Showing posts with label MacRae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MacRae. Show all posts

13 April 2022

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 5: 'Sad End of a Noted Politician' by James MacRae


For the month, the fifth of ten poems
find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

To think I once worked to celebrate this horrible man.

I first learned of John J. MacDonald – "James MacRae" – a few months after moving to St Marys, the small Ontario town he adopted as his home. That introduction came through The Four James, William Arthur Deacon's 1927 study of MacRae and fellow poets James McIntyre, James Gay and James D. Gillis.

The four are forever united by that book. Indeed, their very legacies are crafted by that book and its subsequent reissues, the last of which was published forty-eight years ago by Macmillan.

"Canada's Four Worst- And Funniest-Poets."

They're not the four worst, nor are they the four funniest.

It's all too easy to see the Four Jameses as being similar (Paper Lace), when in fact they were actually very different from one another (The Beatles). McIntyre, the most prolific, was the most grounded. Like so much of his verse, 'Ode on the Mammoth Cheese,' his greatest hit, was intended to raise a smile at country fairs. Deacon encourages us to laugh at it, when we should be laughing with it. Gay, a loving and loveable loon who thought himself Tennyson's rival, is the most fun to read. Gillis wasn't so much a poet as a prose writer. He's included for no other reason than to make for a great title.

The differences between these four men is most evident in their respective reactions to the 1880 murder of politician and Globe publisher George Brown.

Unsurprisingly, the tragedy inspired no verse from prose-writer James Gillis. James McIntyre writes of his sorrow in a poem titled 'Departed Statesman.' James Gay expresses great affection for the fallen man with 'The Honourable G. Brown.' James MacRae's 'Sad End of a Noted Politician' is something else entirely.

A different kind of loon than Gay, much of MacRae's poetry is taken up by hate thrown on women, strangers, Protestants, and Liberals. 

'Sad End of a Noted Politician' comes from The Poems and Essays of John J. MacDonald, (Ottawa: Ru-Mi-Lou, 1928), the poet's third and final book.

MacDonald's nom de plume is misspelled on the cover.

SAD END OF A NOTED POLITICIAN

On a cold winter night, cruel death in its might,
Deprives Mr. Brown of his senses;
Now the joys that attend all his honours must end,
And his long night of sorrow commences.

As he hears the decree, he determines to flee
To the gate of the dwelling of glory,
But that gate he finds closed, and his entrance opposed,
Although sad to his party the story.

Thus insultingly used, thus disowned and refused,
He goes on in another direction;
At that medium place, where the Papists have grace,
He asks humbly for rest and protection.

But in vain as before for thgat rest to implore—
He must follow his downward gradation;
With the devil despite he soon meets at the gate,
And there follows this sort of conversation:—
 
     G.B.—Disappointed and grieved, of mu comforts bereaved,
                 And my relatives all at a distance,
                 I have come to request of you leave her to rest,
                 And to ask your paternal assistance.

     DEV.—Oh! my corpulent friend, I your case apprehend,
                 And will grant you coveted pittance;
                 If you tell me the claim that you have on the same
                 You will gain to my dwelling admittance.

     G.B.—It is little you know in these regions below;
                You must think I'm a Papist or Paddy;
                As a Child if you prize the retailer of lies,
                I can certainly claim you for daddy.

     DEV.—You must still keep aloof till you give me some proof
                 On your noble and worthy exertions;
                 For I oft shall mistake if I venture to take
                 Every wandering stranger's assertions.

     G.B.—In my nethermost robes I have brought you some globes,
                You will find them a recommendation;
                     They will prove beyond doubt that I laboured throughout
                 In extending your own dominion.

     DEV.—By the stories they tell now I know you too well,
                 And to have one more prudent would rather,
                 For, exposing my plan by the course which you ran,
                 You have brought disgrace on your father.

                 For to win the applause some men for my cause
                 Some discretion and caution are needed;
                 But, regardless of this, you have acted amiss,
                 And my wise inspirations unheeded.

                 But your failings I feel have resulted from zeal
                 To encourage your partners in evil;
                 So forgetting your sin, you may quietly come in
                 But you must be exceedingly civil.

