Robert Hayden: a Critical Look at the Criticism Peter E

Fall 1987 /Winter 1987-88

Diversity: A Way to Unity Editorial

Robert Hayden: A Critical Look at the Criticism Peter E. Murphy

A Portfolio of Poems Introduced and Selected by Herbert Woodward Martin

Canada's Earliest Baha'i History Will. C. van den Hoonaard VOLUME 22, NUMBERS 1 & 2 •PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

Editorial Board: FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH BETTY J. FISHER HOWARD GAREY IN THIS ISSUE JAMES D. STOKES 2 Diversity: A Way to Unity Consultant in Poetry: Editorial HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN 4 Interchange: Letters from and to the Ediror Subscriber Service: CANDACE MOORE HILL 7 Robert Hayden: A Critical Look at the Criticism by Peter E. Murphy WORLD ORDER is published quarterly by 17 A Portfolio of Poems the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States, 415 Linden Avenue, Wil Introduced and Selected mette, IL 60091. POSTMASTER: Send ad by Herbert Woodward Martin dress changes to WORLD ORDER, 536 Sheridan Road, Wilmette, IL 60091. The views 39 Canada's Earliest Baha'i Hisrory expressed herein are those of the au tho rs and by Will. C. van den Hoonaard do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, the National Spiritual Assembly of 50 Authors & Artists the Baha'is of the United States, or of the Ed itorial Board. Manuscripts can be typewritten or computer generated. They should be double spaced throughout, with the footnotes at the end. The contributor should send three cop ies-an original and two legible copies-and should keep a copy. Return postage should be included. Send manuscripts and other editorial correspondence ro WORLD ORDER, 415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, IL 60091. Subscription rates: U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, l year, $10.00; 2 years, $18.00; single copies, $3 .00. All other countries, 1 year, $15.00; 2 years, $28.00; single copies, $3.00. Airmail, l year, $20.00; 2 years, $38.00. WORLD ORDER is protected through trade mark registration in the U.S. Patent Office. Copyright© 1990, National Spiritual Assem bly of the Baha'is of the United States. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0043-8804

2 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88

Diversity: A Way to Unity

AVE YOU ever noticed that in reading books, watching films, listening H to music, looking at the products of graphic artists, the more spe cific the work of art is, the more you seem, without having begun with that intention, to learn about the human condition? The descent to the particular may concern time (as when one contem plates the artistic products or other artifacts of the Middle Ages, for ex ample). Or it may be the differences and the disagreements between gen erations that inform a novel. Or perhaps it is ethnicity in its condition as a minority in an alien place (as for example the Chicano in Los An geles), or in a culture embodying a place, race, language, and religious environment quite different from our own (as found in certain Japanese films) that commands our attention. It may even be more or less profound variations from a social norm (mental illness, homosexuality, obesity) within our own society that we find uncomfortable to contemplate. In any case the more particular the treatment of such a subject, we come to realize, the deeper is one's perception of the universal situation of human beings. It is in the light of the greatest differences possible within the parameters of being human that the universal characters of humanity come most clearly into view. Further, you may have noticed that the reading of works in a foreign literature is more deeply felt, that the empathy with the characters and the understanding of the situations are more vivid if these works are read in the original language. In fact, the experience of thinking in a foreign language is another door t0 the understanding of peoples and thence to the understanding of people. Is it not possible that the kind of understanding promoted by ac quaintance with "other" kinds of people would prevent the excesses of nationalism, racism, religious prejudice that seem to go with the new freedoms that have been declaring themselves while the old rotalitarian regimes are crumbling?

4 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 19 87-88

Interchange LETTERS FROM AND To THE EDITOR

THIS ISSUE is very much about promises another distinguished American poet, kept and pending. WORLD ORDER has al William Stafford, served for a time as po ways been committed to including poetry etry editor. In the Summer 1983 issue he and other of the arts within its pages. Be produced the magazine's third portfolio, a tween 1968 and 1980, under the guiding collection gathered-in the tradition es hand of Robert Hayden, our distinguished tablished by Hayden- to reflect a balanc first poetry editor, a succession of fine ing of ideal and artistry. poems appeared in the magazine. During With the present issue we are pleased that time Hayden also compiled two major to announce that a new poetry editor, Dr. portfolios of poems, which appeared re Herbert Woodward Martin, has come on spectively in the Spring 1971 and Summer board. His first considerable task (with lit 197 5 issues. tle time to catch his breath!) was to as As Hayden wrote in his introduction to semble WORLD ORDER'S fourth portfolio the first portfolio, "The making of a poem, of poetry, which you can read in this issue. like all other creative endeavors, is in the Dr. Martin is himself a poet and a pro Baha'i view a spiritual act, a form of wor fessor of English at the University of Day ship." Thus in selecting poems he chose ton. He has published four books of po them not on the basis of whether they were etry, a monograph on Paul Laurence Dun "secular" or "religious" in theme but bar, and poems in numerous journals and whether they were good works of art. He magazines. In a bit of historical irony two also acknowledged the presence of a va of Dr. Martin's own poems appeared in riety of schools, modes, and voices- each Hayden's second WORLD ORDER anthol reflecting the "vitality of contemporary ogy in our Summer 1975 issue. Thus with American poetry.'' One has only to look his appointment WORLD ORDER reestab through his two portfolios to be amazed lishes contact with a poet whose work at the extent to which they reflect the har Hayden admired and renews our own ef monious balance of these two values forts to publish works by poets who, in quality and diversity-that guided his se Hayden's words, "are committed to some lections. integrative vision of art and life." After Hayden's death in February 1980, INTERCHA NGE 5

READERS will also find two other articles In regard to the knotty ques tion of the his in this issue. The first is an omnibus re toricity of the Universal Intellect, I think Pro view by Peter E. Murphy of recent books fessor Saeidi should consider the schema of Av icenna (Ibn Sina) as part of the background to about Robert Hayden, whose reputation Baha'u'llah's Tablet of Wisdom and :Abdu'l-Baha's continues to grow. Some Answered Questions. Avicenna considered all The second, by Will. C. van den Hoo things either preexistent (qadfm) or originated naard, is a valuable contribution to our (hddif..b_), and in turn divided each of these cat understanding of how the Baha'i Faith egories inro two further types, essential (dhdt{) and temporal (zamdn{). Only God is essentially was established in Canada and of the ac preexistent or entirely uncreated. The primary tivities of the first Canadian Baha'is. Both emanation from God is the Universal Intellect or articles, thus, involve historical assess the Word of God. It is thus originated, but not ments of great achievements, reflecting in time, only in essence. Ir has always existed, for the theme of promise and fruition that God was never without the attribute of Mind and Speech. Thus, if Professor Saeidi means by animates this issue. the hisroriciry of the abstract Universal Intellect that it is subject co remporality, I think the Baha'i texts weigh against this idea. On the other hand, the Universal Intellect emanates its rays upon the human minds of the Manifesrarions of God, and To the Editor that emanation or interaction clearly occurs in FAITH, REASON, AND SOCIETY hiscory. I am nor sure it affects his argument, but On every single point, whether the relativity I would therefore argue for the hisroriciry of the rather than absoluteness of religious truth, the emanations of the Universal Intellect, but for the democracy of belief in a religion without dogma aremporaliry of the Universal Intellect as an ab or clergy, or the hiscoricity of reason in Baha'i stract principle. (I make this argument at greater thought and praxis, Professor Saeidi [in "Faith, length in my "The Concept of Manifestation in Reason, and Society in Baha'i Perspective," the Baha'i Writings," Baha'i Studies 9 (1982}: Spring/Summer 1987, pp. 9-22} manages co be 6-8.) both true to Baha'i scriprure and relevant co con This minor-some would say absrruse temporary philosophical and sociological thought quibble aside, I find Professor Saeidi 's article a (especially the Frankfurt school and post-mod fine, and exciting, starting-point for the devel ernism). I can think of nothing World Order has opment of a serious Baha 'i systematic rheology, published since its revival in 1966 that better and a task I hope he will address. more satisfyingly fulfills its mission co " stimu JUAN R . I. COLE late, inspire, and serve thinking people," etc. Ann Arbor, Michigan

