Milton Acorn (1923-1986) has not been well represented or fully portrayed in the biographies written about him. Ed Jewinski's, Milton Acorn and His Works (1990), merely scratched the surface of the ethos and world of Acorn. Gudgeon's, The Natural History of Milton Acorn (1996), although and substantive step beyond Jewinski?s slight missive, and written to coincide with a decade after Acorn?s death, tends to get much wrong. Gudgeon seems to assume Acorn?s political bent was either communist or socialist rather than Red Tory (which Gudgeon does not seem to understand), and Acorn?s spiritual and religious grounding was bypassed. Gudgeon, when commenting on Acorn's death, said,"Finally, on August 20, 1986, the Great Marxist called for an Anglican priest. Milton renounced his Godless ways and accepted Jesus as his personal Saviour" (p. 157). Needless to say, the tale is much more complicated than. The Natural History of Milton Acorn has much to commend it, but the final section (an annotated anthology) could have been omitted, and much more in depth work could have been done on Acorn's life and writings. But, as a journalistic primer on Acorn's importance to Canadian politics and poetry, it filled a need in its time.
Richard Lemm's biography, Milton Acorn: In Love and Anger (1999) is the best we have to date, but there is much more to say and do. But, Jewinski, Gudgeon and Lemm, for a variety of reasons (this might have something to do with their lack of serious grounding in the Canadian intellectual tradition) do not seem to understand Acorn?s much older Loyalist, Romantic, Tory and Anglican roots. It is impossible to understand Acorn without a firm feel for this older heritage. We are fortunate that Terry Barker, in his searching booklet, After Acorn: Meditation on the Message of Canada's People's Poet (1999) has examined and explored these much neglected aspects of Acorn's thought and poetic vision. Acorn had a deep and abiding respect for C.S. Lewis and George Grant, and he warmly and highly recommended one and all read their writings. Barker has opened up, with James Deahl, an area of Acorn's religious and political roots that have been ignored thus far. We might want to ask why this is the case?
Milton Acorn won the People's Poet Award in 1970, and in 1975, he was offered, in a belated sort of way, the GG Award for his book of poetry, The Island Means Minago. Acorn's early books of poetry, In Love and Anger (1956), Against a League of Liars (1960), The Brain?s the Target (1960) and Jawbreakers (1963) established him as a prominent Canadian poet. Acorn's unique, accessible and direct style, his obvious interest in the working class, his leftist leanings and his more tender and searching love poetry holds the reader and invites many a reread and meditative pondering.
Acorn, in the 1960s, could not be missed on the Canadian literary and political scene. His brief, flawed and tragic marriage to another fine Canadian poet, Gwendolyn MacEwen, so well recounted in Rosemary Sullivan's, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995), walks the reader into the depths of Acorn?s complex and often convoluted nature. Acorn was involved with the Bohemian Embassy in Toronto (as were many up and coming Canadian poets at the time), and in 1962, he played the leadership role in the "Free Speech Movement" in Allan Gardens.
It is interesting to note that George Grant was teaching at McMaster in Hamilton at the time. There is little evidence that Acorn and Grant met at the time, although Terry Barker has called Grant "the People's Philosopher" just as Acorn has been called "the People's Poet". Both men shared a similar High Tory vision that was grounded in the historic Canadian journey. An imaginary dialogue could be written on Grant and Acorn in dialogue, and could be called, "The Day Grant met Acorn".
Acorn was so well respected in the early 1960s that Fiddlehead did a special issue of his poetry in 1963. I've Tasted My Blood was published in 1969, and, as I mentioned above, many thought Acorn should have won the GG Award for this fine collection of poetry. But, the colonial mind being what it is in Canada, the Tallman-Bowering clan won the day. It is important to reflect on the fact that, in the mid-sixties both Acorn and MacEwen (editors of the magazine, Moment) wrote columns against the West Coast Tish tribe that Tallman and Bowering were part and parcel of. Acorn was also a founding member of The Georgia Straight in 1967, but it did not take long for Acorn to realize that The Georgia Straight was just another American anarchist magazine, and Dan McLeod and Acorn parted ways. The publication of The Georgia Straight: 30 Years of Vancouver's Alternate Weekly (1997) has an "Inaugural Column" by Acorn in it. It does not take a great deal of reflective insight to realize that the anarchist world of Tallman-Bowering- McLeod (Tish and The Georgia Straight) inhabit a different world than the nationalist vision of a Dorothy Livesay, Milton Acorn, Robin Mathews or Marya Fiamengo. Poetry is political, and the anarchist-nationalist debates in Canada have been heated and intense.