Related posts:

01 April 2022

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 1: 'Snow in April' by Marjorie Pickthall



I haven't given National Poetry Month the attention it deserves. The first year of the Dusty Bookcase saw  James MacRae, he of William Arthur Deacon's The Four Jameses, recognized. The following April, National Poetry Month was pretty much given over to fellow James, Cheese Poet James McIntyre. The year after that, I produced a chapbook and promoted an evening celebrating the first James – by which I mean MacRae (né John J MacDonald) – in beautiful St Marys, the small Ontario town he'd chosen to call home.


National Poetry Month month has received little recognition since. I aim to make amends by posting verse – one poem every three days – until the cruelest month runs its course. Some I like, some I very much dislike; all are shared for no other reason than I find them amusing, interesting and/or infuriating.

We begin with 'Snow in April' by once-celebrated, now neglected Marjorie Pickthall. It isn't one of her best, but I like it. So, now that April's here, from The Complete Poems of Marjorie Pickthall (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1927):

SNOW IN APRIL
                  Over the boughs that the wind has shaken,
                  Over the sands that are rippled with rain,
                  Over the banks where the buds awaken
                  Cold cloud shadows are spreading again.
                  All the musical world is still,
                  When sharp and sudden, a sparrow calls,
                  And down on the grass where the violets shiver,
                  Through the spruce on the height of the hill,
                  Down on the breadths of the shining river
                  The faint snow falls.
                  Last weak word of a lord that passes—
                  Why should the burgeoning woods be mute?
                  Spring is abroad in the spiring grasses
                  Life is awake in the robin's flute.
                  But high in the spruce a wind is wailing,
                  And the birds in silence arise and go.
                  Is it that winter is still too near
                  For the heart of the world to cast out fear,
                  When over the sky the rack comes sailing
                  And suddenly falls the snow?
Related posts:

01 January 2022

Unpleasant Verse for New Year's Day

THE SCATTERED FAMILY ON NEW YEAR'S DAY

Though mountains and forests and waters divide us,
Where fate and ill-fortune have led us to stray;
Though infidel strangers are living beside us,
Our hearts will together be dwelling to-day.

Aglow with affection, with vivid love burning,
In fancy, dear parents, to you we will flee;
From North, from the West, from above, where no mourning
Embitters the joys of the blest and free.

We hasten, dear parents, our homage to render,
Our hearts as our treasure lay at your feet,
And proofs to convince of our reverence tender,
To beg for your blessings at home's sweet retreat;

To think of the scenes of our innocent childhood,
Where, happy, contented, not dreamed to care,
We roamed through the valleys, the meadows and wildwood,
To view the fair blossoms then flourished there.

'Tis true that our hearts often linger around you,
From morn until evening when bound by sleep' schain,
Then dream of the cords of love to us that bound you,
And sigh to return when it frees them again.

To-day shall they linger more constant than ever,
Around our loved parents, around our loved home;
No thoughts of the world for a moment shall sever
Our hearts from that spot, or from there make them roam.

What prospect to children, to parents more pleasing,
Than that we this union might share!
In filial love be united unceasing,
No matter what fate or our foes may prepare.

'Tis true not on earth, for we'll soon be dismembered:
Shall death in the good love of others destroy
Can bliss then be reining and home unremembered?
Away with such motions of heavenly joy.
from Poems and Essays
John J. MacDonald
Ottawa: Ru-Mi-Lou, 1928

06 December 2019

The Twenty Best Book Buys of 2019



Never has there been a year like this. I visited few used bookstores, ignored library book sales, spent no more than a couple of hours perusing online offerings, and yet somehow came up with the greatest haul of my fifty-something years.

The riches were so many and so great that the pristine copy of Wilson MacDonald's Out of the Wilderness pictured above was overshadowed. Fellow collectors will envy me for owning a scarce, unsigned copy – though it does bear the signature of previous owner Healey Willan. I'm assuming it came from the composer's library. It is now part of mine.

Because this has been such an extraordinary year, my annual ten best buys list has been expanded to twenty. As has been so often the case, I begin with Grant Allen:

An Army Doctor's
   Romance
Grant Allen
London: Raphall Tuck &
   Sons, [1893]

With A Terrible Inheritance, this ranks as one of the very worst Grant Allen books I've ever read. But, oh, isn't it attractive! After winning this copy in an online auction, I came upon a second. I'm offering it to the first person who expresses interest.

