Willows Revisited

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130PURGE POTATOKD.P.Purge Potatok's sudden appearance on Saskatchewan's scene of Arts and Letters (See Appendix I) was one of these literary events which can never happen outside of fiction. Yet it not only happened, but it happened in such a way as to project him almost immediately into public recognition and to win for him inclusion in the prestigious School of Seven and the award of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. The truth is that at the time of his discovery as a poet Potatok was completely unconscious of his poetic talents and had, in fact, never written any poetry. It is only recently that he has learned to write in English at all. Alone and unrecognized and even uncaring he had been pouring forth his poetic effusions to the wind and the stars in an ecstasy of joy and appreciation of his adopted land, naively unaware that as far as Sakatchewan was concerned he had a precious gift.Purge Potatok, whose real name is Purgatov Podolnik, but which he immediately anglicized to Potatok on his arrival into Canada, came to this country as one of the "displaced persons" or D.P.s after the last war. He is very proud to be known as a D.P., and so calls himself. He lives on the quarter section of sand and alkali which adjoins Willowview Cemetery on the north^and it is probably to this fortunate fact that he owes his recognition as a poet. No one seems ever to have wanted the particular piece of land on which he lives and no one had ever filed a homestead claim against it, even in the early days when the country around Willows was first thrown open to settlement. As a result Potatok owns the land and has prospered
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131to the extent of owning a cow, who seems to thrive on the Russian thistle which the land produces in abundance, and a pair of scrub horses, somewhat aged and spavined, but still powerful enough to pull his single-shared plough across his vegetable patch every spring.Purge is exceedingly happy on his stretch of land, and practically all of his poetry is in praise and appreciation of this wonderful Canada of his which he regards as a paradise on earth because of its freedom and the fact that the land is actually his own. Time and again in his poetry his favorite adjective, "fine" occurs in connection with the land of his adoption, and no promised wealth could ever induce him to leave it. He declares emphatically that nooffer of wealth would ever induce him to part with it;DIS LAND OF MINEl wouldn't trade dis land of mine. By Willows here for any gain, If some guy says, "here's Argentine, Or Rostov-on-the-Don, Ukraine, Come trade." I'd say, "You city slicker, You tink you're smart. You tink I'm fool? You trow in Poland,I dont dicker � Go way, smart guy, go back to school!"And if next day he comes wit Burma, And say, "Dis land here what you have, Is Just some dried up terra firma, No good for crop �here's Kubishev,And here's Smolensk and fifty dollarsd Minsk and Pinsk, and I trow in Priehl, And a team wit harnesses and two collars --I say, "get out! I dont make deal."As is apparent his English is still weak. He speaks fluent Polish as well as his native Ukrainian, but he writes as he talks with a definite accent. This however has not been to his literary disadvantage. The Saskatchewan Government, recognizing the importance of the various ethnic groups in that province especially around election time) has encouraged Potatok to continue writing in his present style hoping too that he will do for Saskatchewan what William
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132Henry Drummond did for the French Canadian habitant of Quebec and that through his poetic contributions the cultural life of Canada will be further enriched. This bids fair to be successful in more respects than the mere blending of a new accent into Canadian literature. No poet of Canada has ever expressed such unbounded joy in Canada as has Pot at ok, and in this respect he rises above allprovincialism. It is true that,like all Saskatchewan poets he must needs say his word (repeatedly, in fact) about the cow and there is definitely a strong suggestion of innerness in his reference to the planting of dill and"potatoes for make wine" taufa in his lovely I TINK SHES SPRING, Buthis Joy in the Canadian scene soars beyond provincial boundaries. Andmost certainly if we are to have a true Canadian literature it musteventually be distilled from that very melt and blend which Potatokwith his proud D.P. represents.Potatok's first attempt at writing in English was, as we wouldexpect, a translation. One of his neighbors, making the common mistakeof thinking that all settlers from east Europe must of necessity beRussian and that all languages not in French or German must also beRussian, presented him with a calendar which he had picked up inRegina. It turned out to be Polish, Potatok thanked the donor bywriting a little verse in which he translated some of the months anddays of the week into English. Yetbep and Bibtopok are rendered intotheir English equivalents as Thursday and Tuesday respectively andstrangely enough Potatok makes them rhyme. He points out that the gift of the calendar marks the passing of another year and that although the end of the year is the "worst day" and winter is at hand, the passing of the months in their succession from Styczen to Czerwlec will bring a more cheerful mood, and that the natural tendency to take arsenic during the long months will also disappear