The American anarchist and poetic tradition that goes back to Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman did much to shape and form the American Beat tradition of the 1950s-1960s. It was this tradition that did much to reform, redefine and reforge the Canadian way. It is important to note that Noam Chomsky very much stands within the American anarchist way, and there are important political connections between Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, the Beats and Chomsky. It is nationalist Canadians such as Milton Acorn and Robin Mathews that have seen through the limitations of the anarchist political tradition, argued the Canadian way is not so cynical of the state and offered another poetic and political vision to the Canadian people. Needless to say, the people's poetry of Dorothy Livesay, Milton Acorn, Robin Mathews or Marya Fiamengo is quite different from the anarchist way of people's poetry in the USA.
Acorn's poetic harvest and bounty increased in the 1970s. Books such as More Poems for the People (1972), that was much indebted to Dorothy Livesay, The Island Means Minago (1975), Jackpine Sonnets (1977) and Acorn's play (written with Cedric Smith), The Road to Charlottetown (1977) placed Acorn on front stage in the Canadian literary drama. It was also in 1977 that the University of Prince Edward Island offered Acorn an honourary law degree. It is equally significant that both Acorn and former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker received honourary degrees at the same time and from the same university. Acorn had much fondness and affinity for Diefenbaker (the renegade and rogue Tory).
Acorn, after many a confrontation with the League of Canadian Poets in the early 80s, turned back to the place of his birth. Acorn lived on the Island from 1982 until his death in 1986. George Grant died two years later, in Nova Scotia, in 1988. Both men stood for a form of Red, Radical or High Toryism that many Canadians have forgotten today. The Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly: The Canadian Literary Writer's Magazine did a special issue on Milton Acorn in 1986, and in 1987, The Northern Red Oak was published. The Northern Red Oak was a collection of poems for and about Milton Acorn by some of the leading poets of Canada. James Deahl edited the collection and wrote a fine introduction.
Acorn has, by many literary critics, been put in the cupboard and the door closed on him in the last two decades. Acorn dared to ask hard and uncomfortable ethical questions that did not please the liberal literary establishment in Canada. Al Purdy thinks that Acorn will, when the times and seasons turn, emerge from the forest of obscurity again. Purdy was convinced Acorn was a victim of intellectual and aesthetic trends, and as the trends move on, Acorn will rise, like the northern red oak again. He will rise high above the smaller and lesser trees in the forest, and, as such, we will, as Canadians, see what we have lost by losing him.
It is important to note that Acorn, by the late 1970s-early 1980s, was turning more and more to his East Coast, his High Church Anglican upbringing, C.S. Lewis and George Grant. This aspect of Acorn's life has been ignored in most of the books written on and about him, and it is the meticulous work of both Terry Barker and James Deahl that have brought to the surface this aspect of Acorn's life and writings. The time has come to place Acorn within his true Red/High Tory tradition, and the Anglican heritage that was the foundation for such a tradition. When this is done, much of what Acorn said and did, both in a political and religious sense, can be understood in a more intelligible manner.
What, though, we might ask, has Milton Acorn to do with Robin Mathews? The simple answer is a great deal. But, let us begin at the beginning in Mathews' life, then see how, when and why their lives intersected. Both men were political poets, both men supported one another and both men stood against a form of poetry that retreated from the hard political and nationalist questions of the time.