The Incidental Bishop
Grant Allen
New York: Appleton, 1898

If the opinion of Allen biographer Peter Morton is anything to go by – and it is – this novel of a young Canadian caught up in the slave trade will disappoint. The Incidental Bishop is longer than An Army Doctor's Romance, and is considerably less attractive, but I won't let that dissuade me from giving it a try.


Heart Songs
Jean Blewett
Toronto: Morag, 1898

The first of the poet's four volumes of verse, this second edition is inscribed. Blewett's verse has featured on this blog many times ( 'Queen Victoria', 'Easter Dawn', 'Thanksgiving Song', 'Thanksgiving Prayer'). This collection promises further riches.

A Strange Manuscript
   Found in a Copper
   Cylinder
James de Mille
New York: Harper &
   Bros, 1888

A "lost civilization" novel read thirty-six years ago in my very first Canadian literature course. Does the fact that I've read nothing more by its author mean anything?

The Wooing of
   Wistaria
Onoto Watanna
   [Winnifred Eaton]
New York: Harper &
   Bros, 1902

Eaton's third novel, penned in the early days of her ill-fated first marriage to Bertand Babcock. Academics suggest that he helped in its composition. They're probably right, which is not to say she wasn't better off without him.

The Heart of Hyacinth
Onoto Watanna
   [Winnifred Eaton]
New York: Harper &
   Bros, 1904

My obsession with the Eatons continues. They were the most remarkable and unusual family in Victorian Montreal. I fear my soul will not rest until someone writes a proper account of their trials and accomplishments.
Waste No Tears
Javis Warwick
   [Hugh Garner]
Toronto: News Stand
   Library, 1949

The Governor General's Award-winning writer's "novel about the Abortion Racket." Five years ago I helped return Waste No Tears to print as part of the Ricochet series, but had ever so much as seen a copy of the scarce News Stand Library edition.


Les songes en équilibre
Anne Hébert
Westmount, QC: Éditions
   de l'arbre, 1942

Anne Hebert's first book, this copy is inscribed by her loving father, poet and literary critic Maurice Hébert:

À mes chers amis Monsieur et Madam Bandwell, ce livre d'une petite canadienne que j'aime beaucoup.


Le temps des hommes
André Langevin
Montreal: Le Cercle du
   livre du France, 1956

Poussière sur la ville and Une Chaîne dans le parc are two of the best novels I've ever read. They're also the only two Langevin novels that are available in translation. I'm looking forward to tackling this one. Signed by the author.

Shackles
Marge Macbeth
New York: Henry
   Waterson, 1927

The fourth novel by the Ottawa writer whose scandalous roman à clef The Land of Afternoon (1927) so entertained five years ago. The main character in this one is a writer!


The Poems and Essays
   of John J. MacDonald
John J. MacDonald
Ottawa: Ru-Mi-Lou,
   1928

Better known as "James MacRae," youngest of the Four Jameses, my interest in this poet began when we moved to St Marys, Ontario, in which he twice lived. I spent more than a decade hunting for a book – any book – by the man. This year, I found one.

Beast in View
Margaret Millar
London: Gollancz, 1955

The first UK edition of the novel for which Millar won the 1956 Edgar Award. James Bridges' 1964 television adaptation is recommended; Robert Glass's 1986 perversion is not.

Queen Kong
James Moffat [James Moffatt]
London: Everest, 1977

A novelization of a movie I've found unwatchable. This was yet another money job from a man better remembered as the celebrated skinhead novelist "Richard Allen". Featuring eight glossy pages of stills!

Flora Lyndsay; Or,
   Passages in an Eventful
   Life
Mrs. Moodie
New York: De Witt &
   Davenport, [1854]

Now seems a good time to confess that I've never read one of Mrs Moodie's novels. On the other had, I've read two or three essays on Flora Lyndsay. The novel features in my first book, Character Parts, as a result.

The Three Marys
Frederick Niven
London: Collins: 1935

Forgotten Frederick Niven's twenty-first novel (I think). For the reason laid out here, chances are I'll never read this tragic story of an acclaimed portrait painter and his three lady loves. The book makes the list because I like the way it looks and remember the thrill of uncovering it in a dank antique store in rural Ontario .

Wacousta; or, The
   Prophesy
John Richardson
Montreal: John Lovell,
   1868

The fourth and earliest edition I own. Will 2020 be the year I finally read this novel of the War of 1812?

