The Art of Poetry According to F.R. Scott
This entry is unrelated to this week's topic, the elegy; however, I came upon a poem in my Anthology of Canadian Literature and felt the need to share.
First, I would like to present this short biography of the author F.R. (Francis Reginald) Scott (1899-1985) courtesy of http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/scott_fr/bio.htm. I think knowing something about Scott's backgroud will allow you to understand and appreciate the poem more than if you knew nothing of his history.
"Scott is one of the most important catalysts of modern Canadian poetry, partly because of the influence of his own poetry and partly through his personality and his association with several literary groups and 'little magazines'. As a satirist in the late twenties and early thirties, he helped battle an outworn Canadian Romanticism in order to introduce the 'new poetry'; and in landscape poems such as 'Old song', 'Lakeshore', and 'Laurentian Shield' he established a northern evolutionary view of Canadian nature that later influenced such poets as Al Purdy and Margaret Atwood. While achieving distinction as a poet, political activist, and leading authority on constitutional law, Scott also became a figure of extraordinary importance as a commentator on both Canadian society and Canadian literature. All these activities found expression in his poetry, and all stemmed from the nationalistic concerns of Canadian intellectuals in the twenties."
[Taken from the entry by Sandra Dwja in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Second edition. Eds. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997. Reprinted with permission of the editor.]
"Poetry", written in 1954 by F.R. Scott deals with both the art and power of poetry. It is also a social comment on Canadian society and politics. The topics Scott deals with in this poem still apply today, it seems not much has changed in Canada in the last 50 years. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do.
Poetry
Nothing can take its place. If I write 'ostrich'
Those who have never seen the bird see it
With its head in the san dand its plumes fluffed with the wind
Like Mackenzie King talking on the Freedom of Trade.
And if I write 'holocaust', and 'nightingales',
I startle the insurance agens and the virgins
Who belong, by this alchemy, in the same category,
Since both are very worried abou their premiums.
A rose and a rose are two roses; a rose is a rose is a rose.
Sometimes I have walked down a street marked No Outlet
Only to find that what was blocking my path
Was a railroad track roaring away to the west.
So I know it will survive. Not even the decline of reading
And the substitution of advertising for genuine pornography
Can crush the uprush of the mushrooming verb
Or drown the overtone of the noun on its own.
(Scott, F.R. A New Anthology of Canadian Literature in English . Ed. Donna Bennett and Russell Brown. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 340-341)
Janice
First, I would like to present this short biography of the author F.R. (Francis Reginald) Scott (1899-1985) courtesy of http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/scott_fr/bio.htm. I think knowing something about Scott's backgroud will allow you to understand and appreciate the poem more than if you knew nothing of his history.
"Scott is one of the most important catalysts of modern Canadian poetry, partly because of the influence of his own poetry and partly through his personality and his association with several literary groups and 'little magazines'. As a satirist in the late twenties and early thirties, he helped battle an outworn Canadian Romanticism in order to introduce the 'new poetry'; and in landscape poems such as 'Old song', 'Lakeshore', and 'Laurentian Shield' he established a northern evolutionary view of Canadian nature that later influenced such poets as Al Purdy and Margaret Atwood. While achieving distinction as a poet, political activist, and leading authority on constitutional law, Scott also became a figure of extraordinary importance as a commentator on both Canadian society and Canadian literature. All these activities found expression in his poetry, and all stemmed from the nationalistic concerns of Canadian intellectuals in the twenties."
[Taken from the entry by Sandra Dwja in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Second edition. Eds. Eugene Benson and William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997. Reprinted with permission of the editor.]
"Poetry", written in 1954 by F.R. Scott deals with both the art and power of poetry. It is also a social comment on Canadian society and politics. The topics Scott deals with in this poem still apply today, it seems not much has changed in Canada in the last 50 years. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do.
Poetry
Nothing can take its place. If I write 'ostrich'
Those who have never seen the bird see it
With its head in the san dand its plumes fluffed with the wind
Like Mackenzie King talking on the Freedom of Trade.
And if I write 'holocaust', and 'nightingales',
I startle the insurance agens and the virgins
Who belong, by this alchemy, in the same category,
Since both are very worried abou their premiums.
A rose and a rose are two roses; a rose is a rose is a rose.
Sometimes I have walked down a street marked No Outlet
Only to find that what was blocking my path
Was a railroad track roaring away to the west.
So I know it will survive. Not even the decline of reading
And the substitution of advertising for genuine pornography
Can crush the uprush of the mushrooming verb
Or drown the overtone of the noun on its own.
(Scott, F.R. A New Anthology of Canadian Literature in English . Ed. Donna Bennett and Russell Brown. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. 340-341)
Janice