7 Robert Hayden: A Critical Look at the Criticis111

BY PETER E. MURPHY

A REVIEW OF RECENT BOOKS ABOUT THE LIFE Now, a decade later, not only is a volume of AND WORK OF ROBERT HAYDEN: FRED M . his most important poems available, but also FETRow's Robert Hayden (BOSTON: TWAYNE, a volume of his essays and interviews as well 1984), VII + 150 PAGES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, as three books that will make his poetry more CHRONOLOGY, NOTES, INDEX; JOHN easily understood and appreciated by read HATCHER'S From the Auroral Darkness: The ers- both those who are discovering him for Life and Poetry of Robert Hayden (OXFORD: the first time and those who have been read GEORGE RONALD, 1984), XII + 298 PAGES, ing and cherishing his work for years. 1 APPENDIX, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX, NOTES; In structure and in content, the three PONTHEOLLA T. WILLIAMS' Robert Hayden: books- Fred M. Fetrow's Robert Hayden, John A Critical Analysis of His Poetry (URBANA: Hatcher's From the Auroral Darkness: The Life U OF ILLINOIS PRESS, 1987), XVII + 180 and Poetry of Robert Hayden, and Pontheolla PAGES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES, APPENDIX, T. Williams' Robert Hayden: A Critical Anal INDEX ysis of His Poetry are very similar. Each pre sents an excellent biography of Hayden and then discusses many of his poems chronolog HEN Robert Hayden died in February ically, tracing Hayden's poetic development 1980, only one of his nine books was W from the early forties through the late sev in print, and his poetry was ignored by all enties, and describing the main themes and but a small audience of dedicated readers. transformations of his career. Robert Hayden was born to Asa and Ruth Sheffey on 4 August 1913, bur after his par ents separated, he was raised by neighbors Copyright © 1990 by Peter E. Murphy I. Robert Hayden, Robert Hayden: Collected Poems, William and Sue Hayden. As a child, Rob ed. Frederick Glaysher (New York: Liveright, 1985); ert's poor eyesight prevented him from par Robert Hayden, Collected Prose: Robert Hayden, ed . ticipating in sports. Hence he turned inward Frederick Glaysher (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, and became a friend of books and drama, and 1984). he began to write and publish poems. He at 2. The National Writers Project of the Works Pro jects Administration ( 1935-43) was initiated by tended Detroit City College (now Wayne State President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the "New University) but left needing one credit hour Deal" to spur economic recovery during the de co graduate. However, he took graduate pression. Writers were hired by the government ro courses at the University of Michigan after prepare guidebooks, manuals, and histories. Among working for several years as a writer and re ocher things, Hayden worked on a history of the Un derground Railroad that inspired him to write a play searcher in the Detroit branch of the WPA based on the life of Harriet Tubman. Writers Project. 2 At Michigan he won the 8 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88 prestigious Hopwood award for his first col poet."4 He published several more books, in lection of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust; cluding Figure of Time, and began to gain an and he met and studied under renowned poet international reputation before achieving W H. Auden, who effected a great change in much recognition in his own country. His do Hayden's view of poetry. In fact, Auden, who mestic "discovery" came in 1962 when Dr. had more influence on the early Hayden than Rosey Pool had Hayden's next book, A Bal anyone else, caused him to abandon the im lad of Remembrance, published with a London itative style he had self-consciously assumed. publisher, Paul Breman. Pool, who was At this time he also met and married Erma Dutch, had become interested in poetry writ Inez Morris, a concert pianist and teacher, who ten by American blacks when she was a stu encouraged and nurtured him until his death. dent at the University of Amsterdam. She The newly married couple, at odds with her used Negro spirituals to pray with others family who were not enthusiastic about their when she was imprisoned in a Nazi concen wedding, spent their first summer in New tration camp during World War II. Although York, where Erma introduced him to one of Pool is best known for her anthology of Hayden's heroes, poet Countee Cullen, a fam American Negro poetry, Beyond the Blues, she ily friend. Cullen honored Hayden by prais was also the first English translator of the fa ing Heart-Shape in the Dust and asking Hay mous diary of her former student Anne Frank. den to read from it "The Eagle," a poem he Pool, who later became a Baha'i, encouraged especially liked. Erma also introduced Hay Hayden to submit A Ballad of Remembrance den to the Baha'i Faith, and in 1943 (1942 to the competition sponsored by the First according to Fetrow), they both became World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Sen members.3 egal. Among the other poets who competed In 1946 the young couple and their four were Derek Walcott, a native of St. Lucia, year-old daughter, Maia, moved to Nashville, and Christopher Okigbo (Okebo, according Tennessee, where Hayden was to teach Eng to Williams) of Nigeria. 5 Pool herself was lish at Fisk University for twenty-three years. asked to be one of the judges, as was Langs These were trying years for the Haydens who, ton Hughes, the first prominent poet Hayden among other things, had to adjust their lives had ever met. Hayden won first place and was to the dehumanizing Jim Crow laws of the awarded the Grand Prix de la Poesie. segregated South. For two years Erma left The remaining years of the sixties were Nashville for New York so that Maia could both kind and harsh to Hayden. He pub attend an integrated school. In- 1950 Hayden lished his Selected Poems with October House, joined them during a year's leave, but living a commercial publisher in New York, and was in New York proved so exhausting and ex appointed poetry editor of World Order. Be pensive that the family returned to Tennessee. cause of increasing departmental tension and Hayden accomplished a good deal while a feeling that he was not being appreciated teaching a full load of English classes at Fisk, at Fisk, Hayden resigned in 1969 to teach as which ''wanted an English teacher, not a a full professor at the University of Michigan. He also accepted several visiting professor ships, including one at the Breadloaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College. 3. Fred M. Fetrow, Robert Hayden (Boston: In 1975 Hayden was elected a Fellow of Twayne, 1984) 15 . the American Academy of Poets for "distin 4. John Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness: The guished poetic achievement,'' an honor that Life and Poetry of Robert Hayden (Oxford: George Ronald, 1984) 20. carried with it a ten thousand dollar award. 5. Pontheolla T. Williams, Robert Hayden: A Crit However, his most prestigious honor was his ical Analysis of His Poetry (Urbana: U of Illinois Press, appointment as the Consultant in Poetry to 1987) 76. the Library of Congress for 1976- 7 8, a po- ROBERT HAYDEN: A CRITICAL LOOK 9 sition equivalent to Britain's prestigious Poet Writers' Conference, organized in April 1966 Laureate. 6 Hayden, who served two terms, by novelist John Oliver Killens, who had been was the first black ever appointed. He had named Writer in Residence, Hayden was at been offered the position even earlier but, un tacked for his moderate views and for not us fortunately, had been discouraged from tak ing his poetry to further the cause of blacks ing it at that time because he had just been in America. Influenced by his Baha'i belief hired at Michigan. in the oneness of humanity, Hayden refused On 24 February 1980, Hayden was cele to support those who urged separation of the brated, in absentia, at a testimonial by the races. In his well-known introduction to Ka Center for Afroamerican and African Studies leidoscope, an anthology of Negro poetry, at the University of Michigan. This "Tribute Hayden argues that to label any Negro writer to Robert Hayden" included music, dance, a " 'spokesman for his race ' " places him in drama, and readings of poems, including two a "kind of literary ghetto where the standards dedicated to Hayden by poet Michael S. Har applied to other writers are not likely to be per. The next day, 25 February, Hayden died. applied to him." 7 Hayden lamented the need Fetrow, Hatcher, and Williams all tell the for a "Negro Anthology," but he realized that story of Robert Hayden's life thoroughly. the only way for many of the writers included Fetrow does so in thirty-eight clearly written in it to be published and read was to be col pages. Hatcher's fifty-page account is more lected in this way. anecdotal and is filled with quotations from While both Fetrow's and Williams' books Hayden and many of the people who influ describe the controversy, Hatcher's book in enced his life. Hatcher's book also has a half cludes a generous three-chapter section, ''The dozen photographs of Hayden in various Minotaurs of Edict,'' which traces the history stages of his life. Williams, in thirty-three of black poetry in the United States and spe pages, includes verses from Hayden's poems cifically addresses "The Problem of a 'Black in order to highlight the effect of events in Aesthetic,' " and "The Birth of the Hayden his life on his work. Stand." Referrring to W E. B. Du Bois, Alain One such series of events that brought Locke (who was also a Baha'i), Countee Cul Hayden into the depths of despair and con len, and others, Hatcher carefully shows how troversy occurred at Fisk in 1966. Hayden Hayden formulated his unpopular position in had always insisted that there was only "good light both of his poetic mentors and of his poetry" and "bad poetry" and that poetry firm belief in the Baha'i teachings. In spite should not be judged by any political or racial of the fresh honors Hayden received inter criteria. Rather than writing from the point nationally at Senegal and of the increasing ac of view of a "Negro poet," Hayden insisted ceptance and publication of his poems in lit that he was a poet ·'who happened to be Ne erary journals and the commercial press, gro." Like Countee Cullen before him, he felt Hayden suffered. Hatcher's book, more than that any other point of view would lead to a Fetrow's or Williams', shows in detail the separate set of standards and that the work disheartening effect of the dissension on Hay of black artists and writers would be valued den. Hatcher, through his interpretation of only as an artifact of a political movement, Hayden's poems from a Baha'i point of view, not as literature. At the First Fisk Black helps the reader to understand Hayden's com mitment to the Baha'i Faith.

OVER HIS forty-year career, Hayden greatly matured in his style, sophistication, and choices of subject matter. His critics concur 6. In 1986 Congress officially named the consult ant the United Stares' Poer Laureate. that his earliest poems, the ones that won him 7. Hayden, Collected Pro1e 56. his first awards and publications, contain 10 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 /WINTER 1987-88 strong echoes of the poets he had admired, American subjects, with poems of personal particularly Countee Cullen, Langston experience like the frequently anthologized Hughes, Claude McKay, Stephen Vincent Be "Those Winter Sundays" and "The Whip net, and Shakespeare, Shelley, and Keats .8 Yet ping," and poems written out of his experi they also agree that these early poems fore ence as a Baha'i, such as "Dawnbreaker" and shadow the tremendous poetic talent Hayden "Baha'u'llah in the Garden of Ridwan." 12 eventually manifested. Fetrow observes that Hayden continued co develop such themes, "In his early 'heritage poems' Hayden often frequently interposing chem, up until his unknowingly falls or consciously plunges into death. a similar process or pattern: he imitates his The influence of the Baha'i Faith on Hay predecessors in subject matter, theme, or even den's poetry has not been widely appreciated figuration, but alters their perspectives and and, in fact, has been frequently misunder changes their conclusions.' '9 Williams notes stood. Gratefully, Fetrow, Hatcher, and Wil that "While they {the poems in Heart~Shape liams acknowledge, in varying degrees and in the Dust, his first book} are obviously, and detail, the influence of Hayden's faith on his often blatantly imitative, they hint at Hay art. In a section on "Transcendence" Fetrow den's eventual synthesis of his own concerns writes: with the poetic tradition." 10 Hatcher writes Some poems from his early collection that "Mose of the poems in Heart-Shape in directly announce chis perspective by de the Dust are imitative, though the breadth of scribing life as viewed through it. A few Hayden's sources implies a young poet who are artistic efforts co capture the constantly was continually experimenting, who was changing surfaces of life. Others rather di hardly dominated by interest in one poet or rectly express Baha'i religious views, ac group of poets." 11 knowledging a higher, spiritual reality and Hayden began to develop his own voice in presenting a view of life chat derives from the forties. Having read Rilke and Yeats, and his faith in the certainty of a divine prov having been encouraged by Auden, he began idential hand in all change, whether large to cake the imaginative leaps chat make his or small, tragedy or triumph.13 middle and later poems as original, interest He suggests that Hayden responded to hu ing, and important as they are. In A Ballad man suffering by ''hoping against hope in his of Remembrance, revised and reissued as Se belief in the Baha'i Faith," and that "recall lected Poems, Hayden combines poems such ing Baha'u'llah's redemptive suffering re as "Night, Death, Mississippi," "Runagace minds Hayden that the promised millennium Runagace," and his well-known sonnet, of human harmony would be preceded by "Frederick Douglass," all written about Afro- dark eras of chaotic evil and mass suffer ing." l4 Fetrow concludes this section by writ ing that Hayden's faith allowed him "a tran scendence, a 'vision' with which to counter the all too recurrent nightmares." 15 8. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 4, 10, 48-49; Hatcher, Williams also reports the religious com From the Auroral Darkness 18; Williams, Robert mitment in Hayden's poems but does not Hayden 51. 9. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 48. analyze too deeply the effect it had on Hay 10 . Williams, Robert Hayden 51. den. Her strongest assertion on the subject is 11. Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness 104. that Angle of Ascent 12. Robert Hayden, A Ballad of Remembrance is concerned not only with Hayden's atti (London: Paul Breman, 1962); Robert Hayden, Se tude toward man and society, but also, we lected Poems (New York: Ocrober House, 1966). 13. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 101-02. noted, with his attitude toward God. The 14. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 103 . book reveals his deepening attraction to the 15. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 103. Baha'i religion .... To opt for Bahaism ROBERT HAYDEN: A CRITICAL LOOK 11

