Willows Revisited

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Bessie Udderton, the pen name of Mrs. Martha Waffle, is a nativeof Saskatchewan, and little may be said about her private life which is not already known. In her charming little booklet, The Flowering of the Dry. Belt. Miss Rosalind Drool tells about Bessie's girlhood and her early marriage in high school and also describes her home and family on their farm near Cactus Lake. She has been the subject of innumerable articles in the local Journals and of study groups in Saskatchewan, and already such prestigious organisations as The Ladies' Literary League of Quagmire and The Chaucerettes of Regina have been holding annual Bessie Udderton nights in which her work is discussed and reports on some of her recipes for home cooking are received. Her three published books to date, Vestal Verses. More Vestal Verses, and Still More Vestal Verses (the latter subtitled Songs of Savour) have all been very profitable, and the royalties from these together with the ones received from the Bessie Udderton Cook Book, have helped to solve the problem of farming in her home.Bessie is always at her best when at her shortest and there is no doubt that in her little gem entitled Spring she is at her very best. Spring, of course, has always been a favorite theme for poetry from Chaucer to John Swivel, but Bessie has founds a new joy in that season for event) which only innerness could bring forth. Nowhere in Saskatchewan has she been excelled in this matter not even Sarah Binks'own Spring with its rich musical accompaniment of a sixty.^mlle wind together with the voices of the cow and calf "full-throated to the weather," has approached in lyrical quality the sweet anticipation of Bessie when she cries in Joyous abandonment, "it's spring, its spring, its spring! "
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84SPRINGNew peas and beans and baby beets, Must still await July, But already tiny rhubarb shoots Give promise of the pie;And tips of young asparagus Their Joyful message fling, And hens will once more lay again -Its spring, it's spring, its spring!There is a lushness here, a yielding, and only the quiet pastoral contentment of Purge Potatoes I 'Tink She's Spring Gome has ever been compared to it. Spring and her equally famous Duck Dinner at Willows, the poem which the Govenment included in its Fifty Years of Progress, are in themselves sufficient to give Bessie a high place in the Saskatchewan School of Seven.Again and again in Bessie's poems we find that sweet surrender of anticipation which we find in Spring . The "oh Joy, oh life prolonging,"with which she greets the lemon pie in Duck Dinner at Willows has itscounterpart in the sudden ebullient "Oh, Brother!" when faced with the deep apple pie with whipped cream and cheese In "The Man in Grief."The Man In GriefThe man in grief may blunt the edge of sorrow With half a glass of Scotch in ginger ale, And, given steak, will bravely face the morrow, To gird his belt of misery in this vale � But more �if broiled, and deep in mushrooms smothered,And sided with french fries and early peas,And hearts of artichoke, and then �Oh Brother! Deep apple pie with whipped cream and some cheese; To finish up �a demi-tasse unsweetened, A Benedictine once �perhaps creme de menthe � Such man can rise and swear he's never beaten By slings of fate or circumstance' intent.
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85But woman, lost in grief, needs no consoler In terms of steak to stiffen up the spine, Nor takes to beans to quench the dripping dolour That fills her four-inch handkerchief with brine; But turns the page of life's most tearful ballad, Without recourse to food in lean or fat � And rising from her wet, unfinished salad Goes out to buy some stockings and a hat. Or so 'tis said �but me, when all is crumbling, And deep despair enfolds, and sorror frets � I bake fresh rolls and make a stew with dumplings, Cucumbers with sour cream, and crepes suzettes.Bessie Udderton has matured greatly. She has never been a deep poet like John Swivel nor and adventurous one like Baalam Bedfellow, She Is feminine and she is cheerful. She leads a full life, perhaps too full occasionally, and of recent years she has been subject to mild attacks of indigestion, and these have undoubtedly affected her outlook on life. She tends to be more thoughtful and she loses some, though by no means all, of that surrendering delight in those aspects of innerness with which she has come to be associated. Two poems, taken from her latest book, Still More VestalVerses show this trend towards the more reflective mood. In "Some Day '' she looks ahead and finds the outlook bleak, but she never becomes really downhearted. Her one great regret, apparently, is that so much of the things which are dear to her heart remain "unpenned" and that time and opportunity is so limited. But even the thought of her inevitable end gives her a certain lift, a sense of renewal. Some day she will sing her poems with the angels and in what she calls the "sweet angelic lays" will sing again of those things which in life she has found so dear.
