Willows Revisited

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Page 25And the gambling man was bitter, And he said to Dan, "I'm through, Its the only way you can get her, Since you're Dangerous Dan McGrew, But I've made my play, you can have your way, So I'll be looking for a more comfortable pew." And he turned to Lou, and said, "Honey, I'M drifting over the hill," And as he spoke, he lifted Dan's poke, And left with a girl called Lil.Such poems are indicative of the enthusiasm with which the Poem-of-the-Month is being greeted across Canada. In Quebec of course, the poetry will be in French and in other centres in the language of the particular ethnic group which happens to have the greatest influence at the time. Or even better, as has been suggested for Manitoba, each month be given over to one of the languages of that province. And it is just in this equality of opportunity for every cultural group in Canada that the strength of the Poem-of-the-Month movement lies. No group has any advantage over any other and none of the geographical differences which have stood in the way of Canadian literature can possibly prevail. There should be complete cultural unity throughout the Dominion. And for this we must give the Saskatchewan poets and the School of Seven full credit. Occasionally, of course, sectionalism may creep in, but it should not affect the overall sense of freedom. The
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1Page 26 Apoem of the leader of the opposition, for example, definitelyfocuses its attention upon Saskatchewan, but since it is to berecited only in Regina, its echoes will not reach beyond theprairies. Moreover the leader of the opposition being himselfa native of Saskatchewan could hardly do otherwise than writea poem to that province if he is to meet the spirit of thePoem of the Month and be true to himself. In a sense too thispoem is applicable to whole of Canada in that it deplores the general industrialization of our country and expresses a longing for the good old days when life was less complicated and less preoccupied with "potash, oil, and pelf," symbols which as a native son of Saskatchewan, he employs to express the growing materialism of our age which "like stealthy pipe-lines" is undermining the national character. In keeping with the spirit of the western provinces, particularly that of Alberta, it calls upon the Deity to support, or at least to confirm, its hopes for the future. It is appropriately entitled Some Day,Thank GodSee Page 26B
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Page 26BSOME DAY, THANK GOD!Some day, thank God, when oil wells peter out, And potash beds are once more dry as bone, And that damn dam at Outlook rots from drought � Saskatchewan will come back to its own: Some day, I know, the Lords almighty hand, Once more will scatter dust on hallowed earth, And all that wide and flat and lovely land, Be given back to farmer and to snearth.At heart the west is sound; I know, I know, They always stand for virtue against sin, And firmly as elections come and go, They never let a lousy Liberal in � But still I long for that glad day's return, -ihen once again Saskatchewan itself, Holds wheat and weather as its sole concern, Beyond all claims of potash, oil, or pelf.Some day, thank God, again clean winds will sweep, Across the prairie lands, and once again, The gophers sing where Eastern interests creep, And stealthy pipe-lines crawl beneath the plain; Oh hall the day �the time once more draws near, To claim again your birthright unafraid, My Fellow Canadians, I say this without fear Of contradiction, you have been betrayed.