Mathews did his BA in English Literature in the 1950s at University of British Columbia. He then went to Toronto in the late 1950s, after receiving an MA in the United States, to start his Ph. D. in Literature. Northrop Frye was the chief literary guru at University of Toronto at the time. Frye's grounding breaking work on Blake had been published, and, in 1957, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays left the eager press. Most bowed low to the grand master, and his theories of literary criticism, but Mathews was not so quick to go on bended knee. Margaret Atwood and Dennis Lee had become part of Frye?s inner circle by the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mathews would not be so subservient. He thought there was much more to literature, literary criticism and the Canadian way than Frye and acolytes could and would offer.
Mathews was soon on his way to University of Alberta, and he taught in the English department from 1959-1966. He clashed with the Mayor of Edmonton, exposed some questionable decisions and financial dealings, and was temporarily imprisoned for doing so. Mathews' first two books of poetry, The Plink Savoir (1962) and Plus Ca Change (1964) are insightful missives, and the complex nature of love is explored in intricate metaphorical detail, but Mathews, as a political poet, is still awaiting birth. It was not until This Time, This Place (1965) that Mathews, as a distinctive political poet comes onto the front stage of Canadian literary life. All the large and demanding questions are asked about Canadian nationalism and American imperialism, and the way Canadian colonialism works its way into the Canadian psyche is unpacked in sensitive and probing detail.
It was not until This Cold Fist (1969) was published, though, that Mathews began to be seriously recognized as an important Canadian poet. Al Purdy told Mathews, after reading This Cold Fist, "You really are a poet, Robin". It was also in 1969 that Mathews and Steele published The Struggle for Canadian Universities. The book told tale without any reservations. Canadian found it hard to get jobs in Canadian universities, because the English or Americans were preferred. And, as I mentioned above, it was by 1970 that Mathews let one and all know that Milton Acorn rather than George Bowering should have won the GG Award.
Air 7 (1972), The Geography of Revolution (1975) and Language of Fire (1976) were thick with political themes. Mathews had been quite involved with the Waffle movement within the NDP in the late 60s-early 70s (that had attempted to move the NDP further to the nationalist left). The Lewis dynasty (David and Stephen) undercut and axed the Waffle movement, and kept the NDP on a fairly predictable social democratic course. Milton Acorn wrote a glowing and never to be forgotten introduction to Language of Fire. The symbiotic relationship between Acorn and Mathews could not be more obvious; poetry must be political. The Geography of Revolution was published the same year that Acorn won the GG Award for his book of poetry, The Island Means Minago. Both Acorn and Mathews were working closely together at this time with Steel Rail Press, and it was Steel Rail Press that challenged many of the anarchist presses in Canada, the establishment presses and Anansi press (that published Margaret Atwood and many other up and coming Canadian poets of either an apolitical or a moderately nationalist bent). Acorn and Mathews were doing their best to articulate and offer another way of reading the Canadian ethos.
The Beginning of Wisdom (1978) probes many of the major themes we must all face in our human journey. It takes wisdom to live aright, and to find the path through life takes time and patience. The Beginning of Wisdom is a fine companion to The Death of Socialism (1995) and Being Canadian in Dirty Imperialist Times (2000). There are certain issues one and all must face regardless of political persuasion, but the politics of right, left and the centre can and does have an impact on how our lives are lived both within Canada and on the larger international stage. These final three books of poetry thread together both the longing for wisdom and the desire for justice.
There is no doubt that Robin Mathews is the foremost Canadian political poet. Since the death of Milton Acorn in 1986, Mathews sits on the throne as the crown prince of Canadian political poets. We all await the publication of his 11th book of poetry this year. We might want to ask, by way of conclusion, this simple question: why is Bowering rather than Mathews our poet laureate, and why will Mathews, probably, never have the wreath placed upon his head? We might want to further ask this question: how would a conversation unfold between Noam Chomsky and Robin Mathews? Chomsky meets Mathews. American anarchist meets Canadian nationalist. Stay tuned!
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Ron Dart teaches in the department of political science/philosophy/religious studies at University College of the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, BC). He is the author of Robin Mathews: Crown Prince of Canadian Political Poets (2002)
Stumble It!
Again thanks for enlightening me!
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
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Dave Ruston