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86SOME DAY.Within each poet's heart there comes the day When he must turn and contemplate the end, And sigh deep sigh, and resolutely say, Alas, alack, so much remains unpenned; So few the years, so limited the rhyme, To tell of days 'twixt shelf and glowing stove, To laud light touch of basil or of thyme, And glorify the nutmeg and the clove.Perhaps some day again the poet's skill Will join with angel voices in the sky, To praise sweet peppers with a pinch of dill, And mushrooms in the steak and kidney pie, And Join in hymn that garlic rubbed on roast Should just be light and sweet angelic lays, Sing shrimp is best on toast, And salted cod makes perfect bouillabaisseThe same theme runs through her more somber "THOUGHTS AFTER CHRISTMAS". Here after a too-hearty Christmas dinner and unable to sleep at night, she turns her thought to the future. Her buoyant nature, as always, comes to her aid, and instead of becoming worried or despondent she sees in her restlessness an occasion for a deeper insight and a look into the future. As in the angels' song she sees in it the opportunity to express the perfection towards which she has always been striving and which has been denied by life's lack of opportunity, or perhaps even, by life's weakness �"The meals we planned, but never wrought."When this last Christmas of the year, Has once more come and once more gone, And turkey, pudding, nut, and beer, Lie heavy on the heart at dawn, And falling tinsel from the tree Remarks time's passing in the night, And dead the shouts of revelry And cold the fires of delight
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87Be glad �the ache that mince-pie brings And puddings that discourage sleep, Can turn out thoughts to higher things Than counting several thousand sheep; And that distress that's unallayed By salts and soda, lifts the soul To regions high where unafraid We stand and contemplate goal; And from that height we look ahead To all those things that once we sought, From childhood dreams of gingerbread, To meals we planned but never wrought.Only once as far as we know did Chistmas festivities ever getBessie completely down. The poem she wrote about her feelings aafter the festivities and which she entitled "Boxing; Day,and is it Ever," was never very well received by her admirers and is, in fact, something of a literary oddity. It certainly lacks her usual serenity of rhyme and metre, but it is by no means out of character on that account. She never loses sight of lnnerness. She merely, to quote one of her reviewers, "plays hell with it," and the fact that she had overindulged in the souffle with "sauce a-la-Russe ,vodkarlik" of which she is exceedingly fond had given her a splitting headache.BOXING DAY AND IS IT EVER!Now longs the heart for a Christmas On an island, or even an isthmus, Far from turkey, mince pie, nuts, bismuth.Now dream I of quiet fasting solitudeIn a place considerably removed from food, Preferably a desert Island in some other longitude.l want Just an isle where none tootles, On tin flutes, or cries, "Have some nootles!" And I say, "No thanks, go way, I've had oodles."A desert isle where there are no dates-in-garlic, Or souffle with sauce a-la-Russe vodkarlik, And where none gather round to sing Yule songs Including Men of Harlech.A completely desert island next Christmas, Where nothing grows, not even hibiscus, And men Just lie around and dont even shave whiskus.
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88But such an attitude of withdrawal in unusual for the cheerful Bessie Udderton. As a rule she likes Christmas and especially she likes Christmas dinner, she looks forward to it as an occasion to display her culllnary talents as well as an opportunity to exercise her literary ones. There is never any doubt as to the source of Bessie's poetic inspiration even though she may have her misgivings as to her Christmas dinner giving rise to what she calls the "ancient ache" somewhere in the region of the stomach, or at least as well as she can place it "between the navel and the heart." But even if it comes she accepts it as a part of life and life's pleasures and like a true existentialist she faces up to it and even moulds it into the material of art, or, what is known in poetic circles as "grist."There is no uncertainty in spite of her "Boxing Day and is it Ever!" that Bessie is a sociable and hospitable soul and the men whom she invites over for Christmas dinner do well by it to the point of torpor. This is beautifully illustrated in her twin poems, "Before Christmas Dinner" and "After Christmas Dinner" They are interesting too as an example of what was once known in Victorian literature as "Poetic Twinning," a verse form in which one poem is more or less the mirror image or counterpart of the other somewhat after the manner of our more modern His and Hers in bathroom towels. For the modern writer who has difficultysustaining an idea through a whole poem, let alone two, twinning has become a lost art, and it is gratifying indeedto discover that in Saskatchewan some of the graces and amenitiesof poetry are still being preserved.
