BEYOND BETHUNE: PEOPLE’S POETRY AND MILTON ACORN’S METAPHOR FOR THE CANADIAN FATE
Terry Barker, Dewdney: The Canadian Publishing House, 2006.
REVIEW BY RON DART
Terry Barker is perfectly positioned and exquisitely poised to do a
book on Milton Acorn. He has thought much about Acorn, and his previous
missive, After Acorn: Meditations on the Message of Canada’s People’s Poet,
walks the interested and curious into new areas of Acorn’s life and
thought. Beyond Bethune adds to Barker’s stature as an important
interpreter of western culture, Acorn and the fate and future of
Canada. Beyond Bethune is a demanding read, and for those who are only
content with intellectual pablum, Betty Crocker formulas and
kindergarten political theory, Barker and Beyond Bethune will ask more.
Norman Bethune stands tall as one of the most important Canadians. He
is much adored in China as a medical doctor of and for the people.
There is little doubt that Milton Acorn was and is one of the most
important Canadian political poets, and there can be no argument about the fact
that Acorn’s poetry is a poetry and prose for the people. Terry Barker,
in his challenging and incisive book, Beyond Bethune: People’s Poetry
and Milton Acorn’s Metaphor for the Canadian Fate, does five important
things.
First, he points out how a certain form of Gnostic ideology has come to
dominate much modern political theory on the political left and right.
Barker uses the important work of Eric Voegelin to demonstrate why the
political left and right is in such a dire plight at the present time.
Theory has become propaganda, and political grandstanding has replaced
substantive critical thinking. We are offered, in this timely book, a
rich overview of the essential premises of western intellectual thought
as they have unfolded and unfurled in the last few centuries. Barker
takes arrow after arrow from his quiver, and each release of the bow
directs the arrow to the bull’s eye at the heart of things.
Second, he holds high the important role of Bethune and connects the
concerns of Bethune with those of Acorn. Both men stand in the same
line and lineage. Both men stood in the gap for the common person, and
did so in heroic and not to be forgotten ways. Barker makes all this
clear in a succinct and clear headed manner. But, equally important,
where and why do Bethune and Acorn part paths? Both men are for the
people, but the language of ‘the people’ can mean all sorts of things
and mask all sorts of deeper philosophical differences. How does Acorn, in short, go beyond
Bethune? These sorts of questions (and the many philosophical premises
implicit and often well hidden in the debate) are part and parcel of
Barker’s many probes in Beyond Bethune.
Third, and this is an important contribution of Beyond Bethune, Barker
takes spade to soil and unearths many of Acorn’s often ignored deeper
religious roots. Acorn had substantive Anglican roots, and he returned
to such roots in the final years of his turbulent life. It is only as
we understand the more complex Anglican political tradition that we can
understand Acorn’s more nuanced and rigorous political ideas and social
stances. But, since few seem to have a feel or fix for such a time
tried perspective, many of Acorn’s ideas are lost or ignored by
biographers and interpreters of Acorn.
Fourth, Barker uses Acorn as a way of exposing the bankruptcy of
liberal and leftist politics at a deeper philosophical level. Acorn is
often identified with the socialist and communist left, and Barker
points out why, by day’s end, this is not a place that Acorn would or
could call home. Acorn was much too bright to be co-opted by either the
left or right both as an intellectual and as a poet. This is why Acorn,
like George Grant and Stephen Lea*censored*, were misunderstood by both
the new left and liberals, and why all three dared to raise hard
questions about the unquestioned assumptions of the left. All three
were not orthodox enough to be part of the tribe and clan or genuflect
to the creed. Barker makes clear why this is the case.
Fifth, Barker raises the timely question about people’s poetry in the
present tense. Who carries the banner of people’s poetry today, or has
it guttered out into uncritical ideology? Is there a form of people’s
poetry, true to Acorn, that has not been co-opted by the right or left?
Beyond Bethune, in nine compact chapters, massages these crucial issues
from a variety of angles: 1) The Prologue: A Way Back walks the
attentive reader into the heart of the deeper debate. 2) Brave New
World of People’s Poetry, 3) Satanism and Modern Politics, 4)
Unearthing Acorn, 5) The First American Civil war, and the New Age of
Ideology, 6) Ted Plantos: People’s Poet, Christian Mystic and Critic of
Modernity, 7) Bethuniverse Revisited, 8) Prospects for People’s Poetry
Post-Plantos and Purdy and 9) Epilogue: Beyond Bethune pull no punches
in their rigour and poise, surgical precision and relentless
reflections. Barker speaks, and he makes this abundantly clear, as an
active insider to the debate about Acorn and the larger issues that
surround Acorn.
There is no doubt Beyond Bethune is a must read and keeper, but it is
not bedside reading. Barker will challenge one and all in his approach
to people’s poetry, Acorn, Bethune and the fate of Canada. Barker goes
much deeper than mere ranting. He goes to the more profound
philosophical issues, and he refuses to budge from such a position.
Those who do not want to go to such places will find the book tough
going, but for those who hike with Barker and Acorn to such places, the
vistas seen are well worth the strenuous climb.
Ron Dart