Marya Fiamengo is a
nationalist, and a moderate feminist. As a nationalist, she leans towards the
Red Tory position.
–Patience After Compline (1989)
The saint needed by each culture is the one who contradicts it the most.
–G.K. Chesterton
I
The Low Romantic
Tradition
We often, as Canadians, turn to either the English tradition
of poetry as our great good place or to the American heritage as our poetic
north star. There has been, regrettably so, a notion in the Canadian literary
establishment that Canadian literature has a tendency to live in this ‘long
enduring spring’ in which buds do occur, but blossoms and fruit are noticeable
by their absence.
When Canadian poets turn to the English Romantic tradition
as their teachers and guides, there is a worrisome tendency to worship at the
feet of the Low Romantics (Shelley, Byron, Keats, Blake) and only turn to the
High Romantics (Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey) in their early years. The
argument is that as the High Romantics aged they became reactionary and joined
the forces of the establishment. The English Low Romantic tradition and the
American Low Romantic tradition of Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau had much in
common, and it is not difficult to track and trace the family tree and lineage
between the English Low Romantics, the American Low Romantics and the American
Beat/Black Mountain poetic tradition from the 1950s to the end of the 20th
century. Many Canadians followed this tradition, and, in doing so, missed much
in the Canadian poetic heritage. There are many ways a people can be colonized,
and when Canadians bow to American anarchist poetics, the colonial process is
spreading its tentacles in many directions.
The Canadian Low Romantic tradition of our Confederation
poets that we find in Duncan Campbell Scott, Bliss Carmen, C.D. Roberts and
Archibald Lampman very much participates within a certain ethos and aura. Those
who take the time to study the Canadian Confederation poets or linger long at
the sacred sites of Scott, Carmen, Roberts and Lampman, comparing and
contrasting them, should notice some significant signs and markings. These
poets, like their Low Romantic cousins in England and the USA, share a certain
affinity, genetic code and DNA. The lens through which they see, read and
interpret the script of this world has a predictability to it. All four have a
suspicion and abiding distrust of institutional religion and Christianity.
Nature has a habit of becoming the new cathedral and shrine at which such poets
genuflect and do obeisance. The poets, of course, become the new priests.
Politics within the Anglo-American Low Romantic tradition tends to be protest
oriented and anarchist. The elevated role of the individual, freedom and
conscience are the guiding principles that justify such a worldview. The
Canadian Low Romantic tradition leans towards a higher view of the common good
than the Anglo-American tradition, but there is no doubt the Low Romantic
tradition is in search of something to replace both the Western tradition and
Christianity. Will it be Nation, Nature, Culture or some form of Oriental
religion?
Our Canadian Low Romantic tradition, like their English and
American counterparts, tend to be reactionary, and, in some ways, walk the
unwary and naïve to places that lack a deep rooting and grounding. Can Nation,
Nature, Culture or Oriental philosophic perspectives and meditative practices
(or some combination of these) slake the deeper thirst for meaning and purpose
on our all too human journey? The Low Romantics (whether of the English,
American or Canadian varieties) place their hopes and dreams in such absolutes.
II
The Canadian High
Tory Tradition
There is, though, within the Canadian poetic and literary
tradition a form of High Romanticism (High/Red Toryism) that is quite different
from the Low Romantic line and lineage. The High Romantic tradition in Canada
can be traced back to those like Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey. We could,
without much difficulty, yet further follow this tradition, to Samuel Johnson,
Jonathan Swift, Richard Hooker and Thomas More. It is this heritage that does
not react to Tradition (but probes its depths), views society and the state in
an organic, historic and communal way and balances the liberty of the
individual with the need for both order and the rights of the commonweal (or
the common good). This older tradition attempts to plumb the depths of the
Western and Christian tradition (against many trendy caricatures of it) rather
than unduly reacting against such a time tried grand narrative.
Those who study the Confederation poets often dwell on, as I
mentioned above, Scott, Lampman, Roberts and Carmen. There are, obviously,
differences between these poets, but, on some of the larger issues, they share
a certain affinity. Most of them are, in a rather excessive way and manner,
reacting to their High Church Anglican heritage rather than diving to the
depths of it. The Low Romantic Canadian Confederation poets had contemporaries
that did differ with their agenda, and did not react as they did to the
challenges of the modern world and its assaults on Christianity and the Western
tradition.