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Page 27Poem-of-the-Month is a national movement which undoubtedly places the seal of success upon Canada's first Centennial. Literary historians of the future will, however ask themselves how it could have happened and how it could ever have come about. What, if any, are the influences and antecedents which gave rise to this splendid undertaking? In particular, who are these poets, individually considered, whose genius first inspired the movement? Why indeed should it have been the Saskatchewan poets, and not others who saw in this particular centennial such a golden opportunity?The answer as already intimated, goes back to other anniversaries, the semi-centennial of Saskatchewan, and the quarter-centennial of the death of Sarah Binks. In both of tf[ese the poets of the School of Seven participated and from both they derived advantages which are now being extended to the nation. But it is always necessary that we should know the historic background. In trie chapters which follow a brief account of the two centennials, the semi and the quartern-are given, together with thumb-nail sketches of the poets themselves someexamples of their work. Without such history settings Poem of the Month though it may continue to sweep the country, loses its significance. But above all, for real understanding we must study that quarter-centennial meeting, the ceremony in Willowview Cemetery in which the Poem-of-the-Month movement has its roots. We must go back to that original ceremonial pyre at the feet of Sarah Binks. More than
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Page 28coffee simmered on their fire that day, and more than theadjoining hay field was consumed by its flame. The wind whichfanned it across the adjoining quarter section fans it alsoacross the Dominion. Fortunate indeed are we to have discoveredhere in Canada, after the long lapse of almost twelve years, thevery tape-recording of that event whereby the historic meeting isbrought into the contemporary scene. ' Willows Revisited, the chapter on Saskatchewan's culture and natural resources which thegovernment published in its Fifty Years of Progress has preserved fur us the great poems dedicated to Sarah's birthplace whichwere written for that occasion. Bat only the tape-recording cangivers the actual voices of the poets, the little touches whichlink them to their contemporaries, the human qualities withoutwhich poetry is divorced from life. It is to be played atOttawa over ten loudspeakers immediately following the PrimeMinister's To Be or Not To Be with which the first Centennial Poem of the Month is to be officially opened after which it is to be placed in the National Museum. Special recordings of thedifferent voices are however being prepared and may be heard byvisitors to the museum by dropping either a Canadian or anAmerican twenty five cent piece in one of the special slotsa recording machine; corresponding to the particular poet desired,or, on application to the caretaker, the entire series of sevenmay be heard for a dollar and a half.
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FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS(From an address prepared for the Grafton Tabernackel Memorial Lectures and given before the Ladies Literary League of Quagmire, Saskatchewan, September_1965. )Break not the lute, the poet's spate Shall flow as thesis for the DoctorateAnd minstrel's tears, a-shedden 'till he dries, Embalmied be in Unlversltys. There are two outstanding dates in Canadian history with whichevery schoolboy of the prairie West was once familiar. They are 1867, the year of Confederation, and 1905, the year in which that great and beautiful province of Saskatchewan was carved out of the North West Territories and became part of the Dominion. With the substitution of Social Science for History in the schools the dates tend to be forgotten as well as the events associated with them. And were it not for the minds and memories of the poets for whom history and heritage are always treasured materials for the poetic art, they might indeed be completely forgotten unless we except, of course, the dry and statistical facts which the professional historian must needs record as material for his own craft. The poet, however, has a social obligation. His is a calling and not merely a job. In a very special sense he is also an historian in that in his poetry he becomes a custodian of the culture and mores of his day and age �he must seize some of the quality and flavour of the historical scene in which he finds himself and he must record it for the future insofar as he is able to master the contemporary idiom of its expression. It is a spiritual feat of which the academic historian is incapable. For him the expression of the poet Itself as often as not becomes a