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133with the arrival of summer. It is given here not so much as an instance of his talent as to show some of the first st9ps in hisIS POLISH, THE CALENDAR, Comes years sad end, is worst day, Time's passing marks the clock, Then Yetbep comes it Thursday, And Tuesday Bibtopok;When snow and ice is mixen, And snow she got no beauty, Is then the month of Styczen, But in thirty-one days comes Luty, And after Luty Marzee, And Kwiecien, Maj, Czerwiec, And nobody takes no more arsenic, Comes it summer then that week.Another charming translation is UMSKI, or LULLABY, from theUkrainian which Purge seems to have remembered from his early chilhood and translated for the neighbour's children of whom he is veryfond. Purge himself has no children since he never married, although in one of his poems, in fact the very one he declaimed in the Wlllowview Cemetery when he was first discovered (See Appenix I) he states that if the beer parlor in Willows, or "beer room" as he calls it, were to give trading stamps "like in city" he might thus be able to acquire enough household goods to get married and, as he says, "raise some keeds." UMSKI is truly Russian in spirit. It is the song of a mother to her little boy, Thomas, (or Tomsk in the Ukrainian) in which she sings of the father Ivan's return from the big city, Omsk. He is approaching home in successive verses, being first seven versts and
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134then twenty versts from Omsk being always by that much closer hometo his little Tomsk. Finally in the last verse the mother, Goshinka,hears the bells of the droshki which mark Ivan's return and Tomskglassis awakened and given a mum of tea by Katinka, the maid, or it may be that the tea is for Ivan. In any case the long journey is over.soUMSKI.In his droshki singing, Seven miles from Omsk, What is Ivan bringing, To his little Tomsk? Chorus; Sleep Tomsk, Tomsk, Ivan's gone to Omsk.Cold the moon is sinking, Twenty versts from Omsk, Ivan will be thinking Of his little Tomsk. Chorus; Soon, Tomsk, Tomsk, Ivan's home from Omsk.Hear the bells, Gashinka, Waken little Tomsk! Stir the tea, Katrinka, Welcome home from Omsk! Chorus;Wake, Tomsk, Tomsk, Ivan's home from Omsk.So far we have comparatively little of Potatok's work which has been published under his own name. Much of his poetry has been as it were,"wasted M on the desert air, or has been stolen by lesser poets who take down his verse and after rendering it into English pass it off as their own. There is even the suggestion of poetic piracy at his first appearance (Appendix I) in the Cemetery and his discovery by Jones-Jones. It was however immediately disallowed by John Swivel who declared emphatically, "Not as long as I'm Dean."
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135But Purge potatok has the happy faculty of being able to turn on poetry like turning on a tap without ever actually writing it. He not only then forgets what he has spoken but is unconcerned as to what ever becomes of it. The temptation to make use of such talent by others not so endowed with the same poetic facility is naturally great and it has more than once been claimed in Justification that as long as it finds its way into literature it does not really matter who gets the credit. Certainly Purge does not care. His joy is not so much in poetry as in the wonderful country of his adoption. Here he is free not only of oppressive taxes but also of regulations and of police supervision. Again and again we encounter In his works the "dis country fine," or "dis country good," and it is this which makes him so refreshingly Canadian. In two successive poems, IS NOT ROOSHIA," and' I SWING FLAG, he tells of his appreciation and draws a contrast between life in this country and the one in the Ukraine, where he was kept in poverty by high taxes and bothered by officialdom. His own land near Willows has not been assessed and consequently he pays no taxes in spite of his holding title to the whole quarter section. In the poem, IS NOT ROOSHIA," he tells of the freedom from anxiety if his cow wanders away and how easy it is to find her again;IS NOT ROOSHIA. In Rboshia all the cow got bell, If cow get lost there, hunt like hell, Maybe she stole, maybe she took police, Maybe no get back �no milk, no sheese, No notting, go: .starve �but here she's good, Dis country here she's like she should; If cow go way, is notting, smile, Cant get far lost, can see one mile, Can see ten mile If not its black Or blow some dust, can get her back, Bring home to milk, dont need no bell � Boy, I tink dis country swell.