Men such as Fred Scott, Charles Mair, and William Kirby
offer a literary perspective that is much more organic, much more rooted and
grounded in the Great Tradition. Women such as Suzanna Moodie and Catherine
Parr Traill stand very much within such an ethos.
This tradition is indebted to the United Empire Loyalists
(UEL), the Canada First movement and the Imperial Federation League. This was a
Canadian nationalist tradition that can be traced back to Susan Sibbald and
Bishops John Strachan and Charles Inglis. This tradition was carried forward by
those like Scott, Mair, Kirby, Moodie and Parr Traill. This was a heritage that
had an abiding respect for the environment, 1st Nations concerns,
the English-French symbiotic relationship and Canadian nationalism in contrast
to American republicanism and American imperialism. It was this tradition that
we find in those like Stephen Lea*censored*, Donald Creighton, Mazo de la Roche,
Eugene Forsey and George Grant. And, it is this High Tory tradition we find in
the poetry of Milton Acorn and Marya Fiamengo.
Poets such as Acorn and Fiamengo (at their deepest and best)
live out of the High Church Anglican tradition. They are nationalists, and they
are political but not ideologues of the right, left or centre. Their poetic
style is accessible and written for the people. It is these modern High Tory
Canadian poets that need more attention, and such poets can come as an
alternate voice to the Low Romantic tradition that dominates so much literary
and intellectual thought in the early years of the 21st century.
It was with some delight and much joy that many Canadians
applauded the Griffin Prize for Poetry being given to Margaret Avison in 2003.
Avison has made it abundantly clear that she takes her spiritual and poetic cue
from the Christian tradition. But, how many in Canada are aware of the
challenging poetic output of Milton Acorn and Marya Fiamengo? We do, in short,
have other fine and insightful Christian poets in Canada, and, I think, Marya
Fiamengo and Milton Acorn stand on the same poetic peaks, as does Margaret
Avison.
Both Acorn and Fiamengo speak from within the Anglican
tradition (Fiamengo more than Acorn), both think in a poetic way and both write
with a political vigour and depth that Avison lacks. Fiamengo has an uncanny
way of bridging the Anglican-Orthodox ethos (which she shares with George
Grant), and she has some affinities, via Seymour Mayne, with the best of Jewish
conservatism. But, before I slip too much into generalities, it might be best
to follow the poetic, religious and political trail of Fiamengo.
III
Marya Fiamengo:
High Tory Poet
Marya Fiamengo emerged on the Canadian poetic scene with the
publication of The Quality of Halves
(1958). There was a thriving artistic community on the West Coast in the 1950s,
and Marya was quite involved in it. William McConnell (1917-2002) gathered many
a creative person to the clan, and Klanak Press was birthed. Many of the Klanak
Press books are collectible items, and The
Quality of Halves was the first book to be published in the series.
The Quality of Halves has
a probing sensitivity to it that refuses to quit. The Eastern European
experience is faced, religion is front and centre and the delicacy and
fragility of human relationships are touched upon in a compelling manner. The Quality of Halves is a short book
(only 15 poems), but each of these poems anticipates much that will emerge in
the future in Marya’s writing. There is the longing for mythical Byzantium
(Yeats was very much a guide and teacher at this point), a worry about
‘Pea*censored*ed Lawns’, probes into unfulfilled lives and the nature of regret, a
life lived in ‘the absence of children’, a return to St. Albans, a ‘Poem for
Sarajevo’, a turning again to Greek myth, the dangers of being too taken in by
logic and systematic thinking and a wedding song. Many is the probe sent out
ever seeking completion and union, yet the reality of mortality and distance
seem to prevent the deeper longing from finding their true home. It is in these
halves (and the need to see them as one rather than ever at war) that a quality
of life can be lived.
Overheard at the
Oracle (1969) walks the reader in a very different direction, although some
of the deeper themes remain firm and steady. Marya had, in the 1960s, returned
to do her MA in Creative Writing at UBC. Her supervisor was Earle Birney, and
her graduating paper was a collection of poetry. The 1960s was a period of time
in which Christianity was under assault, and Eastern religions were in vogue.
Many was the thoughtful and sensitive Westerner that turned to the East for
insight and illumination.