was not only to reject a social hierarchy, an other calamities taking place in the sixties, economic system, and a political govern are seen and spoken by a persona who is not ment, but to revolt against a moral order just any voice, but a "Baha'i voice, immersed that was content to treat the black man, in the throes of violent change, intellectually the red man, and the yellow man each as aware of the ultimately propitious directioff but half a man; and it meant to subor of history, but feeling, nevertheless, the le dinate, if not to spurn, the theology in gitimacy of grief in this time of mankind's which the moral order claimed to be mourning." 18 based. 16 In his "Transcendence" section, Fetrow re In contrast to Fetrow and Williams, ports that Hayden was ambivalent about his Hatcher's book is full of details and references Baha'i beliefs, particularly in the sixties when that explain how Hayden the poet uses the his life was most turbulent. He tells us that Baha'i Faith to come to grips with the "dark Hayden called himself a " 'skeptical believ eras of chaotic evil and mass suffering" to er' "; but rather than exaggerating this, Fe which Fetrow alludes. The chapter entitled trow acknowledges that Hayden's "precar "The Birth of the Hayden Stand" shows how iously tenacious faith in a higher reality and Hayden formulated his world view based on an ultimate good" enabled him to continue the Baha'i teachings that stress the oneness living and writing and improving at both. 19 of humankind. Hatcher shows how previous Hayden discusses the effect of the Baha'i critics, including Williams in an earlier work, Faith on his poetry in an autobiographical have misunderstood Hayden's Words in the essay titled "From The Life: Some Remem Mourning Time because brances'': it is necessary to know something about "I saw very little influence on my work for the relationship of Hayden's perspective as the first several years, but now I realize it a Baha'i to these poems in order to un has given me a base, a focus. I am not very derstand many of the individual pieces, as pious, certainly not in any sense a goody well as the thematic integrity of the se goody. Indeed, I still struggle with my quence of the whole. In particular, to re faith; it harrows up my soul, as I guess it cover the central allusions of this volume, is supposed to do. And I confess that as one must have some notion of the Baha'i an artist I find it extremely difficult to con concept of history as the purposeful edu form to the letter of the law. But I have cation of man on this planet. 17 learned from it that the work of the artist, Hatcher further comments that "For . .. some the scientist, the philosopher, all sincere ef other critics, the Baha'i allusions in this vol fort in any discipline has spiritual value and ume are shortcomings .. . . " He then explains is both a form of service and a form of how, in the title poem, ·'Words in the worship. This thought sustains me when Mourning Time,'' Hayden's references to the the dark times come, and they come for assassinations, the violence at home and in me all too often, I must admit." 20 Vietnam, the starvation in Biafra, and the Fetrow and Williams do, finally, credit Hayden's Baha'i identity as having a bene ficial effect on his poems. However, rather than its being just another factor, Hatcher shows 16. Williams, Robert Hayden 163 . us that it is a major, perhaps the major, in 17. Pontheolla T. Williams, "A Critical Analysis of fluence on his poetry. A reader interested in the Poetry of Robert Hayden Through His Middle understanding this relationship will benefit Years," diss., Columbia U Teacher's College, 1978; greatly from Hatcher's book. Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness 159- 60. Fetrow, Hatcher, and Williams analyze 18. Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness 162 , 161. many of the same poems and their interpre 19. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 103. 20. Hayden, Collected Prose 27. tations, although different, are frequently 12 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88

complementary. Nowhere do they disagree thronged her portholes. more, however, than on ''The Diver'' from Moss of bryozoans Hayden's Selected Poems. Hayden had publicly blurred, obscured her commented that this is a private poem with metal. Snappers, a personal meaning and that he was moti gold groupers explored her, vated to write it by a " 'sense of his own in fearless of bubbling adequacies.' " 21 He also stated that "The Di manfish. I entered ver" " 'is actually a metaphor,' " " 'about the the wreck, awed by her silence nature of reality and "the very thin line" be feeling more keenly tween the real and the fanciful.' " 22 Here is the iron cold. the poem as it appears in Hatcher and Wil With the flashlight probing liams. 23 Fetrow's book, unfortunately, does fogs of water not include the complete texts of the major saw the sad slow poems discussed. dance of gilded chairs, the ectoplasmic THE DIVER swirl of garments, Sank through easeful drowned instruments azure. Flower of buoyancy, creatures flashed and drunken shoes. Then shimmered there livid gesturings, lost images eldritch hide and fadingly remembered. seek of laughing Swiftly descended faces. I yearned to into canyons of cold find those hidden nightgreen emptiness. ones, to fling aside Freefalling, weightless the mask and call to them, as in dreams of yield to rapturous wingless flight, whisperings, have plunged through infra done with self and space and came to every dinning the dead ship, vain complexity. carcass that swarmed with Yet in languid voracious life. frenzy strove, as Angelfish, their one freezing fights off lively blue and sleep desiring sleep; yellow prised from strove against the darkness by the cancelling arms that flashlight's beam, suddenly surrounded me, fled the numbing kisses that I craved. 21. Williams, Robert Hayden 106. Reflex of life-wish? 22. Quoted in How I Write: Robert Hayden, The Respirator's brittle Poet and His Art: A Conversation (New York: Har belling? Swam from court, 1972) 166, quoted in Hatcher, From the Au the ship somehow; roral Darknen 145; Dennis Joseph Gendron, "Rob ert Hayden: A View of his Life and Development somehow began the as a Poet," diss., U of North Carolina, 1975, 74, measured rise. quoted in Hatcher, From the Auroral Darknen 145. 23. Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness 145-47; The diver in his literal descent experiences Williams, Robert Hayden 202-03. the " 'rapture of the deep,' " caused, perhaps, ROBERT HAYDEN: A CRITICAL LOOK 13 by nitrogen narcosis or, as Fetrow suggests, liams agrees with Fetrow that there is a death "a brief infatuation with submerged suicidal wish expressed here and suggests that the di tendencies.'' The persona describes the beauty ver "would gratify the senses at the expense of the undersea world as he descends until of elevating the spirit." She provides lines reaching the "dead ship." Only as he enters from Hayden's 1960 notebook that were de it, does the persona use the first person "I," leted from the final draft to point out the sen at last committing himself and giving in to sual tone of the poem. exploring. Fetrow sees this as a journey of in I swam to her, trospection where the diver "plumbs the anxious, elated, depths of his creator's psyche, measuring the feeling more strengths of the poet's desire to break through keenly now the bonds of social and moral restraint in the iron cold, pursuit of potentially self-destructive pleas the hammering thrust ures.'' Acknowledging that the poem de and heavy tension of the heavy depths25 scribes a "deeply personal emotional crisis," While Hatcher acknowledges the various Fetrow continues. "Hayden thus personally psychological, sexual, and literary interpre embodies, and artistically portrays, the classic tations that ''The Diver'' has evoked, he in struggle between the Freudian id and super sists that this difficult poem is not "a longing ego. The diver's yearning ... represents more for death" but, instead, is a " 'profound in than narcosis, more than even a death-wished tensification for life' "; he argues that the as for release from emotional perturbation." He cent of the diver is comparable to the "artist concludes his analysis of the poem by stating entering the cage to confront and control his that the diver, by choosing to return to the lions ...." "the diver's desire to 'fling aside surface, has not given in to the urge to "for the mask' is an aspiration for enlightenment, sake all external considerations,'' including not obliteration." 26 "'respectability,'" "identity," and "conform Hatcher sees two important elements in ity," that has seduced him. It is the "belling" this poem: that which takes place beneath of "social and moral restraints" that reminds the surface of the sea, exemplified by the ship the diver that he must ascend. 24 with all of its natural and unnatural wonders, Williams agrees that the diver stays too which he considers a "vision of Baha'u'llah," long in the depths because he is "enchanted and the "rise," which takes place as a result by what he sees there"-forbidden and un of the consolation and confirmation of that known objects that have long been lost to the vision. He then suggests that "The Diver," surface, plus the new life of the marine crea the introductory poem in Selected Poems, is a tures that swim in and out of it all. After preface for the ten poems immediately fol making a significant comparison of "The Di lowing it and that this descent, a "rejection ver" to Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," Wil- of a death wish,'' is necessary for the eventual rise of the persona who "emerges from de spair and grief to the hope of reconciliation and resolution.'' 27 While it is impossible to know what Hayden meant in this poem, 24. Fetrow, Robert Hayden 71 , 72. 25. Williams, Robert Hayden 106 . Hatcher, referring to both Baha'u'llah and 26. Hatcher, From the Attroral Darkness 147 (with Plato, interprets the poem's symbolism from quotation from Wilburn Williams, Jr., "Covenant a Baha'i perspective. Readers will have to de of Timelessness and Time: Symbolism and History cide for themselves which interpretation is in Robert Hayden's Angle of Ascent," Chant of Saints: more satisfying and helpful. A Gathering of Afro-American Literatttre, Art, and Scholarship, ed. Michael S. Harper and Robert B. UNFORTUNATELY, most people do not read Stepro [Chicago: U of Illinois Press, 1979) 67). 27. Hatcher, From the Auroral Darkness 148 . poetry-Hayden's or anyone else's. This is a 14 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88 deprivation, as William Carlos Williams re make Robert Hayden's life and poetry more minds us in ''Asphodel" : accessible so that we gain a better under It is difficult standing of his poems. Each of the three books to get the news from poems contains detailed notes and sources. Each has yet men die miserably every day used firsthand interviews with Hayden and, for lack after he died, with his wife, Erma. The result of what is found there. 28 is that each of these three books is illumi It is difficult to invest the time and to conjure nating and a pleasure to read, and I have the intellectual and emotional energy to "get learned from each of them. As companions the news" and the benefits from poems. Fred to the Collected Poems, and perhaps the Col M. Fetrow, John Hatcher, and Pontheolla T. lected Prose, they will give the reader an Williams have worked hard and honestly to emancipated view of one of the century's most thoughtful and eloquent writers, a poet who makes us think and feel so that our own lives become less "miserable" and more worth liv 28. William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems (New ing. In his own words: York: New Directions, 1969) 150. And that's the beauty part, 29. Hayden, Collected Poe111J 74 . I mean, ain't that the beauty part. 29

A Portfolio of Poe111s

HERE is a real fear mixed with an unfailing sense of arrogance T that allows me to try to follow in the footsteps of World Order's former poetry editors: Robert Hayden and William Stafford. Their sensibilities were so correct that I cannot help but tremble as I em bark on the venture of trying to read and edit poems the magazine has already received and those it will receive. Robert Hayden and William Stafford are poets of the first order, and I, quite naturally, stand in their shadows. As this editing process begins, I have only my sensibilities to recommend me. I hope that they are finely tuned, for in truth I have long gone to school to the poems of both these gentlemen (though I hasten to add that they can in no way be held responsible for my still-developing taste). I can only promise to do my best in choosing works that speak to the delicate spirituality of men and women. The task I am undertaking is awesome. In many ways it is both fire and water. Both elements offer danger and excitement, especially when one stumbles on the constrastive individual voices of Anne Marie Blum, Roswitha M. Petretschek Shelton, Cal E. Rollins, Lucia V. Caruso, and Bob Mullin. Each of these poets is new to me and exciting in an individual way. Each lives in a different part of the country, but all are a testament to the continuing growth of a vital American poetry. The present portfolio also contains the older, more masterful voice of Judson Jerome and the emerging youthful voice of Len Roberts, who first appeared in World Order in a portfolio edited by Robert Hayden. The form of the poems, for all intents, is open rather than closed that is, it relies on the individual line, rather than on rhyme and stanzaic scheme. In addition, the writers have caught the voices and the rhythms of the country. And there is a control of another type. The music in these poems is not hopeful, for it reflects the dissonant despairs intendent with the coming of the atomic bomb. Still the poets presented work with detail and a hopeful vision. Theirs is the spirit that so often appeared in the portfolios of my predecessors who distinguished themselves first as men of letters and second as tireless editors and teachers who were always alert to new voices that touched on the human condition and to the humanity they espoused and believed was in all of us. I hope they look over this new folio and smile approvingly as we share old voices and introduce new ones to the readership of World Order. - HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN 18 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / W IN T ER 1987- 88

Confrontation: Road Town Harbour

Wind thrums the rigging while we rock at anchor. Wind billows your white burnoose. Your black hands rise, lifting it like unfolding wings. Its hood obscures your face except for flashing eyes .

You talk about the barricade, old friend, that one day soon will find us face to face. Night howls around us. Whitecaps flash their teeth. No friendship then will heal the wound of race.

The deck beneath us lifts, subsides, and tilts. The tent of night is silk shot through with stars. Tomorrow you are off to Africa to take commands from savage commisars.

I hear waves crashing on the crescent beach that fans outside the Pirate Cabaret. My back is to the rail. The damp salt wind whips hair against my cheeks in perilous play.

We still can laugh- although your laugh is shrill. This wild night follows, remember, a day of calm. What gesture now? Long sleeve of woolen robe flaps once, then furls. I stare at your pallid palm. - Judson Jerome Copyright © 1990 by J udso n J erome. A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 19

Ways of Staying Faithful

Try to touch me soon even though you feel 5, maybe 600 miles away. I'm sure I'll still feel it.