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I36 Although Purge likes to refer to himself as one f tha 'displacedpersons" and even signs his name oh occasions as P. Pc;atok, D.P., heis nevertheless completely accepted into the community as a fellow"Canadian. In spite of his broken English no one regards him as a foreigner or suspects his loyalty. On public holidays such as Dominion Day and May 24th he joins wholeheartedly in the celebrations at willows and buys even more than his share of rounds at the Clarendon Hotel beverage room. Rain or shine he expresses his unbounded love for this country, and if, as occasionally happens, someone complains of too much shine and not enough rain, Purge is always quick to point out that it will rain some other year and that the soul of man must be quickened as well as the land. Here is his I SWING FLAG writtenlast Dominion Day;I SWING FLAG.I swing flag 24th of May, I swing him too Dominion Day -Dis country got good King and Queen But best is here Saskatchaween; No pleeceman say, "You dam muzhik, You pay me twenty roubles quick, An1 you dont pay, you understand, I take you to Siberaland."No man here say, "You raising flax? Or wheat? Come on you bastard, taxi" And never comes here priest to tell, If dont pay now I go to hell; Dis country good, if comes no rain � Oh well, dont cost much, no complain, Maybe it rain some other year � Come on, for now we have some beer.
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137such poetry with its melodic appreciation of cows without bellsand tax free land across which one can see for a full ten miles if there isn'ta dust storm, together with its unbounded optimism written in theface of so much of today's sad and existentialist freeverse, is the mark of a country which is still young. It dares toswing the flag of Canada regardless of whether that flag is MapleLeaf or Red Ensign and rises above all political differences intaking joy in freedom whether it rains or not. Truly splendid contributionCanadiana! But there is another side to Potatok's poetry. It is thekindly intimate love of living things which we have already seen im in the lullaby to little Tomsk. It is the fellow feeling of one of God's creation for another. John Swivel, the Great Dean, may indeed hold forth in lofty terms concerning time's Inexorable sweep, and the charming Wraitha, Dovecote may shed her own sad tears for the love that never was, but in Purge Potatok, the lowly D.P., we have an approach to the intimacy of the human heart which, with the possible exception of Sarah Binks's; tribute to motherhood, LITTLE PAPOOSE, has never been expressed in Saskatchewan literature. BOY COW isvery definitely a case in point,The cow, that leitmotif of so much Saskatchewan poetry, Is in Potatok's case, the symbol of economic freedom, since from her he generally gets milk. But the little bull-calf, which the cow evidently begat, is something else again. It is almost a personal friend. And in BOY COW, Potatok tells of the problem of the calf being separated from its mother, and although the poet seems to scold the creature whom he affectionately calls "that little baster" he nevertheless expresses his sympathy and understanding of a very natural thirst and he ends by offering to share his bed.