The subtitle to Overheard
at the Oracle is Nine Poems of Chance
Based on the I Ching The Chinese Book of Changes. There are only nine short
poems in this collection, and they reflect the Eastern interest in short,
aphoristic saying that take the reader deep in to the nature of life, human
identity and meaning. Nature is held high as a teacher, and the more the voice
and guidance of Nature is heeded and heard, the wisdom of eternity will breath
and shine through. There is no doubt where Marya is at, at this point in her
journey. The oracle is the East, and, within the Eastern tradition, the I Ching
has much to instruct weary and longing westerners. We can see again, though,
the need to bring together extremes, to unite what is often divided, to see a
quality in each half of the whole. We can also see in both The Quality of Halves and Overheard
at the Oracle an interest in turning to the older ways for insight and
wisdom. Such a turn can take a person deeper and further into the East, deeper
and further into the West or a combination of both.
The publication of Silt
of Iron (1971) brought together three collections of poems: 1) Ikon-Measured Walks, 2) Overheard at the Oracle and, 3) Silt of Iron. There is
very much a sense in Silt of Iron that
Marya is attempting to bring together the best of the Eastern European Orthodox
Christian tradition with the Chinese heritage of the I Ching and Book of Changes.
The image of the Ikon is held high, and the iconographic way of knowing. The
walk through life can be guided, shaped and focused by and through the use of
Ikons, but Ikons are more than the drawing of saints of old. There are Russian
tales to be told, songs from a tree, memories of friends, Byzantine back of
Rome, the lure of the Mediterranean and a pondering of her father.
‘Ikon-Measured Walks’ takes the reader into a new and fuller way of
interpreting and see what an Ikon might be. Life can be an Ikon if we have but
eyes to see. The juxtaposition between ‘Ikon-Measured Walks’ and ‘Overheard at
the Oracle’ is most interesting. Both sections turn to a more ancient way of
knowing and being. Eastern Europe, Russia and the Mediterranean tend to be the
focus in the first part of this book of poetry, and China becomes the centre of
the triptych. The final section, ‘Silt of Iron’ closes off the book. The poems
in ‘Silt of Iron’ explore again the Eastern European ethos, and send new probes
into the Irish and Jewish traditions. In all of these poems, Marya is in search
for a deeper way of being both spiritual and political. The problem with the
first two books of poetry is that Marya has not yet integrated her longings and
poetic vision within the Canadian context. The fulfillment of hopes, dreams and
aspirations tend to be always in some elsewhere community, some other time and
place. The ten drawings by Jack Shadbolt in Silt
of Iron tend to reflect this more illusive and impressionistic way of
finding the path.
Marya’s poetry was published in a variety of anthologies in
the 1970s. Eleven Canadian Poets
(1973), Woman’s Eye (1974) and The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse
(1975) carried many of Marya’s poems. In
Praise of Old Women (1976) was a bridge book for Marya. The poetry was more
grounded in the Canadian tradition and experience, and the Eastern European and
Canadian experiences come together in an attractive and compelling way. Much of
the romanticizing and idealizing in the earlier books gives way to a more
realistic and grounded poetry. The language is still evocative, but the images
used and soil walked on is closer to the common human experience. This slim
volume does mock and sport those who make a cult of the young and their sleek
seductive bodies while ignoring the lessons and truths of age and mortality. There
is much life wisdom in this tract for the times, and many are the fine and
exquisite poem that was birthed in British Columbia. Canada and BC become the
sites from which larger issues are faced and confronted, and poems such as ‘A
Tale of Roses’, ‘Autumn in Osoyoos’, ‘Signs of the Times’ and ‘British Columbia
Gothic’ speak with incisive clarity. The religious themes are very much at
work, and such themes explore, in a convincing manner, the Jewish and Orthodox
ways. It is interesting to note that In
Praise of Old Women holds firm and steady to the wisdom that is revealed in
that which is old, tried and true. The trendy and fashion shows of the season
tend to be paper-thin. The form of Judaism that Marya is drawn to is not that
of Irving Layton, Matt Cohen or Leonard Cohen. It is much more to the more
rooted and grounded Jewish ethos of A.M. Klein and Seymour Mayne. There is also
the sense that Marya is exploring, much more, the political in this collection
of poetry. In Praise of Old Women was
dedicated ‘To Robin (Mathews) and all those who struggle against the
Americanization of Canada’. Robin and Marya had a common affinity for Canadian
Nationalism, and, in their poetry, they often went after American imperialism
(in its subtle and crude forms) and Canadian colonialism and compradorism (in
its crude and subtle forms). The major theme of this bridge book is the wisdom
and resources to be found in the old ways, the ancient truths. It is by a
recovery of such insight that we will find our way again.