Probably not.

Hardscrabble; or, The
   Fall of Chicago
Major Richardson
New York: Pollard &
   Moss, 1888

A later edition of John Richardson's 1850 novel of the Siege of Fort Dearborn during the War of 1812. Though popular in its day – and for years thereafter – the work didn't save Richardson from death through malnutrition.


By a Way She Knew Not
Margaret M. Robertson
London: Hodder &
   Stoughton, 1883

The penultimate novel by the woman who gave us Christie Redfern's Troubles, the teariest work in all of Canadian literature. Robertson scholar Lorraine McMullen considers By a Way She Knew Not the author's very best novel. I'm betting she's right.

A Romance of Toronto
Mrs. Annie G. Savigny
Toronto: William Briggs,
   1888

A Victorian novel "FOUNDED ON FACT" by a woman whose previous books include An Allegory on Gossip.

How could I resist!

Hamilton and Other Poems
William A. Stephens
Toronto: Rogers &
   Thompson, 1840

Included here because it is now the oldest book of Canadian verse I own. In Anxious Allegiances: Legitimizing Identity in the Early Canadian Long Poem (McGill-Queen's, 1997), Dr C.D. Mazoff dismisses the "Hamilton" as "rather poorly written." Here's hoping he's wrong.



The Days of Their Youth
Alan Sullivan
New York: Century,
   1928

One of several Sullivans purchased that had once been part of the man's personal library. This novel is particularly interesting in that it has a pencilled notation by the author. Some unknown hand went after it with an eraser, but I bet I can discover what it says.


Related posts:

30 April 2015

The Murder of George Brown: He Died with Grit



I could not let National Poetry Month pass without presenting verse by James Gay, Poet Laureate of Canada (self-proclaimed) and Master of All Poets (self-proclaimed, I guess). One of his longer poems, this concerns the tragic death of George Brown.

Not much attention is paid Brown these days, but he once held great sway as unofficial leader of the federal  Liberal Party and editor of the Toronto Globe. Such was his stature that three of the Four Jameses wrote verse about the man. James MacRae, who lived and died in a house not a five minute walk from mine, believed Liberals to be in league with Satan.

It would be inappropriate to quote his verse here.

The Ingersoll James – James McIntyre – wasn't so partisan. His 1884 poem 'Departed Statesman" features these lines:
George Brown, thou man of renown,
Confederation you did crown;
You now are all free from the strife
The wrangle and jangle of political life.
Though I've seen it described as such, Brown's death was not a political assassination. What happened was this: On 25 March 1880, George Bennett, a drunk and disgruntled former employee, walked into the Globe offices demanding a certificate recognizing past service. Brown, who did not know his visitor, suggested he see the foreman. Bennett pulled out a gun. One presumes he meant to shoot his former employer in the chest or head, but Brown pushed down his assailant's arm. The bullet entered the editor's right thigh.

Look up, way up, to the dramatic illustration at the top of this post. Between Bennet's feet you'll see that artist Henri Julien has titled his work "Attempted assassination of George Brown, Toronto". The engraving was published in the 10 April 1880 edition of the Canadian Illustrated News, a little over two weeks after the incident. At the time, Brown was reported to be recovering nicely.

He wasn't. Gangrene set in. One hundred and thirty-five years ago this week he was struggling for life.

Sadly, Brown ended up another victim of those long-drawn-out nineteenth-century assassinations. American readers will remember that President James Garfield hung on for nearly twelve weeks after he was shot.

Brown managed only eight.

I've made you wait enough.

Here it is, our Poet Laureate's tribute:

ON THE HONOURABLE G. BROWN
Poor George Brown is gone at last,
O'er his wound could not surpass;
His politics we don't mind a bit,
Knowing well he died with grit.
Politics with man are no disgrace,
When kept in their proper place;
The best politics ever man possessed
Are truth, honesty, and his mind at rest.
A party man may act civil;
He cannot please God and the devil.
In this poem you may well understand,
No happiness for a party man;
If he wants to enjoy a happy mind.
He must live in peace with all mankind.
I give it to all in my straightforward way—
As the motto of your poet, James Gay.
When on this earth George done his best,
I hope he now has found his rest.
No more wrangle and jangle of political life.

