โIt is remarkable that St. Maur has been able to use English to express an alien form so well; a truly impressive achievementโ
Dr Earle Waugh Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies University of Alberta
โ…manifests his scholarship, his cultivated sense of voice and impeccable use of languageโ
Dr E.D. Blodgett Literary Editor
From the introduction:
The human heroes and heroines of antiquity were all influenced by, guided by and even dominated by, their visions. It was their visions that distinguished them from other members of the society into which they were born. Perhaps as a child they were disturbed by inexplicable dreams heralding later crises; or perhaps the dreams were actually caused by a childhood in which they suffered various misfortunes: exclusion, ridicule, neglect, etc. Perhaps in youth or adulthood they came to realize that their visions were an intrinsic part of their makeup and earnestly sought to plumb their meaning or embrace their instruction. But, ultimately, it was their visions that determined their behaviour, dictated their actions and defined their mission and purpose if not the very essence of their being.
The hero and the heroine have been with us since the dawn of time: history is replete with them; they people an immense store of legends; and they are such stuff as myths are made of. The three poems offered here are only three examples of a thousand journeys each of which pivots on a seminal vision that miraculously transformed a seemingly undistinguished, and often downtrodden, individual into a superhuman capable of achievements beyond the ability and ken of ordinary mortals. The stories say as much about petty humanity as about our ability to transcend it; as much about destruction as creation; as much about the beast within as about the saint; above all, they remind us how courage fired by vision may convert fear into fortune, even terror into triumph.
Each poem has an historical dimension; some historical facts are known and the prevailing beliefs are well established. But if the poems are taken simply as narratives they will have failed. They are intended to be journeys that transcend time, reaching instead into a psychological realm where time is suspended: journeys, if you will, at the edge of time. Many of the events in these clearly human stories are, of course, set in real time but the crucial events, the visions in particular, are placed beyond.
The English language tradition is not particularly well suited to probing beyond the simple divisions of past, present and future but we may borrow from other traditions, notably the Japanese, in exploring and expressing the visionary state of mind. We may, for example, juxtapose the present in various ways against the past: the past in itself, as origin; as memory and phylogeny; or as the figure of a repeating cycle. And we may focus on the present in various ways: as a state of flux; as the moment heightened in itself; or as the moment transcended. Possibilities such as these are necessary if we are to do justice to the state of mind and the circumstances of the hero.
In the literature of history, legend and myth there are as many heroines as there are heroes. I have chosen three particular male figures partly because they provide a variety of experiences and circumstances that combine well to illustrate the range of heroic behaviour and its consequences, and partly because they serve a secondary purpose, namely to illustrate that much of the conflict between Europeans and Aboriginals in contemporary society dissolves in the light of our ancestors who, tribal though they may have been, reveal a sense of wisdom that is not widespread today. Whether in courage or humility, their lesson in personal sacrifice for societal benefit is timeless.
The first poem, Scabby Robe, is set in Alberta at the end of the 17th Century before European influence had reached the vast territory between the Red Deer and Bow rivers. These were the โdog daysโ when neither the horse nor the rifle were known to the Blackfoot and surrounding tribes. Based on Dempseyโs narrative1, this is a classic shamanistic tale in which the shunned hero undergoes the visionary discovery of himself and his familiar, the beaver; thus strengthened, he rescues his tribe from certain defeat and emerges as a great natural leader. The story is told by his blood brother and confidant Double Runner. It is written as a chronological recollection using an experimental heptasyllabic line which has the effect of roughening the loosely iambic metre of English.
The second poem is also about an historical figure, Cadmon, who lived during the 7th Century in Northumbria, now northeastern England. It too is told in retrospect, in this instance by a young monk attending Cadmon during his final days; the poem re-creates Cadmonโs description of his own life in episodic form. Based on the text of Bede2, it is set in a time when the Arthurian legends were recent history, when the recently arrived Anglo-Saxons stood between the Celts and the North Sea, caught between the spiritual forces of paganism and Christianity. Cadmonโs vision was a religious one expressed in a poetic description now known as Cadmonโs Hymn, of ten considered to be the beginning of English poetry. I have tried to re-create the alliterative, split line and thus provide the contemporary reader with a sense of the rhythm in use during those turbulent times.
The third poem, Angakoq, differs substantially from the first two because it is told in the first person by the angakoq, or shaman, himself. This viewpoint still permits, indeed requires, recollection but radically alters the relation between the speaker and the reader. It is as though the reader is eavesdropping on the angakoq and is thus pulled into a more subjective, participatory role, much as he would be if privileged to hear the shaman divulge ancient secrets face to face. Based on the observations of Rasmussen, the poem is rooted in Inuit mythology and uses free verse in an eclectic structure.