Try to touch me soon even though I've fallen asleep again at your side. And don't forget to write next day to let me know

Fewer Words

Silence is docile but the highest form of communication.

Some people climb mountains in search of it. Even in China

a walnut tree knows it should be among the first to lose

its leaves . The closer together two people get the fewer words they need. -Ken Letko

Summer before the fall, 1982

(for George, in Beirut)

I waited for you but you were not yet born Rashid Hussein, "Letter to a Woman"

Dry season and harmattan are not like summers, really, in occupied places this season is ending badly again. it may be a childhood without summers the women crying for their dead in late fall too the ruins face everywhere in a burst of skull and brick the caption under this picture I hold says human debris, with deliberation; I am too bothered by heat to tease out to completion: tone, laconic; posed horror. simply this for now: the righteous can do no wrong the weak must expect what they can your idea of pain cannot be older than that, I tell myself, fatigued by too much summer.

in the letters of Rashid Hussein the land draws near me thyme is eaten with olive oil for breakfast in those places Sabrah, Chatila beyond the inhabited world there Rashid once shouted "Believe me I am weary of crying. What do you want me to bemoan Horses Sheep .. .''

(hot ice and wondrous strange snow, the line comes easily enough: I am wary of too much that is new, snuffie in the old things I know. we met, you remember, with the alps rising sharp and whitelaced beyond a third floor window. in Austria.) A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 21

The Naming Field

Every morning my son looked up from over his toast and jam and said Walk, and I said Yes, but by the time we got to the third tier I didn't know the names of the flowers, I'd forgotten which vines strangled the walnut, the oak, and to nearly every questioning look he gave me I had to shrug my shoulders, hold my hands up as though testing for rain. I rried to tell him my father had been a breadman in a city, that my mother had planted only green beans, carrots, beets, a few common roses, one spring a sunflower that grew only four feet and suddenly died, but he kept laying stalk after weedy stalk at my feet, refusing to hear my excuses, running back into the field which engulfed him again and again in its green arms, embraced his small white body like any seed, finally took him in completely, until I could not find him there, no matter how hard I looked. -Len Roberts Copyright © 1990 by Len Roberrs . 22 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987- 88

Removing the Mole

As I felt the doctor cut the mole out of my left leg, birthmark in the same place my mother had hers, I remembered the dark kitchen on White Street, the picture of her standing by the cupboard, a slice of white bread covered with sugar in one hand, a butter knife in the other. I saw again the rollers in her hair, the quilted bathrobe she wore over flannel pajamas, her sunken eyes and full lips, the pug nose, the poverty of her, the loss of her mind there in that kitchen, and I wondered if the man taking the picture had felt it, the one who had to focus in the dark, who had to wait in the dark until she had spread the bread with hurter and sprinkled the sugar, the one who said nothing until he snapped the bulb, throwing light all over her otherwise disguised face, catching her like an animal in its dark hole, her half-crooked Oh telling him what he did not want to know. -Len Roberts Copyright © 1990 by Len Roberts.

Knowing You

Knowing you as collector of the overlooked, the undervalued, I gather seeds in Bishop's Woods. Half-exposed nuts, shells as neatly sectioned as orange segments; a full term nut, encased in three-quarter dress shell, a model of earth geology crust cut away to exhibit core; Knowing you authorizing vision exposing fully the wild walnut. - E. S. A. Martin

Ode to a Dove Flying (For Teachers of the Cause)

Oh, dove on wings of grace ascending, Severed of the ground, not depending Upon the world and its base deception, Arise to the heights of an exalted reception.

Happiness is the sweet fruit and seed Upon which the precious bird does feed. The Spirit's inspiration the teacher's heart's desire, See his eyes aflame with the unforgettable fire.

Consuming the heights on searching wings, Bearing the treasure the Holy Spirit brings. Teacher, guide, by the song of His melodious voice, you call ochers' hearts to rejoice.

Black Birds

Purple leaves reel on my porch like Yellow, wind-blown snake skins. The freckled grass blades rustle. A few black birds stalk through the Grass, all noisy and forlorn. - Roswitha M. Petretschek Shelton

The Stranger

There is a timber picket-fence around my House; it is filled with splinters. A lawn surrounds my house, a soft-skin Blanket sprinkled with white dots. They bathe in the glimmering heat. I walk through my knee-high daisies Light-hearted like their swaying heads On fine, unbending stems with sticky hair. A lady bug tipples up a stem, pausing For rest. A stranger pauses by my fence; I go into my house and shut the oak door Heavily behind me. Nothing else will Lure me our again except daisy or bug. -Roswitha M. Petretschek Shelton

Foreign Soil

The front walk of our house is uncovered from the layers of ice and snow. And now that I see the asymmetric slate with its overall design of a swan's neck, memories fill in where the stones leave a space. But one day the scene will be changed and I will be awakening in rhythm to an unfamiliar landscape. It will be like this:

I will be putting my son to sleep, rocking him in a dark room where the moonlight draws the silhouettes of leaves on a wall. The night has seeped in and laps easily within the corners. When I leave I will look out the window and be frightened at the strange trees. Thinking back, I will remember my study, the white picket fence and the slate walk, my friends whose faces I could touch. - Marlaina Tanny

Missionary

Autumn in Nairobi and another life rearranges itself inside your head. Black sand, tiger lilies and the same incurable dream. In the sunlight you are the honest missionary anxious for supplies and the jungle's hum. You cross borders. You are unwilling to accept the evidence of frailty so you strike out making small advances in the underbrush. Your vision falls easily from your hands. In this helpless country it is all you can do to remember reasons.

Once a tall woman squatted over you asking for medication. You pulled open the door of your hut. You showed her the patterns the saffron sun made on the floor. Her song was a million tiny prayers rushing forward like streams. You thought it revealed everything.

Evenings in Nairobi, haunted by a soft mosaic of faces . This is not like other countries. No one is content here. You tell your family how the good life runs like a documentary, all the while thinking, "There is a moral here, but I'm not certain what it is.'· A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 27

Purpose quickly becomes the sound of mountains collapsing in the distance. Even if she was beautiful, you are guilty. There is no excuse. There never is.

In the madness you prefer the cold blossoms of flowers. You consider the rituals of the fog. Still you hear the muffled catch in your voice, her song seeping under the door and the sound of noble gestures beating at your window. This is the refrain. This is what you have been waiting for all your life. In the gold of the season you discover your importance. And the jungle drifts through your fingers and settles itself around you like a quiet mission or another life, with the power of a country thumping in your hands. - Anne Marie Blum

Hey, Man, Where's My Lines?

I was walkin' down this two-lane, see? And steppin' real fine down them double yellow lines? Two-steppin', you might call it, side-steppin', doin' my little jig, tryin' to get where I was going, movin' round, but GETTIN' there, if you follow my drift.

And I'm singin', you know? singin' blues- but I ain't that blue. You can do that, you know? Sing your heart out like there ain't no tomorrow, not for you, anyways, not when you so down in the heels you can't see your eyelids through the salt-water-fall.

You can sing 'em HIGH, I mean, send them low-down blues high as a kite, high as them clouds up there, them big white ice-cream clouds high over the back hills, the far ones, back a bit, not them little wispy nothings over-head directly.

You see them ice-cream clouds, hear them blues, and sing your eyes out till you get those babies right up where they belong, carrying your weighed-down baggage all thousand pounds of it- right into the big, beautiful, flying aer-oh-plane.

Not a real plane, mind you, jest an idea, you know, gettin' your sorrows into high gear, singin' them out, your big baggage blues, you know? singin' 'em out till you're flying, REAL high, A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 29 up where you always wanted to be, wanted to be all-ways, always knowed it, needed it, wanted to be there all the days night-times, day-times-night-times, too. Sure I wanna be there night-times, too. Get off'n this low-down runway and I'm OUT-a here. Real far. Real high. Real fast. -Michele F. Cooper

Musing about My Rights

for Vanessa and Birgit

Bahia de Banderas Puerto Vallarta

"You'll never amount to anything," my grandmother used to say to me, her black face shining like the bay.

Childhood was experiment then, penultimate though to the seed she forced . I knew from the way she gnawed my silence: plenty of sleep in the grave, your blood's as red (or blue) as theirs, love yourself and open that book. Prophecies about our world just flowering .

''.Anything" from a lesser light would have been hard winter.

"Your rights are God's," she'd say. I only saw her once with her eyes closed. -Cal E. Rollins

The room smells of sleep

The room smells of sleep; dawn shortens the gray shadows and dispels my ghosts -Judith A. Tugwell

Beautiful Place

For souls it is death to become water, for water it is death to become earth; out of earth water arises, out of water soul. -Heraclitus

When I drowned, no one blamed Dennis. He almost drowned, too, trying to save me. He later developed a style of telling the story that insisted upon his decision, once his arm was around my neck, to go to the side with the rock shelf. Help from our friends swimming at the other side never occurred to him. When he told the long version, women pinched their eyes and bit their lip, and men were sour. While Dennis had struggled in the middle of the quarry, I floated freely. I mingled with the water beyond my fingertips. My body raised flat while I waited to see our legs dangling and kicking, his arm reaching, through the lime-colored water, until panic caught him, too, and he let go. Dennis still wonders: had he thought of our friends ... He remembers, too, the weight of panic, like the pull off a tall building, untouchable as it touches, and shakes his head. He feels better with the story. The broad quarry and lime-bright pool, acres round, acres deep, still speak in a language he's heard just once. On the horizon, the trees and roads of the country are broken neatly by the great pit, as though he could reach across and pull the edges together. I wait to feel the brown fields pass overhead. But irony does not amuse the dead. When Dennis dies, it will be a glorious day. He will go to the beautiful place with rolling hills and grass and flowers in bloom. Birds will sing and squirrels chase in the trees. His friends will dress in their finest, their faces filled with emotion, and the voice of God will proclaim his good life. Then, by twos and threes, they will leave and the men will come to fill in the hole. - Matthew Riley Copyright © 1990 by Matthew Riley. 32 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88

The Ride

Adulthood is the 7: 15 you catch in a hurry before you can look m a mirror, even to see if your hair is combed, much less to glean the glimmer in your eye or the turn of your lip.

Before you know it, you're on your way, Slttmg, even if you don't want to sit, because chairs fill the car and sitting is what everyone does. So you sit and forget and ride, not thinking of your destination or even the fact you're on a journey at all .

But the time finally comes when the ride's end is near and there you are standing at the exit, alone, about to leave ready or not with somebody you don't even know. What's more, though you at last have time, you' re too fearful now to look at your reflection A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 3 3 in the darkened window of the door leading out because you don't know what you might see- and you don't want to know. - Bob Mullin

(For my son Sharaf, and for the Baha' fs suffering persecution in Iran) 7 Jalal 140 B.E.

It's early in the year. Nothing much has happened yet. It will.

It's early in my life. Nothing much accomplished yet; a few things. More will come.

It's early in the Era. Many things have happened already But only a select few have recognized the beginning of a new millenium. Those who have, rejoice. Those who haven't, sleep.

