The Left Atrium

Room for a view Atteindre la centaine: William Henry Drummond

he centenary of a poet’s death is a fit occasion for a reconsidera- T tion of his poetry and achieve- ments. William Henry Drummond (né William Henry Drumm) was born 13 April 1854, in County Leitrim, Ireland, and died 6 April 1907 in the mining community of Cobalt, Ont. With his parents, George Drumm and Elizabeth Morris Soden, he immi- grated to Canada in 1864 and settled in Montréal. After the death of his father in 1866, Drummond dropped out of school to support his mother. He worked as a telegraphist in the winters in Montréal, and in the summers he worked in the lumber town of Bord-à- Plouffe, Que., where he first witnessed the habitants and voyageurs who were Ernest Sawford-Dye. Private collection of G.O. Taylor. to become the subjects and narrators of his poems. Eventually, he completed Watercolour of Dr. William Henry Drummond’s house at Kerr Lake. When William his schooling at the High School of Henry Drummond first arrived in Cobalt, Ont., in 1904, it was a “tent city” in the middle Montreal and attended McGill College of the forest. Rather than live in a tent, he built a 2-storey log house overlooking Kerr and Bishop’s College in Montréal, Lake, the site of his mining claim. He hand-picked its chimney stones and built graduating with an MD in 1884. He porches where he could sit and hear his miners sing (it is said that he only hired miners spent the next 23 years in his medical who could sing). It was here that he wrote The Voyageur and Other Poems. Destroyed by fire in the 1930s, the fireplace stones were recovered and reconstructed in the town practice, notably completing his intern- of Cobalt with a commemorative plaque. ship as a surgeon at the Western Hos- The painter Ernest Sawford-Dye (1873–1965) was born in northern Ontario. He is pital in Montréal and practising as a known for his northern Ontario landscapes, farm scenes and wildlife studies. private physician at Stornoway and at Knowlton in the Eastern Townships and as a medical professor and the house G.P. Putnam’s Sons in New etical Works of William Henry Drum- Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at York and London, he issued 4 books of mond. The latter volume was compiled Bishop’s College in Montréal. verse in his lifetime: The Habitant and by Louis Fréchette (1839–1908), a Drumm changed his name to Other French-Canadian Poems (1897), québecois poet and politician who was Drummond in 1875 after learning it Phil-o-Rum’s Canoe, Madeleine Ver- the first to recognize Drummond’s po- was his ancestral name. He started chères (1898), Johnnie Courteau and etic achievement. writing poetry in the late 1870s, to Other Poems (1901) and The Voyageur Drummond wrote dialect poetry in amuse himself, his friends and, after and Other Poems (1905). Two posthu- the persona of a French-Canadian im- he married May Isobel Harvey in 1894, mous volumes followed, both pub- plied poet, who narrates the poems in his family. With his wife’s encourage- lished by Putnam’s: The Great Fight: French-Canadian patois English, an in- ment, he started to collect, collate and Poems and Sketches (1908, edited by vented vernacular. The opening stanza

DOI:10.1503/cmaj.070192 publish his verse. With the publishing May Harvey Drummond) and The Po- of “Phil-o-Rum Juneau,” from The