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part of the factual [history to be recorded with the dates -a "thesisfor the Doctorate" against which the poet must always protest. Thepoet feels that in the embalming of his poetic expression, of in fact the historicaldistillate all the human and romantic qualities which he has been atsuch pains to capture, have been lost. Indeed the "m" of the scholars,or better, the "Muse" of Jones-Jones's discovery, implies as much whenshe cries that the lute is broken and the minstrel's tears are shedin vain if they "Embalmied be in Universitys."But we must have both approaches to history. Both poet and formal historian are necessary to complete the picture. Without the dates of the historian we cannot place either the poet or his poetic expression within its proper frame he is, as it were, simply talking through his hat. Sarah Binks's poetry, if published today without reference to the day and age in which she wrote, would be comparatively meaningless. But set in its historical context her every word is significant. She may have made what in her school days was the very natural mistake of confusing British and Canadian history, and thus given to Saskatchewan a Roman occupation under which she regarded JuliusCaesar as one of the first, if not the very first, premiers of herprovince. Such errors can never for long escape detection since it isthe duty as well as the privilege of the academic historian to callandattention to them and in this particular case it has repeatedly beendone. But the error on Sarah's part was merely nominal � her JuliusCaesar under any other name would still be the premier of her day,and those bag-pipes and drums which greeted his arrival at the Quagmire Agricultural Society Fair would have sounded with the same verve and flourish for the Honourable Grafton Tabernackel as for any other premier of Saskatchewan around 1925 as they did for Caesar. Sarah is thus true to history in a larger sense than the merely factual. The corrections which the formal historian
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X 3/must apply to such minor aberrations of exact history do not contravert the poetical Interpretation or deny Its validity but rather they place It in its proper setting and perspective.It is to the great credit of the Saskatchewan Government of 1955 that it shouldhave perceived that the two approaches to its history, the factual and the poetic,were but different aspects of an essential unity. When in 1955 it celebratedits semi-centennial anniversary it was careful to verify the factthat a full fifty years had passed since the province had been grantedits charter. but at the same time it avoided becoming encasedin the too-literal mould by giving recognition to the accounts and legends of achievement which were as much poetic as factual. Thus the humanquality was not sacrificed . In it,anniversary booklet, Fifty Years ofProgress the material achievements of Saskatchewan's first half century of existence are balanced against the account of its cultural growth. Sarah Binks, of course, is given her place of honour, as she rightfullydeserves. But even more to be commended is Saskatchewan's recognitionof the Binkslan heritage amk to the successors of Sarah who today carry the poetic torch.The Saskatchewan Government's souvenir booklet, Fifty Years ofProgress which was printed to mark its semi-centennial anniversary is a work of which every citizen of that province may be proud. It was printed on good paper and was distributed free to anyone desiring a copy and even to many not desiring a copy. Like all books which were given free it is now almost Impossible to obtain, this is particularly true of the first edition which was withdrawn by the Government, nominally because of printers errors but actually because of internal dissension in the cabinet. Apparently when Fifty Years of Progress was first printed, a number of Farm Bulletins for the Department of Agriculture were being printed at the same time and some of
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32these Bulletin pages became interspersed with those of Fifty Years ofProgress. As a result the inspiring message of the Premier to thepeople of Saskatchewan and to which the first two thirds of the bookwas devoted was interrupted from time to time with different recipesfor apple cake and cottage-cheese dumplings which the departmentof Agriculture had collected from various ethnic groups and which ithad intended to publish in a bulletin of its own. But these errors,together with some instructions on "bee-keeping for pleasure" and somenotes on how to prepare a wholesome drink from rhubarb and where toobtain the proper yeast, were not in themselves regarded as serious,at least not to the extent of withdrawing the book; since for mostof the readers the premier's asides on apple cake were regarded aspart of his message. The actual reason for the recall of the firstedition was due to the unfair tactics of the opposition who started a whispering campaign to the effect that the Minister of Public works was himself the author of the poem, Moonlight on Wascana Lake" which was printed as a frontispiece to introduce the book."Moonlight on Wascana Lake" is actually a very good poem and it was printed at the suggestion of the Premier himself who felt that it would be a fitting tribute to the home of the Government. Since on the outside of the book the Legislative Buildings in Regina are shown mirrored in that splendid body of water in which the hand of man has combined with the hand of nature to form the setting for those famous architectural piles, there would seem to be no reason why the poem, Moonlight on Wascana Lake should not form the frontispiece for Fifty Years of Progress.It is true that wascana was a bit low that year and smelled, but the real reason for the recall of the book and its subsequent publication without the poem, was that the Minister of Public Works hated poetry of any kind and was unduly