The cries of an infant Faith are waking the world! "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . It will happen. 0 New World of Baha'u'llah: BE - Christine Boldt Copyright © 1990 by Christin e Bold t. 34 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88

Falling Water Elegy

The meaning of the name dispels dispute, the Indians called it Falling Water, and so it is, and so it sounds, Sheboygan's a water town, the Lake's to the East, to the West the Falls, and all around the town, the Elms slim and silent, pierce the cold blue sky, echoing the pristine joy of all beginnings. The crimson silos answer to the present- the future's waiting to be born protected in its seed by love and healing hands-for there are a few among the Landlords, merchants, priests, who know the Word fully revealed, ancient in glory, newly born in light. Somewhere there's a beginning. They feel it, know it, and can name the Name.

Water draws the people like a magnet. The fountain in the Plaza fills their mouths to overflowing, the boats are reeling in the harbor, waiting for release, to seize and capture trout-the Falls rush over rocks and rills, cry out immersion in the ocean of discovery. Water's all around the town. Now there's talk of flooding in the coming rains. The people wonder if the funnel clouds will reach the North. Fear quickens in the hearts of builders of ships, creators of plastics, gloves and plumbing ware. The dialect of German congues spins webs of discord and concern. The margins lack profits, downtown's a ghost, with shopping co the West, and what of the invasion of Asians and Latinos' The world is out of balance. Their vision turns co continents, the ocean's edge. A PORTFOLIO OF POEMS 3 5

I flee the core of discontent and walk through Vollrath Park. Here in the greenness of summer youth, I live again. What if the poles reverse themselves- the earth trembles on its axis' Eternity is now. This Park where once I skated in the winter, picnicked in the fall, holds more than springtime memory. I seek the Kingdom of the trees, and listen to the sound of water falling on the leaves . -Joan Imig Taylor

Gardenia

grown from ground pulled toward sun seed of man (scent of earth) select, the best!

Perfection rests in Paradise. - Christine Boldt

Basilica de Guadalupe /Mexico City

My grandmother was Baptist in my boyhood, but walked all the way on her knees to the mission at San Xavier del Bae outside of Tucson.

Our Lady of Guadalupe proves my boyhood, too, in this poetic place. That boy, no more than 15, crawls on his knees, while the priest takes flight . Neither waits for the other.

I see nothing of Juan Diego in the Virgin's eye; I am not moved by her image and the story of roses. This graceful company of angels feeds from the Mother, though, and she is soft, like a new beginning.

39 Canada's Earliest Baha'i History

BY WILL. C. VAN DEN HOONAARD

The Initial Contact Buddhist representatives. It paralleled the DURING the third week in September of World's Columbian Exposition, also in Chi 1893, a woman and her two daughters, ages cago, to celebrate the four hundredth anni thirteen and ten, boarded a Canadian Pacific versary of the discovery of the New World by Railway train in London, Ontario, bounq for Columbus. Chicago. 1 That trip would eventually result The World Exposition had captured the in the first stirrings of the Baha'i Faith in hearts and minds of Ontarians and London Canada. Esther Annie (Mrs. Jonathan) Magee ers alike. More than two thousand people from and the Misses Edith and Harriet Magee be Ontario attended, and on a typical day some longed to a prominent family in Canada's twenty people from London could be found "City of Parks." The roundtrip fare of $9.30 boarding the train to Chicago.3 Toward the was a small sacrifice to attend the World's closing of the exposition, a local London agent Parliament of Religions in Chicago. 2 The Par sold sixty-two train tickets in one day. 4 liament gathered together for the first time in Newspaper articles spoke of the vast amounts human history the widest possible array of of money withdrawn from local banks to pay religious leaders, including Hindu and for these journeys, amounting to $40,000- approximately $400,000 in today's terms. 5 In addition to attending the World's Parlia Opposite page: Edith Magee Inglis ment of Religions, the Magees also had a per Copyright © 1990 by the National Spiritual As sembly of the Baha'is of rhe United Stares. I am sonal interest in going to Chicago, for Guy particularly indebted to Rosanne Buzzell, Archivist Magee, Esther Annie's brother-in-law, a prom of the Eliot Baha'i community, Maine; to the staff inent journalist who was covering the Parlia at the National Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, Illinois, ment of Religions, lived there. All of the especially Lewis Walker; to Joseph W. P. Frost of Magees, including Guy, had been raised in an Eliot, Maine; and to Marjorie Durnin Inglis, daugh ter-in-law of Edith Magee Inglis, for their active "atmosphere of tolerance and universality"; 6 support of this research project. I also wish to ex Guy's interests included comparative religion. press my heartfelt appreciation to the Uni versiry of Born in Philadelphia in 1842, he had lived in New Brunswick for its offer of resources to conduct London, Ontario, and then moved to Chicago the research. in 1889. There, as city editor first of the Trib 1. London Free Press 19 Sept. 1893: 3. The actual une and later of the Inter-Ocean, he gained early date may be 18 Sept. 1893. 2. London Free PreJJ 6 Sept. 1893: 7. prominence in his journalistic career. He had 3. London Free Prm 26 Sept. 1893: 6; 2 Sept. covered the American Civil War and was one 1893: 7. of two journalists to accompany General Sher 4. London Free PreJJ 11 Oct. 1893: 2. man on his march to the sea from Atlanta 5. London Free Press 2 Oct. 189 3: 3. 6. "1893: The First Canadian Baha'i," Baha'i not a small feat, given the fact that General 7 Canada June 1979: 12. Sherman disliked journalists. 7. New York TimeJ 6 June 1919: 13. It is not entirely clear who of the Magee 40 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88 family first heard, on a rainy Saturday in Chi VI (Grade 12) at the London Collegiate In cago, 23 September 1893, the name of stitute in her home town; "unclassified" is Baha'u'llah from a paper read on behalf of reserved for those who have either taken very the Rev. Henry Jessup. But, according to few subjects or who have been absent most some, it was Harriet who first heard of the of the term.9 A warm and loving relationship Baha'i Faith in Chicago.8 Little is known of developed between Edith and Guy Magee's the Magees' immediate response to the news two daughters, Hester Lane and especially of the teachings or the death of Baha'u'llah, May Marguerite, who were by this time ten the Founder of the Baha'i Faith. The later and twenty-one years old, respectively. 10 effects of the mention of Baha'u'llah's name On 26 January 1898 Ibrahim Kheiralla had on the London-side of the Magee family were finished the last course he gave in Chicago on both profound and lasting. the Baha'i Faith, the same year that Guy Ma gee interviewed a Baha'i. 11 Kheiralla was a Canada's First Baha'i: Edith Magee Syrian convert to the new religion and was EDITH MAGEE is known to have made many one of the first two Baha'is to have come to visits to see her uncle, Guy Magee, and prob America. Later that year Guy must have sent ably heard on those occasions more about the word to Edith, his niece in London, for she new religion, although he never became a spent the late summer in Chicago. 12 There is Baha'i. By 1898 Edith's visits to her uncle an account that states that one of the Magees and his family became so frequent that she had become a Baha'i and returned to Can obtained an "unclassified" standing in Form ada.1 3 The 27 September 1898 London Ad vertiser suggests that Edith returned on 26 September. Members of her family accepted the Faith soon thereafter. l4 Edith was born prematurely on 28 June 1880 during her mother's visit to Chicago. I 5 8 . "Review of Manuscripc,'' sem to auchor wich a lener from rhe Association for Baha'i Scudies, Oc She declared her faith in Baha'u'llah when cawa, 31 Jan. 1989. she was eighteen years old. Although her 9. London Advertiser 3 May 1898: 2. school career was not remarkable-we have 10. This murual actraction is evidem in a collec only the one reference to her standing in cion of photographs discovered by che auchor in school-she loved music and singing, and she Souch Berwick, Maine, in October 1987. Guy Magee's wife was Retra Lane, whose lase name danced. She performed at local fairs, · includ is rhe same as char of Kenosha, Wisconsin's, firsc ing the "Kirmess [a fair}, that elaborate com Baha'i, Byron S. Lane (see Robert H. Stockman, The bination of fair feminity, chic wardrobes and Baha'i Faith in America: Origins, 1892-1900 (Wil fragrant flowers." 16 Her talents extended to mecce, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trusc, 1985) I: 110. performing for hospital benefits. For example, 11. Stockman, Baha'i Faith in America 1: 116. 12. Stockman, Baha'i Faith in America I: 131. there is a striking picture of Edith in a nurse's 13. "1893: The Firsc Canadian Baha'i" 12 . uniform. She also performed at the Asylum 14. "1893: The First Canadian Baha'i," 12, scares for the Insane, where she delighted the au char ic was Edi ch 's mocher who apparendy had gone dience with the song, "Dream of Me." 17 By to Chicago, and ic was she who rerurned to Canada the time she was twenty-two, she was giving as a Baha'i. The source of chis informarion is not 18 indicaced, and che only recorded crip of rhe Magee solo recitals in churches. Her musical tal household was Edirh's, reported in che London Ad ents were later put to good use at Baha'i vertiser 27 Sepe. 1898: 6. gatherings, particularly at Green Acre, an im 15. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal iRcerview, Ar- portant Baha'i retreat in southern Maine. lington, Va., 22 June 1989. Soon thereafter, in 1902, Edith moved to New 16. London Advertiser 5 May 1898: 8. 17. London Advertiser 2 Nov. 1898: 8. York to continue her music lessons. 18. For example, London Advertiser 2 May 1902: As described by her daughter-in-law, Mar 8. jorie Inglis, Edith was very much her own CANADA'S EARLIEST BAHA'i HISTORY 41 person and very outspoken. 19 She considered Edith Magee's Paternal Family herself to be Irish-English, not Canadian, A GOOD DEAL is known about the paternal British, or American. A trove of turn-of-the side of the family. Jonathan Magee, Edith's cen tury photographs shows an extremely father, was born in 1849 in London, Ontario, beautiful, poised, young woman. 20 She did of Irish Methodist parents. After Guy and not inherit the large ears of her father's side Alfred, he was the third son. The family was of the family but had an evenly sculptured well-to-do, and Jonathan led a life of private face with the broad chin typical of her moth pursuits, which included farming in Crum er's family. Each photograph reveals Edith's lin, a village of fifty people on the Canadian perfect grace, whether it shows her sitting in Pacific Railway line, five miles east of Lon an ornate chair, or standing on the stage, or don. Toward the end of his life he also dealt wearing an elaborate hat, or reclining on a in real estate. He traveled at least once to Cal love seat. The way she holds her head, the ifornia to improve his health. 21 There are pic position of her hands, and her general de tures taken of him in Oregon, which means meanor exemplify a strict and highly cultured that he took either an extended trip to the upbringing. As she moves into her thirties, West Coast or several such journeys. In any her serious composure gives way to a relaxed, event, he was a great traveler and collected easy expression verging on humor. spoons and demitasses wherever he went. Very attached to her father, Edith faithfully kept his collection. 22 Jonathan Magee died on 31 December 1902, leaving an estate of $4,900, including a store and a house at 752 Rich 2 19 . Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Arlingron, mond Street, London. 3 Va., 19 Nov. 1987. Jonathan's parents were Mary A. Magee and 20. Through the help of Mr. Joseph Frost of Eliot, George Greeg Magee. A passenger and im Maine, two boxes of phorographs and memorabilia migration list index shows that a George Ma were uncovered in an attic in South Berwick, Maine. gee arrived in Philadelphia in 1841. 24 George The collection contains about three hundred photo graphs, postcards to Edith Magee from early Baha'is and his wife moved to London, Ontario, and other friends, and a large collection of her jour where on 23 October 1843 he purchased land nalist-husband's drafts of articles. The descriptions on Nelson and South streets. 25 Eventually, the of Edith in this paragraph are derived from pho family lived at 140 Maple Street. Upon rographs in this collection. George's death on 25 December 1890, he left 21. London Advertiser 10 May 1898: 8. 22 . Mrs . Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar $86, 142 to his wife, the equivalent of nearly lingron, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. $900,000 today. Jonathan's mother, Mary, was 23. London Free Press 1 Jan. 1903: 1, 10; London also Irish Methodist. She died on 26 June Advertiser 2 Jan. 1903: 6, 8. 1903, about six months after the death of her The Petition of Esther Annie Magee, in the mat son, Jonathan, leaving an estate of ter of Jonathan Magee, 18 Dec. 1902, Surrogate 26 Court of the County of Middlesex, Archives of On $45,526.25. She left nothing to Jonathan's tario, Toronto, Ref. RG22, series 321, no. 7475/ children, Edith and Harriet, but instead left 1903. everything to one of her sons, Alfred; his two 24. P. William Filby, ed., with Mary K. Meyer, children, Lillian Mary and John; her daugh Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (Detroit: Gale ter, Emma; and her nephew, James Magee, a Research Co., 1981) 2: 1273. See also London and Its Men of Affairs (London, Ont.: The Advertiser, lawyer in Queen's Court. These records sug 1916): 92 . gest that a split had developed between Jon 25. The Archives of Ontario, letter ro author, 27 athan, his wife, and children, on the one hand, July 1987. and all the other Magees, on the other. It is 26. The Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Mary perhaps not a coincidence that the benefici A. Magee, 9 June 1899, Surrogate Court of the County of Middlesex, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, aries of the various estates did not include the Ref. RG22, series 321, no. 7678/ 1903. Baha'i members of the family. 42 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987-88