The fact that Marya dedicated In Praise of Old Women to Robin Mathews and all those who struggle
for the Canadian way meant that she was aligning herself with the nationalist
tradition in Canadian poetry. Marya taught in the English department at UBC,
and the West Coast poetic and culture wars were heated and intense. A form of
poetry emerged in the late 1950s at UBC (very much indebted to the American
Black Mountain school and the American Beat tradition) that undercut and
undermined the Canadian nationalist tradition. Warren Tallman at UBC took the
lead in this movement, and George Bowering, Frank Davey, Bp Nicoll and others
doffed their caps to such a way. There were those at SFU such as Roy Miki and
Robin Blaser who were on the same page. The publication of Tish (from UBC) and other magazines and publishing companies played
nicely into this agenda. Tallman’s, In
the Midst, recounts the tale well. There were those, though, like Milton
Acorn, Robin Mathews, Seymour Mayne, Red Lane, Pat Lane, Marya Fiamengo and to
a lesser degree Al Purdy, Dorothy Livesay and Earle Birney that had questions
about the direction of Tallman and tribe. It was within this more nationalist,
political and realistic school of poetry that Marya tipped her hat. If the Tish
tradition represented an extreme wing of stream of consciousness, sound poetry
and deconstructionism, the vision of Northrop Frye (and his followers and
acolytes) were committed to a mythic and literary form of structuralism. Frye
argued that great literature had an order and structure to it, and this
structure and order was embodied in myths. A good literary critic knew how to
smoke out the mythic structure that lay intact in the literature and, in the
highest sense, in life and living. Marya, at this point in her journey (it was
now the 1970s and the culture wars on the West Coast were intense), identified
herself with the nationalist tradition that was critical of Tallman and the
Tish tradition on the one hand, and Frye and the mythic-poetic-archetypal
tradition, on the other hand.
North of the Cold Star
(1978), even more than In Praise of
Old Women, holds firm and steady to both important Canadian themes,
American imperialism and the need for Canadians to fight and find their way. North of the Cold Star is divided into
four sections: 1) New
Poems, 2) poems from The Quality of
Halves, 3) poems from Silt of Iron
and, 4) poems from In Praise of Old
Women. Many of the new poems face, straight on, in a way Marya had
not previously done, the larger political issues. Poems such as ‘The Country
South of Bridesville’, ‘Acknowledge
Him Canadian’, ‘Pax Romana’, ‘To the R.C.M.P.—‘, ‘Hoch
Kultur’, ‘Doing Errands in the Canadian Mosaic’, ‘Notes from an Intellectual
Branch Plant’, ‘Personal Column’ and ‘Holy Theophany’ tell their own graphic and
not to be forgotten tale. Poems in the ‘New Poems’ are dedicated to
Robin/Esther Mathews and others who have fought the good fight for the Canadian
tradition. The meaning of North of the
Cold Star cannot be missed. This book of poetry brought together some of
the finest poems Marya had written to date, and, in many important ways, it
established her as an important political and religious poet in Canada. The
many themes Marya threaded together in North
of the Cold Star placed her at the cutting and creative edge of poetry in
Canada in the 1970s. It is virtually impossible to read North of the Cold Star and not see where Marya has positioned
herself in the literary wars in Canada and the West Coast. Tallman and the Tish
tradition were scorned as was Frye and family. It is, sadly so, this
nationalist and more political tradition of Canadian poetry that has not been
given its due. Those who have bowed to either the more establishment way of
Frye or the anarchist tendencies of Tallman have been held high as models of
authentic and genuine Canadian literature. There is, obviously, more to Frye
than Tallman, but there is more to Canadian literature than Tallman and Frye,
and those like Acorn, Mathews, Livesay, Birney and Fiamengo embody such a
marginalized way. North of the Cold Star
(particularly the ‘New Poems’ section) walks the reader into such a challenging
tradition, a tradition that refuses to ignore the large issues of American
imperialism and the way Canadians have been and continue to be colonized.
