been launched to purchase his property, create an endowment, and establish a writer-in-residence program in the A-frame. It’s a great idea. Literary culture of course is kept alive by the publishing and reading of books, but the places that inspired books are also important. After all, if the spirit of a place inspired a writer, it will likely inspire others. I myself now want to visit Ameliasburg. And cultural memory lasts a long time. Businesses come and go, but a great poet’s house—that’s the stuff of plaques and museums, which The Al Purdy A-frame Trust is trying to avoid. It wants to keep Al Purdy’s generosity alive. Where one poet lived and worked, others will too. That is their mission. An Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology has been published by Harbour Publishing (they’re the guardians of Purdy’s legacy: they’ve put out a more recent Selected Poems, covering the years 1962 to 1996, in addition to the complete Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy). All proceeds of the sale of the A-frame Anthology go to the Trust. I meant to send you my copy, but it’s too lovely. It’s an evocative mix of reminiscences, poetry, and photographs. I knew no more about Al Purdy than I suppose you do, yet the anthology made me feel the creative energy of the place and the fun Al and his gang had there. The A-frame Trust hasn’t reached its fundraising goal yet. If you’re interested in helping, please visit their website www.alpurdy.ca. You can make a donation and you can also order a copy of the anthology.  

If you’re lucky, one day you might end up on the shores of Roblin Lake, shaking hands with a poet.

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

encl: one inscribed trade paperback

Reply:

Pending…