"The Late Hon. George Brown"
James L. Weston
Canadian Illustrated News, 15 May 1880

17 April 2012

Mean Mister MacDonald Attacks a Prime Minister



Day seventeen of National Poetry Month and there's been nary a mention here. Today, the 120th anniversary of the passing of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, will be different. He's remembered as a humble man who took pride in his working class origins, though you'd never know it from this verse by J. J. MacDonald, the "James MacRae" of The Four Jameses.

I'm not so unfair as the poet in describing the verse below as bad. The misspelling of Mackenzie's name is minor; sin comes with the claim that in 1875 the politician travelled overseas with the sole goal of obtaining a knighthood. In fact. Mackenzie thrice declined the honour.

The poet pretends otherwise, adopting the prime minister's voice in addressing "dear generous Brown" – George Brown – whom Mackenzie had succeeded as leader of the Liberal Party (and who had also declined the title):
A. McKENZIE AT QUEBEC IN HIS RETURN FROM GREAT BRITAIN IN 1875, WHICH IT WAS SAID HE VISITED IN ORDER TO GET THE TITLE OF “SIR” 
My sight you would pity, dear generous Brown,
On nearing a city or reaching a town;
For charity hide me from scornful disgrace,
Or crows will deride me and laugh in my face. 
They know when we parted I travelled for fame;
To find as I started my title’s the same,
To party relations returning, I swear
Is more than my patience is able to bear. 
How gladly I’d wander, how swiftly I’d stride
Where back streams meander, and wild beasts abide!
The Ottawa Valley unseen would I roam,
To reach and to rally my dear friends at home! 
In rural seclusion to live as before,
I find ’tis delusion to seek any more;
My standing much lower than ever I see;
The honors of power are useless to me. 
To want them’s unpleasant, to have them no gain;
They prove evanescent, delusive and vain;
They give us more trouble than ease or delight,
And, fleet as a bubble, they’re out of our sight. 
An humble mechanic, oh! did I remain,
And titles Britannic not seek to obtain,
And prosper as Alick with friends as before,
When fables in Gaelic alone was my lore. 
My curses with Britain forever abide–
Her children have smitten by glory and pride.
Though aristocratic, I think they are fools,
They speak so dogmatic on etiquette rules. 
When my predecessor went over before,
They thought no aggressor invaded their shore;
Their nobles held meetings to honor him there,
Nor jovial greetings to him did they spare. 
Though fate made me humble, yet chance made me great,
No mortal should grumble at doings of fate;
Through folly and error from greatness I fell,
My anguish and terror no creature can tell. 
"A. McKenzie at Quebec..." joins the similarly mean-spirited "A. McKenzie's Reflections While About to Address His Constituents at Sarnia in 1875" in leading off the poet's self-published debut, Poems Written by J.J. MacDonald, a Native of Glengarry, Ont. (c. 1877). It precedes further attacks on an unnamed Grit politician, drinkers, bachelors, Protestant converts, Charles ChiniquyMaria Monk, one Miss A— and pretty much anyone who was not an immediate member of the poet's family.

"In submitting the following poems to your judgment, the author does so in a truly Christian spirit", MacDonald writes in presenting his verse.

Were he alive, I'd call him out on this.

27 June 2011

Words of Hate for Maria Monk



Maria Monk was born 195 years ago today in Dorchester, Lower Canada (now Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec). The "Awful Disclosures" published under her name were just one awful part of an awful life that ended tragically in a New York City prison thirty-two years later. Neither the date of her death, nor her place of burial were recorded, but this didn't stop poet John J. MacDonald (a/k/a James MacRae) from putting poison pen to paper. From his self-published Poems of J. J. MacDonald, a Native of County Glengarry (c. 1877):
EPITAPH FOR MARIA MONK

Whoever ye are by this tomb that shall go,
Beware lest ye tread on the filth that’s below,
For under this monument lowly are laid
The mortal remains of a comical jade.

Ye swine that by accident hither come round,
Refrain from disturbing or turning the ground,
Or else you will die from inhaling the air;
Ye feathering songsters, be cautious, take care.

The only exception 'tis proper to make:
That Methodist preachers full freedom may take,
For they loved and accompanied her while she lived,
And from them she special attention received.
In actuality, it wasn't "Methodist preachers", but Presbyterian clergymen who used poor Maria in creating the hoax. There is a difference.