Edith Magee's Maternal Family born of English Methodist parents-Mr. and VIRTUALLY nothing is known about the ma Mrs. Edward Gauge. After Esther Annie's ternal side of Edith Magee's family. But it husband decided to move back to London, was that side of the family who rook the lead Ontario, from Crumly, she and her family in accepting the new revelation. Soon after lived at 62 5 Wellington Street. 28 According Edith's return from Chicago in September to Edith's daughter-in-law, Esther Annie was 1898, four other female members of the very much a matriarch. 29 She eventually fol household declared their faith in Baha'u'llah: lowed her daughter to New York, where she Edith's mother, Esther Annie Magee; Edith's continued to serve the Baha'i Faith as a sister, Harriet (better known as "Hattie"); member of the New York City Women's and, according to one account, two sisters of Board and as secretary of the Women's Unity Esther Annie-Rose and Vail. 27 meeting in that same city. 3° Frequently, Es Esther Annie Magee (who was to become ther Annie would spend the summer at the better known through her middle name) was Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine; she appears in a photograph taken there with Baha'u'llah's son and appointed successor, 27. The account entitled " 1893: The First Ca '.Abdu 'l-Baha, Who was undertaking exten nadian Baha'i" does not mention the names of the sive travels throughout Europe and North two sisters. They appear, however, in a letter from America after His release from prison in Mrs. A. Magee ro Mr. Randall, 3 Nov. 1917, Alfred Akka, in 1908. 3l E. Lunt Papers, National Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, '.Abdu'l-Baha spoke highly of the Magee Ill. 28. London City Directory, various years until 1907. family. For example, an early Baha'i, V. 29. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar Haack, in a postcard to Harriet Magee, de lingron, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. scribed seeing '.Abdu'l-Baha off at the train 30. "New York City," Star of the West 1.1 (21 station in Paris on 12 June 1913 and related March 1910): 17, and " In Memoriam: Harrier Ma hearing "the Master say such beautiful things gee," Star of the West 5.19 (2 March 1915): 295, 2 298. about your whole family.'' 3 3 1. The Baha'i World: A Biennial International Esther Annie Magee received several tab Record, Volume VII, 1936-1938, comp. National lets from '.Abdu'l-Baha. 33 One account cites Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of rhe United Stares the following exhortation by '.Abdu 'l-Baha: and Canada (New York: Baha'i Publishing Com "Be like Mrs. Magee; be a lion in the Cause mittee, 1939), plate facing 219. Mrs. Magee is no. 4 84 in the photograph. of God."3 There is no known source for this 32. V. Haack, postcard ro Miss Harriet McGee statement, however. In yet another tablet [sic}, 12 June 1913, Magee Papers in the author's '.Abdu'l-Baha suggests that she "should con possession. tinually communicate with them [the Jap 3 3. One of these tablets is found in ·'Tablets from anese}." 35 It seems that Esther Annie Magee Abdul-Baha on Immortal Life," Star of the West 7.19 (2 March 1917) 192-93. Ahmad Sohrab, in a post never reached Japan, for, by the time the tab card dared 26 Feb. 1916 ro Mr. Joseph Hannen, let arrived, she had already passed away on mentions that 'Abdu'l-Baha had just dictated a tab 25 December 1918 in Montclair, New Jersey. let ro Mrs. Magee (Star of the West 7.4 [ 17 May 1916}: It is not known why '.Abdu'l-Baha had 28). chosen Esther Annie to undertake a trip to 34. "1893: The First Canadian Baha'i" 12. 35. 'Abdu'l-Baha, letter ro Roy Wilhelm, quoted Japan. However, London, Ontario, was a cen in [National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of ter of nationally important church gatherings, Japan, comp.} Japan Will Turn Ablaze! Ta blets of which highlighted the missionary work of the 'Abd11'l-Baha, Letters of Shoghi Effendi And Histor Presbyterians in China, of the Baptists in In ical Notes About Japan (Japan: Baha'i Publishing dia, and of the Methodists in Japan and Trust, 1974) vi . 6 36. For example, London Advertiser 7 May 1902: China. 3 The Presbyterians were, in fact, 6; London Advertiser 8 Occ. 1902: 3. planning to spend $150,000 on foreign work 37. London Advertiser 18 Dec. 1902: 2. in 1902.37 One may ask whether it was Es- CANADA:S EARLIEST BAHA"i HISTORY 43 ther Annie's Methodist background, with its Harriet apparently had tuberculosis and emphasis on missionary work in Japan, that had to sleep outdoors in tents, often in win prompted 'Abdu'l-Baha to ask her to devote ter.42 A letter written by Dr. Hills Cole, a that interest to the Baha'i Faith. Edith's fu close friend of the family, mentions Harriet ture husband, William Otto Inglis, had al ''who has been ill in bed for a long time. ready taken a widely acclaimed trip to Japan . . . "43 Two and a half years after the pho in 1906, four years before their marriage.3 8 tograph was taken with 'Abdu'l-Baha at Green Harriet Ann Magee, Edith's sister, was the Acre, Harriet died at Green Acre on 16 Jan third important Baha'i in London. Born uary 1915, which occasioned 'Abdu'l-Baha's around 1883, she, too, was educated in the sending a tablet to Esther Annie, speaking of broadest sort of way. She followed her mother Hattie's physical suffering. 44 'Abdu'l-Baha said to New York City and could often be found that he would "never forget her, for she was at the Green Acre Baha'i School, where she one of the most important personages." Al met 'Abdu'l-Baha in 1912 . Some very touch though Harriet died at the age of thirty-two, ing words of 'Abdu'l-Baha are found in one she made a long-lasting impression on the of his tablets to her. 39 She also appears in the citizens of Eliot, Maine. There were even plans same photograph as her mother with 'Abdu'l for a Harriet Magee Memorial Library in Baha at Green Acre. 40 Eliot. 45 Harriet's life was dedicated to the im There is virtually no reliable information provement of social conditions. 'Abdu'l-Baha about Esther Annie's two sisters, Rose and had encouraged her to continue her interest Vail, except in two letters from Esther Annie in the education of a Persian girl through the to Harry Randall and Alfred E. Lunt, two Women's Unity in New York City, an orga prominent early Baha'is; in one letter she nization she had served as secretary. Another speaks of planning to leave for Chicago to at Baha'i facet of her life concerns the diary of tend the 1917 "Centennial Celebration of Ahmad Sohrab, which was begun by his Baha.Allah" with her sisters.46 writing "wonderfully descriptive letters" to Harriet, regarding the events and life of The First Results of the Baha'i 'Abdu'l-Baha .41 Group in London BY 1898-99 Canada's first Baha'i group con sisted of Edith Magee (eighteen years old), 38. New York Times 22 Sept. 1949: 31. her sister Harriet (fifteen), her mother Esther 39. "The Truly Blessed: Words of Abdul-Baha Annie (forty-two), and possibly the two sis from Diary of Mirza Ahmad Sohrab to Miss Harriet ters of Esther Annie, Rose and Vail. The re Magee, May, 1913," Star of the West 7. 5 (5 June quirements of Baha'i membership were, in 1916): 38- 39. the very early days of the Faith in North 40. Bahci'f World, Vol. VII plate facing 219. Hat tie Magee is no. 16 in the photograph. America, quite different from what they are 4 1. "In Memoriam: Harriet Magee," Star of the now. Certainly, those early Baha'is were not West 5.19 (2 March 1915): 298. asked to resign church membership, nor did 42. Mrs . Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar they think it was inconsistent for them not lington, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. to cut their ties with their respective church 43. Hills Cole, letter to Geo. M. Seiders, 7 July 1914, Green Acre Records, National Baha'i Ar es. The Magees were Methodists, who par chives, Wilmette, Ill. ticipated actively in the affairs of that church. 44. "Tablets of Abdul-Baha on Immortal Life," The London City Directory for the years 1898 Star of the West 7.19 (2 March 1917): 192-93. through 1907 reveals no listing for the newly 45. Alfred E. Lunt Papers (15 Oct. 1917), Na formed Baha'i group. In addition, the local tional Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, Ill. 46. These letters are dated 3 and 4 November 1917, newspapers make no mention of the group, respectively, and are found in the Alfred E. Lunt Pa although toward the end of 1898, the London pers, National Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, Ill. Advertiser carried a series of articles on "Some 44 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987- 88