Marya had turned to the Anglican Church in the 1970s. She
attended St. Francis in the Woods in West Vancouver, then, in the 1980s, she
began to attend St. James (an Anglo-Catholic parish) in downtown Eastside. The
publication of Patience After Compline
(1989) reflects a growing depth and integration of poetic vision. Compline is
the final prayer office in the liturgical day, and after compline, the night
settles in and darkness comes to one and all. Patience After Compline is very much a book of poetry that draws
together many major religious and human themes. The Anglican Book of Common
Prayer provides the means by which the more compelling truths of eternity are
revealed in time, but such truths must be translated and interpreted in such a
way that they speak to our human condition. Patience
After Compline does just that. The book is divided into two sections: 1)
Gradations of Grace, and 2) An Alphabet for Time. Spirituality is both rooted
in the historic church and in the documents (such as The Book of Common Prayer) that shape the mind and imagination. It
is in this sense that Marya Fiamengo stands in the Anglican line and lineage of
a George Herbert or John Donne. She is not as prolific as them, but the themes
she explores are the same. We can very much see
Marya’s Red/High Toryism come to fruition in Patience After Compline. Her religious
quest has found a home. Such a home, when rightly interpreted and understood,
has age and depth to it. Such a home offers a place of rest and peace when the
darkness falls and much seems lost and fading. Politics is not absent; neither
is a turning to Nature absent.
All is brought together and raised up, in a sacramental way,
to a new and higher level. This is very much the High Church way, and Marya’s
experience at St. James would have encouraged such a thorough synthesis. It is
also important to note that St. James is in the poorest area (Downtown
Eastside) of Vancouver, and it is quite apt and fitting that Marya’s High Tory
poetic vision would and could find its home in such a challenging place.
We should pause and linger here for a few moments. The
poetic vision of Marya Fiamengo is quite different from the Canadian Low
Romantic tradition. This is a form of poetry that neither ignores spirituality
nor separates spirituality from religion. Marya is too wise a poet and person
to fragment the religious quest in such a way. Marya, also, draws together the
best of the classical Jewish, Orthodox and Anglican way in her poetic vision.
The fact that Marya had turned to the old ways as a way of avoiding the many
pitfalls of the modern ethos means that she has gleaned and drawn in the best
of some ancient traditions. It is crucial to note that the Jewish, Orthodox and
Anglican traditions have firm, committed and strong political aspects to them,
and each of these traditions has historic nationalist tendencies. Marya has
brought all this together and made sense of it within the Canadian context.
There is no poet in Canada who has brought things together in quite the same
way. And, true to form, what seems an odd mix and mixture is just an old way
being served up to a world and ethos that has lost all memory. What seems new
is just the old being offered again for one and all to taste and see.
Marya’s most recent book of poetry, White Linen Remembered (1996), is a pleasant and inviting summing
up of what has gone before. There are seven sections with a few poems in each
section. Art plays an important role in healing the many hurts in the journey
of life just as Nature and Culture can and does. Politics must play its role as
a bringer of justice and a doer of charitable deeds. But, deeper and more
demanding, is the religious journey and what it can do (in a personal, communal
and national sense) to heal the hurts and draw forth the eternal longings in
the human soul. There is much to be remembered on the journey, and memory, at
its best, is more than thinking about what has gone before in a nostalgic sort
of way. To remember is to put the disintegrated members of the inner body of
the soul back together again. It is in remembering that we integrate and become
one. White Linen Remembered approaches
all the means that can be used to assist us in the remembering process.
Art, Culture, Nation, Nature can all assist us on this
journey, but deeper than all these forms and means of healing insight, Grace,
Spirituality and Religion take precedence. Marya Fiamengo has synthesized a
vision, and it is the vision that she has brought together that makes her the
dominant Canadian Red Tory poet of the latter half of the 20th
century and the early years of the 21st century. It is this vision
that separates and distinguishes Marya’s poetic output from those who embody
and further the Low Romantic tradition in Canada. It is in this sense that
Marya comes as a saint that contradicts and challenges our culture the most. It
is, of course, such people we need the most, and yet, true to form, it is such
people we ignore the most.