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138BOY COWThe cow she give no milk to drink,Boy-cow take it all, I tink,I slepp him six times on de pents,Every time he jump dat dam fence,But he got no dam sense;Last night he Jump dat fence some more,Boy, dat little baster make me sore!He too big for drink dat cow,I say to him, what t'hell you tink you are anyhow,You're too big, you're big like a mountain,Dont tink I'm not running here no dam soda fountain,If you're so dam thirsty why don't you go down to the slough?What about me �I got to go all the way to the saloon.And how am I going to pay for it? Yah, Moo!Moo, yourself you little so-and so!Oh well, we all get thirsty, don't I know. ,But I'm telling you, dont get here too dam free --Come on, dont cry -tonight you can sleep wit' me.How universal is the poetic spirit! It knows neither time nordistance but leaps across the centuries and continents. And one cannotread Potatok's lovely poem to spring in Saskatchewan, hisI TINK SHE'S SPRING, without being reminded at once of the lines ofthe Persian Poet, Omar, who wrote in the 10th Century;Come fill the cup, and in the fires of spring, The winter garments of repentance fling, The bird of time has but a little way flutter � and the bird is on the wing.Omar's poem i3 over a thousand years old. He spent much of his life meditating on the joys of the cup and on the vanity of life. But spring touched him as it does all poets. Spring, in Persia, may have been a lush and long-drawn-out season in Omar's day for all we know,' or it may have been, as in Saskatchewan, a single day tucked in between winter of one day and summer of the next. But regardless of time or place on that day the poetic sap begins to flow. And although the poet of Saskatchewan cannot, like Omar, afford to build a bon-fire and fling his winter garments into it for the simple reason that he
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139has to wear them next winter, he can at least write about the return of the birds which mark the return of spring. We do not know exactly what Omar's "bird of time" was like, but there is no doubt that like the snearth in Saskatchewan it announced the end of winter. And it is quite possible that just as Purge Potatok writes of spring in broken English, Omar wrote of his spring in broken Persian. One likes to think that it is so. Saskatchewan and Persia may be miles apart, but the same sun which once shone upon Omar's vinyard in the 10thCentury shines today upon Potatok's vegetable patch, warming, as it once warmed Omar's grape, the humble potato from which Purge will make his own wine, if anything, whiter and more powerful than that of Omar. And those winter garments which the Persian poet was able to fling so casually upon the spring fires have their Western counterpart in the overhauls "which Purge will also burn since they are, as he says, "too shot" for the churn which does double duty in his simple and unpretentious household. But where Omar was pensive, moody, and even sad, given over to the sense of the futility of endevour and the vanity of life, Purge Potatok, the New Canadian, raises his voice as he has so often raised it to echo and re-echo his glad refrain, "Dis country good!" , I tink she's spring, de, how you call him, sneart, "Come back again, tomorrow winter go, And soon again we see some garden dirt, And stuff from stable come from out de snow;
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140 Dis country good! In Rooshia not so fine, plough No sneart-bird dere come say, "Go 'head and plow, Go put in dill, potato for make wine, And beet for borsht, soon comes it fresh de cow."I tink I buy new overhauls dis spring, Dese far too shot to wash dem in de churn, De underwear I keep �but dese I fling As soon as tings get dry enough to burn.
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141APPENDIX I(Willows Revisited.A Editor's, Note.The direct transcription of the tape recording made byOsiris Jones-Jones of the now-famous meeting of the School ofSeven at Willowview Cemetery, July 1st, 1954-, is given here. Thesix poems which were read on that occasion together with theseventh wrltten later that evening after the duck dinner by BessieUdderton are those published In the Saskatchewan Government booklet,Fifty Years of Progress in the section entitled Willows Revisited.The poems of M, or the Muse, have not hitherto been published. Itmust be remembered however that M was not actually present atthis meeting and that her poems Mama had been pre-recorded andwere played from a separate record by Jones-Jones to introducethe speakers as they stepped forward to read their tributes toSarah or to Willows before casting them on the ceremonial pyre.The whole proceedings, including the voice of the Muse, was thenrecorded on another tape and it is this which is here given.A circular letter had been sent around some weeks before theactual ceremony to various writers and poets of Saskatchewan in-viting them to be present at the twenty-fifth anniversary ofSarah's death. They were asked to write a poem in honor of Sarah,It wasor, as a second choice, of Willows, her birthplace. It was explained that the author would be expected to declaim this his own work and then cast it on the ceremonial pyre which would be built at Sarah's feet. after the manner of the Elizabethan) poets who tossed their sonnets into the tomb of Edmund Spenser

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