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89BEFORE CHRISTMAS DINNER.Now once again the festive season nears, 'Tis time to hang the garland on the hook, And serve again the simple drink that cheers, Nor yet inebriates; 'tis time to cook, To measure and to mix and beat and bake, "With ancient household lore and tribal art � And hope that Yule, Just once, in ancient ache, May fail, between the navel and the heart:But if so be, in gulp and burp and tears, And night that neither pills nor book assuage, It isn't just that poet feels his years, Its also grist to fill the printed page.AFTER CHRISTMAS DINNER.Now once again the end of dinner nears, 'Tis time to take the apron from the hook, And put away the Three-Star wine that cheers � Also inebriates �'tis time the cook To say to each and every torpid guest, "Let's move across the hall and take our ease, God rest you Merry Gentlemen:- but rest! If not, there's biscuits, coffee, port, and cheese.""And I'll Just slip and put away the food, And gather up the Christmas loaves and fishes, And join you later in your lassitude � In perhaps two hours after doing dishes."Bessie has written few poems which have so established herpopularity among her feminine admires as her "After Christmas Dinner."Not even her lilting Kitchen Song has attracted as much attention.''In Kitchen Song" Bessie apparently sings as she cooks, and althoughit has sometimes been said that she here falls down in the matterof innerness particularly when it comes to soup powder and sparn,it must be admitted that she has squeezed the last bit of lyricismout of what for many women would be regarded as plainwork.
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90KITCHEN SONGWhatever is making In boiling or baking, Depending on cullliners choice, Demands Jubilation In the Joy of creation Expressed in appropriate voice.I hum when I'm mixing A batter or fixing A! chicken to mount on the grill, But for moulding a mock-duck Or tossing up pot-luck, .Just any old song -so its shrill.A sweet obligato Is not for tomato, Nor mezzo-soprano for ham, But high-noted trilling Can help some in grilling, The dubious virtues of spam.Sing louder for chowder � But instant soup powder Rates little in musical notes, But I'll top Alberghetti When boiling spaghetti And drone bagpipe wail to the oats.I yodel when basting, And warble when tasting, "Yum yum! Its right out of a book!" So there's always occasion For some diapason, To add to the joy of the cook.
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91Baalam Bedfellow, Ph.D. The Piltdown ManLiterature, if it is to "be great, must have its tensions. Thosevery contradictions and anomalies which we so often regard as faultsin poetry are not marks of weakness but of inner struggle out ofwhich the strength of literature emerges. "Synthesis can come aboutonly if first there is unsynthesis," declares von Hinten," it is notenough to have alone the Wienerschnitzelgeist; there is also such a thing as Knochen." Keeping this in mind together with his theorem that the positive which arises out of such synthesis becomes in the end the Almost-Ultimate, or even as he maintains, the Ultimate-Almost, it would almost seem that in this respect the Province of Saskatchewan excels. Certainly its claim that in the matter of tensionsand contradictions it can not only hold its literary own but can out -contradict and out-tense any province in the Dominion, appears to be justified. For in Baalam Bedfellow Saskatchewan has indentured into its service an artist in whom split personality has not only become vocal, but in whom two distinct and contradictory attitudes stand so at variance that they regard each other with complete contempt.Bedfellow is difficult to evaluate, He is a bird-poet supreme, a writer of lovely songs done in flawless verse which has been compared in grace and freedom to the flight of birds themselves. At the same time he produces torn and tortured poetry, if such it can be called, in which any reference to birds is anathema. "To hell with birds" he says fiercely and frankly in The Deep Vale.' he has become twice famous, or perhaps one should say that his fame, likehis personality is split, His appeal, is, in fact, to diverse schools ofaesthetic appreciation as to extend to the readers them-