Modern Religious Ideas," which provoked in tact between the Magees and the Culvers terest and comment. There was no reference stayed at that formal level. London had in co the Baha'i Faith. 47 tricate personal linkages among the various There is, however, no question that the ac classes of people. In that social context the ceptance of the new revelation by the Magees Culvers followed with bemused interest the had an impact on their friends. Esther Annie fact that the Magees had become Baha'is. A began organizing a study group in the late transcript of an interview taped in 1982 with 1890s, probably using notes from Kheiralla's Dorothy Cress, the daughter of the Culvers, classes in Chicago.48 The Magees were a highly conveys the atmosphere of those days when visible family with the best ethnic creden she was asked by the interviewer how she had tials, for London, Ontario, at least-namely, become a Baha'i: British and Irish. For example, James Magee, Well, of course, through my father and a cousin of Edith's father, regularly made mother, I guess. Yes, I guess so, that must headlines with some of the more important have been it. I'll tell you how my mother court cases he handled as the prosecutor for became a Baha'i. We lived in Canada, in the government. Thus the influence of the London, Ontario, a little town . . . and a Magees extended throughout all of the well friend of ours-a Mrs. Magee, she had two established families of London. It might have daughters-Edith and Harriet .. . . One been through James Magee initially that the time, I don't remember, but my mother United States Consul, Henry Stark Culver, and said, ''Well I think Mrs. Magee has gone his family became acquainted with the other crazy." And why she'd gone crazy was be Magees, which eventually led to the Culvers' cause she'd heard that Christ had come acceptance of the Faith of Baha'u'llah. back-Christ had come back co the earth. In April 1898, James Magee had asked Of course, it was '.Abdu'l-Baha and then, Henry Culver co testify in court regarding a so from then on, Mrs. Magee, they became personal loan of $5.00 he had made co a man more and more interested and ... all be who was later murdered at the London Music came Baha'is; then my mother did coo. 50 HalJ. 49 There is no reason co assume that con- Dorothy Culver Cress' account does not tell us when her parents became Baha'is, but it must have been in London, Ontario, and be fore Henry Culver was assigned co go to Cork, Ireland, in 1906. From the fragments of in 47. Such as London Adverti1er 29 Ocr. 1898: 10. formation available, it appears that the four 48. D. Marcin, letter to Linda O'Neil, 26 Sep Culvers (parents and daughters, Louise and tember 1983. Dorothy) must have become Baha'is after 49. London AdvertiJer 2 April 1898: 6. 1898, when Edith Magee had returned from 50. Dorothy Culver Cress, interview by Mrs. Ro sanne M. Buzzell, Eliot Baha'i Archivist, 19 August Chicago but certainly not later than 1906 198 2. when the Culvers left for Cork, Ireland. Con 51. Baha'i Historical Record Cards, N ational sidering, moreover, that by 1903 all of the Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, Ill. Magees had already left for New York, it may 52 . A history of the Saint John Baha'i community be assumed that the enrollment of the Cul relates in greater detail the lives of the Culvers. See Will. C. van den Hoonaard, "Development and De vers must have occurred between 1898 and cline of an Early Canadian Baha'i Community: Saint 1903. Later records indicate that Mr. and Mrs. John, New Brunswick, 1910-25," address, Twelfth Culver formally became Baha'is in 1906. 5 I In Annual Meeting of the Association for Baha'i Stud essence, then, there were nine Baha'is in Lon ies, Princeton University, 24 Oct. 1987. don, Ontario, around the turn of the century. 53. May Maxwell, letter addressed to "Beloved Sister" {presumably to Corinne True), 27 June 1917, Henry Culver was an attorney in Delaware Albert Windust Papers, National Baha'i Archives, County, Ohio, where he also became mayor Wilmette, Ill. for four years. In October 1897, Henry joined CANADA'S EARLIEST BAHA'I HISTORY 45 the State Department and became Consul at fifreen hours. 55 Edith's solo at the Ladies of London, Ontario. In 1910, the Culvers moved St. Paul's Guild in early May 1902 is the last to Saint John, New Brunswick, where they record of her stay in Canada until she re established a Baha'i community. 52 May Max turned to attend her father's funeral on 2 Jan well, the most prominent Baha'i in Canada, uary 190 3. 56 who visited the Baha'is in that city in 1917, described the Culver family as forming the The Magees in the United States "nucleus of the group here ... a beautiful WHEN Edith Magee decided to study music Baha'i family, filled with the spirit of service, in New York City, and after her father died, and are a real ornament to the cause of New York exercised a stronger attraction than God." 53 Henry Culver retired from his post London for her mother and her sister. Soon in Saint John in 1924 and joined the Eliot, after 1903, all of the Magees, who were a close Maine, Baha'i community in 1925.54 family, moved to the city on the Hudson. By The personal circumstances of the Magee 1907 the London City Directory carried the family, however, precluded the possibility of last listing for the Magees at 62 5 Wellington their permanently establishing the Baha'i Street, a house they had occupied since 1896 Faith in London. The family had already be as its first tenants. 57 gun spending more and more time in New Two features stand out in the life of the York City, which, on the Michigan Central Magees in the United States. First, Edith Ma Railway, could be reached in only slightly over gee's singing career (she was a contralto) be came more and more a dominating influence in her life. Second, the Magees as a family became mainstay summer residents of the Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine. 58 Edith Magee was often asked to perform at Baha'i gatherings in New York City, such 54. The Telegraph }011rnal, Saint John, N.B., 3 as singing a "sacred solo" at the regular Sun July 1924: 7; Baha'i Historical Record Cards, Na day morning meetings, or at the Fifth Annual tional Baha'i Archives, Wilmette, Ill. Baha'i Convention in April 1913. 59 In April 5 5. Dorothy Culver Cress, interview by Mrs. Ro 1920 she chaired the Music Committee at the sanne M. Buzzell, Eliot Baha'i Archivist, 19 August Baha'i Temple Unity Convention held in New 1982. According to London Advertiser 22 Nov. 1902: 60 4, trains left London at 7: 15 p .m. and reached New York City. Her abilities as an artist were also York City the next morning at 10:00 a.m. well used at Green Acre, where she would be 56. London Advertiser 2 May 1902: 8. asked to be in charge of the Decorations 57 . London City Directory, 1907: 153; London City Committee.6 1 Directory, 1896-97: 13 7. Edith's qualities as a soloist were also ap 58. See, for example, "Green Acre, Maine," Star of the West 1.9 (20 August 1910): 13. preciated by many others in New York City. 59. "New York," Star of the West 1.6 (24 June In May 1911 she was hired by the Fifth Av 1910): 14; Joseph H. Hannen, "Public Meetings of enue Baptist Church for $950 a year. In April the Fifth Annual Convention of Bahai Temple Uni 1914, because the church did not rehire her, ty," Star of the West 4.5 (5 June 1913): 84. she, together with the choir director and 60. Convention and Congress Program, p. 3, in Star of the West 17 May 1920: 64; Bahai Temple famed organist, Harry Rowe Shelley, sued the Unity is the forerunner of the National Spiritual As church for breach of contract. They won their sembly of the Baha'is of the United States and Can case in the lower court, but lost it in the ap ada. peal process. 62 It is not quite certain whether 61 . Alfred E. Lunt, letter to Mrs. Edith Magee this is the same Edith Magee, for by 1914 she Inglis, 29 July 1920, Alfred E. Lunt Papers, Na tional Baha'i Archives, W il mette, Ill. was married to William Otto Inglis. How 62. New York Times 1 May 1915: 5; 30 Mar. 1916: ever, she may have continued to use her 13; 2 Dec. 1916: 7. maiden name professionally as a singer. One 46 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987- 88 can speculate as to why the church did not hosted part of His stay in Eliot. Edith herself continue to hire her, despite its verbal agree has left two accounts of her experiences with ment to do so. It could be that, when 'Abdu'l 'Abdu'l-Baha at Green Acre. In one, she Baha visited New York City in 1912, Edith charmingly describes a dance interlude of a Magee Inglis' position as a Baha'i became young girl of seven or eight and explains how more clearly understood and her contribu 'Abdu'l-Baha asked Mason Remey to dance tions to the Baha'i community more visible, with Mrs. Stancill, both early Baha'is, and which may have caused some irritation at the the latter, "a little stout old lady." 64 She also Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. It could also be described 'Abdu'l-Baha's trip to Mount Salvat that Edith's dismissal from the choir coincid and to "Bittersweet," Sarah Farmer's home. ed with the merging of the Fifth Avenue The second, and perhaps the most amus Baptist Church with the Baptist Cavalry ing, account relates to her entertaining Church, resulting in the formation of a very 'Abdu'l-Baha on the afternoon of 21 August large choir. One can also speculate that this 1912, after His visit to Mount Salvat. 65 Edith experience may have led Edith to abandon describes the food served-pilau of chicken her singing career. served with Persian salad of lettuce, tomato, But it is not Edith's singing for which the mint, onions, and cucumbers. The dessert was Baha'is in the United States remember the watermelon, "its pink heart in vivid contrast Magees (nor the fact that they established the with the greenery of the table and the white first Baha'i group in Canada). The Magees figure of the host." Fourteen or fifteen guests are first and foremost identified with the early were present, including Louise Culver, whom days of the Baha'i Faith at the Baha'i school Edith knew from London, Ontario. When at Green Acre. The life of the Magees and 'Abdu'l-Baha arrived about five o'clock, Prime Green Acre are, indeed, closely intertwined. Cottage (now called "Winter Hill") had been However, it is not clear what led the Ma converted into a spectacular bower of green gees to spend time at Green Acre. It was and flowers. Edith records that, hardly a "Baha'i" school in the 1910-12 pe After tea was served 'Abdu'l-Baha riod. It is possible that the Magees met Sarah retired to a bedroom upstairs to rest until Farmer at the World Exposition in Chicago dinner which we were giving that eve in 1893 and that they came to Eliot and ning . . . . Green Acre because of its founder, Miss Finally when all (the preparations for Farmer.63 dinner} were ready I asked one of the Per Nevertheless, to the Magees belongs the sians if he would announce dinner to distinction of having met 'Abdu'l-Baha and 'Abdu'l-Baha. He said, ''I'll tell you what to say and you go up." ''All right," I said and repeated the phrase over and over again on my way upstairs. Upon entering the room I spoke my piece whereupon 'Abdu'l Baha sat on the side of the bed and rocked 63 . I am indebted to Rosanne Buzzell, Archivist with laughter. What had happened? Had of the Eliot Baha'i community, for suggesting this I lost the pronunciation or had the Per possibility. 64. Edith Inglis, letter t0 be read at 'Abdu'l-Baha's sians played a joke on me. I never did find Fiftieth Anniversary at Green Acre { 1962}, Eliot out.66 Baha'i Archives, Eliot, Maine. At eight o'clock, all left the table and en 65. Edith Inglis, "'Abdu'l-Baha Dines with Mrs. tered the living room where a group of peo Magee and the Inglises," National Baha'i Archives, ple from the Inn at Green Acre and some Wilmette, Ill. 66. Edith Inglis, "'Abdu'l-Baha Dines with Mrs. townspeople had gathered. Two hours later Magee and the Inglises," National Bah:i'l Archives, 'Abdu'l-Baha left, descending the rocky and Wilmette, Ill. rutted road, and leaning on the arm of Ed- CANADA'S EARLIEST BAHA'I HISTORY 47 ith's husband, William, "with whom He invented in 1847 and that a model made by shook hands, American fashion, in saying Moses was on display at the Chicago Expo goodbye." 67 sition in 189 3. In 1946 he wrote an article on the Baha'i Faith entitled "Baha'is Would Edith Magee Inglis' Married Life Make a Spiritual Peace." He sent a draft to ON TUESDAY, 25 Ocrober 1910, Edith Magee Horace Holley, Secretary of the National Spir married William 0. Inglis, a journalist like itual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United her uncle Guy Magee, at the Church of the States, who called it a "fine introduction co Ascension in New York City. 68 Edith was the Faith,'' recommending several places of thirty, and William forty-eight. "WO.," as publication. 7 1 he was known, pursued her for some time Some of William's many contacts included before she married him. She anticipated New York's policemen upon whom he called, problems with someone who was as metic on more than one occasion, to stand by tO ulous as William and who did not want tO rescue Edith from violence during her march give up his houseboy and valet. 69 es on Fifth Avenue as a suffragecce. 72 As a William, an Episcopalian, never became a journalise, William had friendships with many Baha'i, although there is no reason ro assume well-known individuals. 73 He worked for the he had no interest in the Baha'i Faith. In the New York Herald (five years), The World (fif 1940s, after thirty years of marriage tO Edith, teen years), and Harper's Weekly and carried and at the request of Margaret Ford, an out special assignments for Joseph Pulitzer. American Baha'i, he looked inro Moses G. William was often seen with the promi Farmer's exhibits at the Smithsonian. 70 Moses nent leaders of his day and was not infre was Sarah Farmer's father. William discov quently quoted by ocher journalises for his ered that a "dinky little [electric} car" was political insights. He knew John D. Rocke feller, with whom he played golf and whom he helped substantially in assembling the per sonal archival materials on the hisrory of Standard Oil. It is an interesting coincidence chat the junior Rockefeller knew Harry Rowe Shelley, the organise who, with Edith, sued 67. Edith Inglis, "'.Abdu"l-Baha Dines with Mrs. the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church referred t0 Magee and the lnglises,'" National Baha'i Archives, 74 Wilmerre, Ill. earlier. William also knew Cornelius Van 68. Wedding announcement addressed ro "Mirza derbilt and Woodrow Wilson, whom he Enayat Allah," Magee Papers in the author"s pos helped persuade to leave the presidency at session. Princeton University and run for the gover 69. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar norship of New Jersey. 75 William also ad lingron, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. 70. William 0. Inglis, letter to Margaret Ford, 26 vised Theodore Roosevelt on Cuba and the August 1942, Sarah Farmer Papers, National Baha"i Panama Canal. 76 One could explore the de Archives, Wilmette, Ill. gree tO which Mr. Wilson became aware of 71 . Horace Holley, letter to Mr. \Villiam 0. In the Baha'i Faith, albeit indirectly, through his glis, 8 Jan. 1947, in the author's possession. link with William. 72. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar- lington, Va ., 19 Nov. 1987. As yet, little is known of Edith's own as 73. Obituary, New York Times 22 Sept. 1949: 31. sociation with well-known people, although 74. New York Times 1 May 1914: 5. we do have a phorograph of Marconi, his sis 75. W. 0. Inglis, letter ro Mr. Vanderbilt, 25 April ter, "and her affinity," taken on board the 1941, Magee Papers in the author's possession . Merion. 77 This photograph bears a likeness to 76. There is a picture, taken before 1915, of Edith holding a teddy bea r. the one of Guglielmo Marconi ( 1874-193 7) 77. Notes on back of photograph, Magee Papers in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. There in the author's possession. is, however, no mention of a sister in the Die- 48 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987- 88 tionary. 78 Edith's association with Marconi was Dublin. Abdul-Baba will be in Green Acre tied tO her own Irish roots. Marconi's mother on the 16th inst. Good News. Ahmad."8 1 was Irish, the daughter of an Irish whiskey Edith possessed the rare ability to match distiller. Thus Edith's acquaintance with her personal interests and talents perfectly with Marconi also tied her to the world of brewers. her sizable financial resources-she had in Edith's daughter-in-law relates how Edith herited $22,317.84 from her mother, in ad would visit the Guinnesses, a family of Irish dition tO $16,000 worth of real estate.82 Such brewers, in Galway, Ireland. 79 funds freed her tO study and practice music However, it does seem clear, from her box and t0 devote her energies to the Baha'i Faith. of papers, that Edith maintained a vast net Unfortunately, Edith lost much of her inher work of Baha'i friends who were eager tO send itance in the 1929 stack-market crash, after her pictures of their travels abroad and with she had received "bad" advice.83 in the United States. For example, Mrs. A. R. Beede sent her a card (rom the Catskills Edith Magee Inglis' Later Life in New York in 1916. Others include H. D. LITTLE IS known of Edith's later life. She and Cole (who speaks of ''Aunt Hattie"); V Haack William had one child, Edward ("Timo from Paris in 1913; Dr. Sarah A. Clock from lean"), who was born on 10 June 1912. 84 At Tehran;80 and Ahmad Sohrab from Dublin, the time of Harriet Magee's death, 'Abdu'l New Hampshire, in 1912 (with the following Baha wrote tO her mother Esther Annie: written on the postcard: "Greetings from Convey on my behalf the utmost kind ness and love to Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. I beg of God that in this affiiction he may be srow upon them patience and consolation, and that they may educate their dear son [Edward} in accord with their highest and 78. Charles Coulston Gillispie, ed ., Dictionary of purest standard.85 Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner, 1974 ), 9: 98. It appears that Marconi had no sister and, thus, Like his mother, Edward (better known as the photograph is that of another Marconi, or Edith "Timmy") loved Green Acre. David Hof must have made a mistake. man, a retired member of the Universal House 79. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar of Justice, recalls swimming across the Pis lington, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. cataqua River at Green Acre with "Timmy" 80. Dr. Clock was the third American Baha'i 86 woman to settle in Iran. "Occidentals in the Baha'i in the summer of 1933 . Encyclopedia," notes by Robert H. Stockman, in the Edward joined the Army. At Lake Placid, author's possession. New York, during the late 1930s he met 81. A Baha'i, founder of the Persian-American Marjorie Durnin, whom he married during Educational Society, who later disassociated himself World War II. The family, which had six from the Baha'i Faith. 82. Affidavit on behalf of Edith M. Inglis in the children, spent a tour of duty in Germany matter of the Estate of Esther A. Magee, 3 April and Iran. Edward never became a Baha'i, al 1919, Surrogate Court of the County of Middlesex, though he was mindful of his mother's de Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Ref. RG22, series 321, votion to the new religion. In one of his many no . 14060/ 1919. letters from Tehran to her, he speaks of his 83. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar lington, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. Baha'i landlords, Messrs. Mudaffir [sic} and 84. Mrs. Marjorie Inglis, personal interview, Ar Munajjim, and adds that he "hope[s} this will lingron, Va., 19 Nov. 1987. make for pleasant relations because everyone 85. "Tablets of Abdul-Baha on Immortal Life," here is after your eye teeth if they think there Star of the West 7.9 (2 March 1917): 193. is a chance to get them."87 After her son and 86. Mr. David Hofman, personal interview, Fred ericton, New Brunswick, 15 Feb. 1989. his family returned tO the United States in 87. Edward ("Tim") Inglis, letter to Mrs. Edith 1959, Edith stayed with them in Arlington, Inglis, 28 Dec. 1952, in author's possession. Virginia, until her death in 1971. Edward re- CANADA'S EARLIEST BAHA'i HISTORY 49 tired in the 1960s as a Lieutenant Colonel to her than what was on just the surface. and died in 1986. She was formal with those who were not Baha'is in Eliot, Maine, today still remem close to her, although she was very kind, ber Edith Magee Inglis. Elizabeth Brewster taking people out driving who didn't have Small Drymon, a Baha'i at Green Acre since their own cars. 89 she was a child, described her as ''very Eng Toward the end of her life Edith's health lish speaking." Edith apparently never spoke began to fail, and she was no longer able to of her husband. 88 Manny Reimer, a former think clearly. She died on 18 June 1971 at Ft. director of Green Acre, remembered going to Belvoir, Virginia, leaving her son, six grand a Nineteen Day Feast in Edith's home on the children, and two great-grandchildren. 90 Moses Garish Farmer Road. She radiated The honor of permanently establishing the grace and dignity and gave the impression Baha'i community of Canada rightfully goes that she was quite used to offering hospitality to May Bolles Maxwell, who married the Ca to what must have been many guests during nadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell her lifetime. Another person who had known and moved to Montreal in 1902-the same her over the years describes her as a year that Edith moved to the United States. tall, rather stately looking person-re A study of Edith Magee Inglis' life, however, served and self-contained. There was more has permitted us to connect many strands in early Baha'i history: the first mention of the Baha'i Faith in Chicago; the founding of 88. Mrs. Elizabeth Brewster Small Drymon, per Canada's first Baha'i group in London, On sonal interview, Eliot, Maine, 27 December 1986. tario; Green Acre Baha'i School; Abdu'l-Baha; 89. John Frost, interview by Rosanne Buzzell, well-known people in American history; and Eliot, Maine, 26 Dec. 1987 (communicated to au thor). the struggle of early Baha'is to ever more ap 90. Washington Post 20 July 1971. preciate the scope and influence of their Faith. 50 WORLD ORDER: FALL 1987 / WINTER 1987- 88