Habitant, shows his phonemic tran- HENLERE: Très bien! [St. Pierre’s tran- down, particularly in a phase of politi- scription of French-Canadian dialect scription]2 cal correctness, dating from the 1970s, and his emphasis on characterization: when his poetry disappeared from Similarly, in the 1940s and 1950s, Canadian poetry and literary antholo- He sit on de corner mos’ every night, ole the Jamaican poet and performance gies, literary criticism journals, school Phil-o-Rum Juneau, artist Louise Bennett (1919–2006) and university curricula, book store Spik wit’ hese’f an’ shake de head, an’ wrote vernacular poetry in Jamaican Pa- shelves and books-in-print. smoke on de pipe also- tois or Creole, which set a foundation Drummond is an innovative Cana- Very hard job it ‘s for wake him up, no mat- for Jamaican literature after independ- dian poet of enduring merit. His poetry ter de loud we call ence. Consider this excerpt from “Dead has an original authenticity as period, re- W’en he ‘s feex hese’f on de beeg arm-chair, Men” from her book Jamaica Labrish gional, occasional and dialect verse and back on de kitchen wall.[61]1 (1966) and its parallel with Drum- some of his poems are classics of Cana- mond’s verse: dian literature. Consider “The corduroy Given that Drummond based the road” from Johnnie Courteau (1901), as a character of Phil-o-Rum and all other Memba dem days wen big fraid children’s poem and a sound poem: characters and speakers in his poems Hole we every wey we tun? on the habitants and voyageurs he had Ef dem hear a car back-fire De corduroy road go bompety bomp, encountered in his youth in Bord-à- People sey a Rhygin gun![61]3 De corduroy road go jompety jomp, Plouffe, his poetry is understandably An’ he ‘s takin’ beeg chances upset hees load nostalgic and sentimental and his Like Bennett in Jamaica, Drum- De horse dat ‘ll trot on de corduroy road.[7]4 characterizations are cultural stereo- mond helped to establish a foundation types. It is important to remember for an independent Canadian litera- The Voyageur (1905) is as distinctive that Drummond was not trying to ture, in which writers could write in in its prosody and narrative line as the mimic any received pronunciation of their own vernaculars, in the lan- poems of the Scottish-born Canadian French-Canadian English. His was an guages and dialects of the people, as poet Robert Service (1874–1958) and invented vernacular through which he opposed to the vernacular with which arguably as canonical: tested the capacity of popular verse to they had been colonized. Similarly, the depict francophone English in pho- Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola Dere ‘s somet’ing stirrin’ ma blood tonight, netic symbols, not to depict how he (1920–1997) in his ground-breaking On de night of de young new year, thought francophones sounded works The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) W’ile de camp is warm an’ de fire is bright, speaking English and not to carica- and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts An’ de bottle is close at han’- ture French-Canadians. (1954), the Ogoni novelist Ken Saro- Out on de reever de nort’ win’ blow, The appropriation of a voice, appear- Wiwa (1941–1995) in Sozaboy: A Novel Down on de valley is pile de snow, ance or identity from another language in Rotten English (1985) and the Scot- But w’at do we care so long we know and culture was typical of the arts from tish novelist Irvine Welsh (1958– ) in We ‘re safe on de log cabane?[1]5 the 1890s to 1930s. For example, Her- Trainspotting (1993), all helped estab- schel Henlere (1890–1968), a Canadian lish national or cultural literatures by William Henry Drummond, an orig- novelty pianist from Galt, Ont., who writing in invented vernacular, yet all inal, and arguably a great, Canadian flourished in British music hall and vari- have taken criticism for what are seen poet survives “safe on de log cabane.” ety in the 1920s–1940s, adopted a as their excesses in mimicry, for mis- He ‘s jus’ waitin’ for Canadians to come French-Canadian persona for all his representing people, languages, na- an’ open de door. stage shows and gramophone record- tions and cultures. In these regards, ings. Compare Drummond’s use of pa- Drummond was not an anomaly in Paul Matthew St. Pierre tois in verse to Henlere’s in this tran- Canadian literary history but a pioneer Associate Professor scription from his performance film Pic- of modern Canadian literature; he was Department of English cadilly Theatre of Varieties (Pathétone a Canadian pioneer in the medical pro- Simon Fraser University 929, 23 January 1936): fession. His honorifics “Poet of the Burnaby, BC habitant” and “Habitant Drummond” HENLERE: Ce soir, j’y reste bien. Vous were much deserved, because they aimerez l’orchestre. You are feeling good, were acknowledgements less that he REFERENCES 1. Drummond WH. Phil-o-Rum Juneau. The habitant no-oo? had appropriated or had otherwise and other French-Canadian poems. New York: Put- AUDIENCE: No! come to represent another culture than nam’s; 1897. p. 61-70. 2. Piccadilly theatre of varieties [transcript]. Pathé- HENLERE: Alors, j’y reste bien. Ce soir, j’ai that he had demonstrated the necessity tone 929. January 23, 1936. la chance à faire la musique pour vous. It is for Canadian poets and writers to be 3. Bennett L. Dead man. Jamaica labrish. Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster’s Book Stores; 1966. p. 61-62. the third time I am playing here in this able to write in local vernacular. That 4. Drummond WH. The corduroy road. Johnnie beautiful Piccadilly-lilly theatre. You are he made this point while adopting the Courteau and other poems. New York: Putnam’s; glad to see me, no-oo? voice of the Other is an irony that 1906. p. 7-12. 5. Drummond WH. The voyageur. The voyageur and AUDIENCE: No! Drummond has not been able to live other poems. New York: Putnam’s;1910. p. 1-4.

CMAJ • April 10, 2007 • 176(8) | 1136