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92selves as well as to his works. Such critical opinions as "theywouldn't know a poem from a hole in the ground," followed by the rejoinder, "Those bastards can't even read," are by no means uncommon in Saskatchewan literary circles when Bedfellow's poetry is under discussion.There are times when Bedfellow appears to have an almost Wordsworthian love of nature. He then rises as if on wings and opens our ears to "the catalogue of diverse sounds" which he hears and which he shares with takes Joy than in the strange wisdom of the heron, For example, whose silence and retiring ways wins his approvaland he wonders whether the robin's song, if put in words, would make Grade IV at school. He is a master of the contrast between silence and sound and he makes full use of birds, some say as symbols, drive the contrast home. And yet there is no doubt that in private life he hates and is even personally afraid of them. There are instances in which he has been known to have disappeared for a complete day or more on being informed that a strange chickenhad been walking across the St. Midgets campus and had probably escaped from the Animal Husbandry Department. This fear of birds, amounting almost to a phobia, together with the fact that he is by no means happy in his position of teaching English to a class in Home Economics at St, Midget's, may tear him spiritually but it has undoubtedly given rise to something new in the literature of the prairies. He has been called a modern among moderns.As a writer Bedfellow can be frequently very scornful and at times even abusive, and there are certainly times when he can be as cryptic and as lacking in meaning as any modern, at least in Canada. His admirers in the West point to his contempt for capitals and rhyme and in fact for any of the conventions of
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93classical poetry to support their claim to his modernism,' and add thatsome of his unpublished stuff is as dirty and as tough as anytlr ng produced inthe East. Many of his poems, they say can hardly be recognized aspoetry and have, in fact, frequently been mistaken for bad prose. Butto classify Bedfellow as one of the moderns on this account Jqioverlooks Knochen, to say the least. There is Bedfellow himself of which his poetry is the expression. And Bedfellow is not a modern; he is a primitive,a throwback, and, to some extent, even a romanticist.Undoubtedly Bedfellow is aware of social injustice and conditionsaround him, and it would be strange indeed if, as a professorof English, he failed to cry out against them in terms of stark realism and current idiom. But in the end the conflict is within himself^and even within the deceptive simplicity of such poems as "The Ant," one cannot escape that sense of protest. But Bedfellow's protest is never so much a cry for reform as it is for return and therein he is a romanticist. For just as writers who fail to make the adjustment with reality withdraw into the past or into so romantic age of chivalry and knighthood, so Bedfellow also would return to a bygone age. But in his case he would return further much further, some have said even to the arboreal or cave existenceof primitive man. It may be that this is a exaggeration, but he would certainly go far beyond any age of knighthood and chivalry to one in which he could be completely free, and especially free of those disciplines imposed upon him by his position as a teacher of English to a class of girls in Home Economics. It is perhaps as much due to this literary credo as to his personal appearance that he has come to be known as The Piltdown man. His friends call him Pilt.
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It must be observed however Wat Bedfellow is also at hearta true westerner. This is indicated, if by nothing else, by his re-to the cow-birdpeated reference to the cow in his poetry, even^in his bird poetry.Just what the significance of the cow as a symbol may be is inhis case naturally obscure. It has been suggested that for him thecow represents a period of transition from Saskatchewan's simplepast where the only problem of any concern was that of the weather, to themore complicated ones of the economy of oil and potash and Social Credit to which he objects. He has publicly protested against the pasteurization of milk and has also written a polemical poem in which he calls upon his province to protest against the modern method of curing tobacco, which, he claims, not only robs it of all its natural vitamins thus contributing to the spread of socialism as wellas/the lowering of the birth rate, but finally leaves it unfit for a cow." But regardless of the particular symbolism he may have in mind, it would be strange indeed if Bedfellow were not to reflect in his work some of the torsions and the tensions of his native province.But all this is true only of one side of Bedfellow's work , that is, the so-called "convolute and cerebral" which has been mistaken for modernism. His bird poems are something else again and neither a political and sociological study of Saskatchewan nor the usual scholarly discussion of the artist as being the literary spokesman and the aesthetic blossoming of his day and age can possibly account for the strange anomaly of a complete set of sweetly lyrical bird poems set against the harsh realism of such works as "The Ant, or "Seared Land" wrung from a tortured heart or the somber depths of The Deep Vale. Here at least only the psychological approach to literature seems to work.The great advantage of the psychological approachr

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