Authors & Artists

ANNE MARIE BLUM is a poet who works in the Ph.D. program in English at for the State Department. Miami University in Miami, Ohio, and an adjunct instructor at the University CHRISTINE BOLDT is the manager of of Dayton. Automobile Invoice Service, which publishes New Car Cost Guide and the HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN is a software version of Chek-Price. poet, an actor-singer, and a professor of English at the University of Dayton. He LUCIA v CARUSO is studying telecom has studied at the University of Toledo, munications and film at the University at the Breadloaf School of English at of Oregon at Eugene. Middlebury College (drama), and at Carnegie Mellon University (creative MICHELE F. COOPER is a poet, editor, writing). He has published four books and analyst and a part-time teacher at of poetry, the most recent being The the University of Rhode Island, where Forms of Silence. He has been poetry ed she is completing her doctoral disser itor of The Great Lakes Review and is tation. currently poetry editor of World Order.

JOHN DRUSKA is a professor of lan guages and literature at Defiance Col BOB MULLIN teaches English at Aloha lege in Ohio and a member of the Ohio High School in Aloha, Oregon. Arts Council Artists-in-Education pro gram. PETER E. MURPHY, who holds a Mas ter's degree in English education from JUDSON JEROME is a distinguished New York University, teaches English American poet and editor. He is the au and creative writing in Atlantic City. He thor of numerous articles and textbooks has published a number of essays on on poetry, including On Being a Poet. poetry and the teaching of literature and He has recently published Flight from poetry. His poems have appeared in a Innocence, a memoir of his first twenty number of journals and anthologies, and years. Dr. Jerome is poetry editor for he has recently published a volume of Writer's Digest and associate editor for poems entitled Shaping Up. His many the Kettering Review. awards and activities include receiving the Robert Hayden Fellowship in Po LEMUEL JOHNSON is the director of the etry from Louhelen Baha'i School and Center for Afroamerican and African serving as educational consultant and Studies at the University of Michigan. poetry advisor for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. KEN LETKO is poetry editor for Mid American Review and teaches English ai: MATTHEW RILEY is a graduate student Bowling Green State University in Ohio. in the doctoral program at Ohio State University, where he is studying the E. S. A. MARTIN is a graduate student teaching of writing. AUTHORS & ARTISTS 51

LEN ROBERTS has published four books JUDITH A. TUGWELL teaches English to of poetry and is professor of English at Central American and Mexican immi Northampton County Area Commu grant teenagers. nity College in Pennsylvania. He re cently won a National Poetry Series WILL. c. VAN DEN HOONAARD lS an award for his book Black Wings. associate professor and director of grad uate studies in the Department of So CAL E. ROLLINS, whose poems have ap ciology at the University of New Bruns peared a number of times in World Or wick. He is the social science editor of der, is a retired English teacher and civ a Baha'i encyclopedia project. His es il-rights analyst. says have appeared in the Summer 1984 and Fall 1984/Winter 1984-85 issues ROSWITHA M. PETRETSCHEK SHELTON of World Order. is studying journalism at Virginia Commonwealth University and writing • for the Richmond News Leader. This is ART CREDITS: Cover design by John Solarz; her first professional publication. photograph by Mark Sadan; p. 1, photograph by Mark Sadan; p. 3, photograph by Steve MARLAINA TANNY is a poet and dan Garrigues; p. 6, photograph by Steve Gar cer, who is living in Barbados. rigues; p. 15, photograph by Glenford E. Mitchell; p. 16, photograph by Steve Gar rigues; p. 3 7, photograph by Steve Garrigues; ] OAN IMIG TAYLOR, whose poems have p. 38, photograph, courtesy Will. C. van den appeared in various journals, including Hoonaard; p . 52, photograph by Delton World Order, is a writer. Baerwolf.