Shaping a World Already Made
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SHAPING A WORLD ALREADY MADE SHAPING A WORLD ALREADY MADE LANDSCAPE AND POETRY OF THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES CARL J. TRACIE © 2016 Carl J. Tracie All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic, or mechanical — without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or placement in information storage and retrieval systems of any sort shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright. Printed and bound in Canada at Marquis. Cover and text design: Duncan Campbell, University of Regina Press Copy editor: Correy Baldwin Index: Judy Dunlop Proofreader: Colleen Biro Cover art: “Untitled” by Cara De Gennaro Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Tracie, Carl J. (Carl Joseph), 1939-, author Shaping a world already made : landscape and poetry of the Canadian Prairies / Carl J. Tracie. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-88977-393-6 (paperback).—ISBN 978-0-88977-395-0 (html). —ISBN 978-0-88977-394-3 (pdf) 1. Canadian poetry (English)—Prairie Provinces—History and criticism. 2. Prairie Provinces—Poetry. I. Title. PS8159.5.P72T73 2016 C811.009’9712 C2016-901402-9 C2016-901403-7 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 University of Regina Press, University of Regina Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, s4s 0a3 tel: (306) 585-4758 fax: (306) 585-4699 www.uofrpress.ca We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. / Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. This publication was made possible through Creative Saskatchewan’s Creative Industries Production Grant Program. Dedicated to all those who love the prairies Contents Acknowledgements—ix Foreword by Dennis Cooley—xi Introduction by John Warkentin—xv CHAPTER 1 Between Two Worlds: Premises and Promises—1 CHAPTER 2 Poets of the Prairie: Enduring Elements of Prairie Landscape in Prairie Poetry—19 CHAPTER 3 Parallax: Race, Gender, and Location—77 CHAPTER 4 Paradox: Ambivalence and Ambiguity in Poet/Landscape Relationships—123 CHAPTER 5 Beyond Paradox: Mystery and Silence—145 CHAPTER 6 Public Perception: The Influence of Literary and Popular Poetry—161 CHAPTER 7 “Shaping a World Already Made”: Geography and Poetry—179 Permissions—193 Bibliography—201 Index—213 Acknowledgements t seems immodest to claim authorship for a book that rests on the work of so many—geographers, poets, literary critics—whose per- spectives and insights have been critical to this study. To some, however, I owe particular thanks. John Warkentin encouraged me Iat the beginning of this endeavour, and his continued wise counsel and astute commentary have enhanced the depth and reach of these essays. He also kindly agreed to write the introduction which provides a con- text for my work. Brian Osborne and Laurie Ricou generously shared their geographic and literary insights in response to my many ques- tions; both helped to shape the early stages of this work. The poetry of Lorna Crozier and Patrick Friesen stimulated my first forays into the interface between geography and poetry. Lorna has been a constant source of encouragement throughout this project, and her love of the prairie has stimulated my own. Patrick’s poetic insights over many years have been both enlightening and encouraging. Through personal contact and e-mails, I have come to value their art and their friendship. Di Brandt directed my attention to relevant readings in the early go- ing and in later discussions expanded my understanding of her work. Jan Zwicky enlarged my understanding of metaphor and resonance and their application to geography. I owe special thanks to Dennis Cooley. His lively mind, close reading, and engaging e-mails have quickened ix SHAPING A WORLD ALREADY MADE and tightened both content and expression of these essays. His friend- ship over the past four years has been a source of great delight. He also kindly agreed to write the foreword. Lynn Szabo, poet and Thomas Merton expert, guided and informed my thinking on matters poetic, in particular on the place of mystery and silence. Emma LaRocque kindly reflected on my treatment of Aboriginal poetry and provided valuable and necessary clarification. I am grateful for the enthusiastic support of the University of Regina Press. Director Bruce Walsh and his staff have brought the best of their expertise to bear on this project. I wish to thank especially Karen Clark, Scholarly Acquisitions Editor, for her indefatigable spirit and support in working through various drafts of the manuscript and for her assistance in navigating the complexities of permissions. I have appreciated the care- ful reading and helpful suggestions