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33sensitive to the opposition's jibe that he himself had written"Moonlight on Wascana" ,considering the fact that the book was appearing under hisauspices and authority. Moreover the Minister rightly felt thatin the ranching constituency of Saskatchewan's south-west corner whichhe represented, any hint of his being associated with poetry woulddisqualify him with the electorate. What might have in the end have resultedin a cabinet crisis was resolved by the Premier himself who suggested asa compromise that a reward be offered for the discovery of theauthor of Moonlight on "Wascana Lake," that the book be re-publishedwithout the poem,' and finally that the Department of Public Workswithdraw from the publication and that it be brought out under theimprimature of the Department of Agriculture,It is surprising that to date no one has come forward to claimthe reward for the authorship of Moonlight on Wascana Lake since it is a symphonic poem of high literary and moral value. Its political overtones point towards the civil servant^ Jones-Jones as the author since he is a kind of Poet Laureate for the Government; and as a member of the School of Seven in Saskatchewan he may very possibly have had a hand in it. A more reasonable suggestion is that in keeping with the co-operative movement in Saskatchewan the poem actually represents the combined efforts of several members of the School of Seven. Certainly the last few lines with their high moral tone and their search for truth point not alone to Jones-Jones but also to the always high-minded Jordan Middleduck. Furthermore the referenceto the sardine tins and the empty ice-cream cartons in the lakeindicate that Bessie Udderton, the exponent of innerness took part in its composition. The suggestion which has been made that Moonlight(on Wascana Lake may, like "Spring, actually be one of the hitherto unpublished poems
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of Sarah Blnks can be at once ruled out since in Sarah's day WascanaLake was still a partly dried "out creek to which Sarah's description as "a mean little puddle,' I could spit across it," still applied. About all that can be said with certainty is that the Minister ofPublic Works did not write it.MOONLIGHT ON WASCANA LAKEBe still, oh Lake, be still Wascana's wave, Nor lap these picnic bottles to their rest, Sound not harsh note of sardine tin, nor lave The empty ice-cream cartons to thy breast; But let this respite from the daily rote Release the evensong of life's estate � The bull-frog searching for the perfect note, The house-cat shrieking for the perfect mate � Then let each sound of orchestration deft, Arise and fill sweet melody of night � The ancient engine shunting on my left, The chuckles from the bushes on my right:In rip and rill, in bush and bog are things Uncertain as to measure and to place, The shrill mosquito in the higher strings, The sulky beetle groping in the bass � Oh whispering lovers underneath the bridge, Be still, be still � oh brittle crickets pause, Oh cat, oh engine, bull-frog, bug, and midge, Await your cue, nor hurry quick applause;But learn that only dissonance awaits The one whose tune is to all others deaf � 'Tis unison alone that orchestrates, And swells the spirit of the C.C.F. Let not your sounds contend � each note of strife, May find its echo in some far-flung booth � Co-operation is the key of life, Co-operatives economic truth.This poem, am so true to the spirit of the C,C.F. government at the time, was followed in the first edition of Fifty Years of Progress by the Premier'smessage and then by message shorter by at least twenty pages from the Minister of Public Works . In his message to the people of his province the premier points to the tremendous strides which Saskatchewan has made since its founding in 1905, and he quotes percentages and statistics to show the increase in production. In those casessuch as oil and potash where the production figures Jumped from
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z35zero to their present values the percentage increases are given always as being a complete one hundred percent, a figure most readily understood, although,as admitted by the government as percentages they are actually somewhat higher. It was also apparent from the Premier's message that the production of apple-cake in Saskatchewan had also increased by a hundred percent. Figures were also given as to the number of student-miles travelled by the school buses per year as compared with those of 1905, and the total weightin tons per square inch of tire surface carried by the public roadsystem during the life of the administration. They were all impressive and reflected great credit upon the Government, but from the standpoint of the student of literature an even greater credit must be given to the Government for having devoted an entire chapter of its Fifty Years of Progress to the cultural growth of Saskatchewan.This chapter which was entitled "Willows Revisited" after John Swivel's poem by that name, was most appropriately prefaced by a hitherto unpublished poem entitled Spring written by Sarah Binks herself. Concerning this poem at least there has never been any dispute as to its authorship, since it was actually signed by Sarah, It was discovered by sheer chance in a desk in the office of The Horse Breeders Gazette by one of two tax auditors who happened to be examining the desk at the time, and it was at once recognized as having literary value. Apparently it had been submitted by Sarah two years before her death and had been accepted for publication, since it bears the stamp, Paid, June 15th, 1925. Such manuscripts, according to the editor of the Gazette, were kept for filler and were usedas occasion arose, but this particular poem had been completely forgotten, since it had been pushed to the back of the drawer because of his secretary's habit of keeping both her as well as his lunch in

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