of Senior Editor Donna Grant. My thanks to Duncan Campbell and David McLennan who used the striking landscape painting of Cara De Gennaro to design a memorable cover. I would like also to acknowledge the helpful comments of three anonymous reviewers. Finally, and above all, thanks to my wife Darlene, my friend and stay. x Foreword o one has ever written a book on Canadian prairie poet- ry—not until now, that is. We have books on Canadian po- etry, and we have books on the Canadian prairie, but none on the poetry from the prairie. Even essays on the poetry Nare scarce. That alone would makeShaping a World Already Made a sig- nal event. It certainly is timely. Dozens of able and dedicated poets have been writing out of and about the region for decades, and those numbers have increased in the last 20 years. There are now scores of accomplished writers, many of whom have gone unread. Carl Tracie’s bold and sensi- tive work will do its part to increase our knowledge. Tracie, a geographer, has done what no other researcher of any ilk has attempted. The result is an important and engaging document. It summons a scholar’s care for evidence, and a poet’s desire for what can be said. The book is informed by an intimate knowledge of the litera- ture on land and landscape. What makes it new is its engagement with contemporary understandings of language, cultural studies, and poet- ry. Tracie writes with special scruple and painstaking patience, but he speaks also in the rhythms of his own kind of poetry. The book’s aware- ness of ethnicity and gender, of generational and cultural divergence, of popular work and little-known writing devolves eloquently from prairie landscape. A geographer’s interest in landscape is expected, but the fo- xi SHAPING A WORLD ALREADY MADE cus on poetry—that terrain of shifty meaning and fancied understand- ing—seems a wonderful new move. Yet there is nothing slight about Tracie’s interest. He is intrigued by what it is in the writers that relates so powerfully to a landscape that they carry intimately in their mind’s eye and in their body’s pulse. He is at once careful to observe a language of “truth,” and to respect a language of vision. The double move generates striking readings of landscape. Tracie has studied a large number of prairie poets, including many authors only now coming into their own. He has read far more poets than has almost any reader, I would guess, and he has done so with dil- igence and tact. To work with unstudied material, to be one of the first into the field, is surely risky and demanding. Yet Tracie proffers anal- yses and advances arguments with clarity, his writing always nuanced and allowing. Shaping a World offers insights without insisting on them and balances the need for cogency with a reluctance to foreclose on an argument. Tracie works with what can only be called humility. A true student, he believes it is he who is learning. The research that has come closest to what Tracie has done has also come from another geographer. A quarter century ago, in 1988, Ronald Rees published New and Naked Land: Making the Prairies Home, which read the prairie landscape as it was induced through imported notions of order, and as it later emerged in the counter understandings of prairie painters. Tracie’s book turns to another art form. It considers the differ- ences between the poetry of settler-invaders and their successors, who have often responded to the land with fear or aggression, and that of (especially) Aboriginal and female authors, who have sought and cham- pioned more reciprocal relationships with the land. Reading the manuscript has been a special pleasure for me. I found myself struck again and again by the power, the sheer sudden rightness of the poets’ language in Tracie’s so judiciously chosen passages, and Tracie’s own invigorating responses to that language, stirring in brevity and grace. Yes, that’s it! That is how sunlight sits in the pasture, how the creatures move through the grass and the parklands. Tracie finds and shares with us what many of us have known without knowing, and what it is we most need and perhaps want to know—how it is we might begin to inhabit a place and respond to it with some glimmer of understand- ing. What Tracie says, and what the poets say as he selects and meditates xii Foreword on their work, can catch your breath. Northrop Frye has spoken of an imagination that occupies a land but does not love it. Tracie shows what an educated imagination might discover and what it might movingly celebrate. Dennis Cooley Winnipeg, Manitoba xiii Introduction THE GREAT PLAINS Soil poor, herbage scanty, no wood except on Northern exposures. Very Arid Broken Country, rich soil & pasture, partially wooded.