An early, hand-tinted photograph of St Marys, Ontario showing MacDonald's church, Holy Name of Mary (right) and one of the town's two Presbyterian churches (left).

Related posts:

01 April 2011

A Local Poet is Recognized



And so another National Poetry Month begins. In little St Marys we'll be kicking things off with James MacRae Poetry Night, a free event at Stewart Books, the town's lone bookstore. An historic evening, it will feature what is likely be the first public reading of the man's verse. The Friends of the St Marys Public Library will be raising funds through the sale of this 24-page chapbook. It's cheap at $5 – and with a numbered print-run of only 40 copies, is sure to be sought-after by future generations.

More MacRae (né MacDonald) to whet the appetite:
Written in the House of a Quarrelsome Wife and Drunken Husband

Oh! What pleasure it would be
To reach the gates of hell
For those who in a place like this
For many years must dwell.

Good angels, if ye ever weep,
Here drop one pitying tear;
But, demons, dare not tread this place,
If woman’s rage ye fear.


24 March 2011

A Prudish Poet's Struggles with Stays



Two poems about ladies' vanity published by John J. MacDonald as a 28-year-old (or so), teetotalling bachelor. He married a couple of years later, but was a supporter of temperance to the end of his days.

Of all MacDonald's verse, the first is my favourite... the second is sure to offend.
The Ultra-fashionable Maids

Those Maids we see, who look so free,
Whom every day we spy;
Whose mien and gate their thoughts relate,
As they go limping by;
Whose crimson cheek, the looks so meek
Would fain defects supply;
Whose frizzled hair, and features fair
Oft charm the human eye;
Are seeming so because on show
Our kind too much rely.

Would they appear to us so dear
Or kindle passion’s flame,
If we knew, and kept in view,
From whence these beauties came-
That human art the greater part
Invented of the same;
That they receive from Mother Eve,
Of what adorns their frame,
But what we know tends more to show
They should not feel but shame.

How oft thus lay the secret way
In which the game is played:-
A shapeless mass, by name a lass,
Is artfully arrayed,
I neatly bound with metal round
And trimmings wisely made,
And padded o’er with worthless store
To cover unbetrayed
The sad defects, which one detects
When nature is displayed.

With tender care they leave quite bare
What parts are fit to face,
Or please the eyes of youths they prize,
No matter what their place.
They daub with paint what they make faint
With binding cord and lace;
And why, forsooth? We know, in truth,
To win the life embrace
Of some they know will not be slow
Through this their will to trace.

And on the skull, already dull
With low and grovelling care,
(By oil and paint, without restraint,
Of nature’s dress stript bare)
Is placed all round a shapeless mound
Of manufactured hair,
Which does not tend to fragrance lend,
Where polypi prepare,
For future breeds to hide their deeds,
A comfortable lair.

The Globe and Mail, 15 December 1877

For Miss A—

Her slender waist so tightly laced,
It makes her face look black;
Her cheeks so pale with efforts frail
To keep life’s current back;
For this, thinks she, makes lovers see
The charms her features lack.

Her’s answers just the Hindoo bust
Or Negroe’s ruder form;
Her features glow with sudden woe
And anger’s bitter storm;
She labours so to gain a beau,
Some chilly heart to warm.
Related posts:

23 March 2011

Poet Names Newspaper Editor as Lucifer's Heir

The New York Times, 28 March 1875
John J. MacDonald's hate for Charles Chiniquy spreads. Here the target is John Dougall, whose paper the bigoted Montreal Witness, published the the former Catholic priest's lectures.
For the Editor of the 'Montreal Witness' Let unscrupulous liars here gather and weep For the child of the devil who here is asleep; And if justice will govern when Lucifer dies, He’ll inherit the title of “father of lies.” But such honor might more than his deeds recompense, For although he was willing he had not the sense That would carry his purpose to such an extent; He could only retail what the rest would invent.
Related posts:

21 March 2011

A Mildly Eccentric Man Turns Nasty



Much of this past weekend was spent working on a limited edition chapbook of verse by John J. MacDonald – a modest fundraiser for the St Marys Public Library. MacDonald, better known as James MacRae, one of William Arthur Deacon's unfortunate 'Four Jameses', was a patron. Indeed, Deacon tells us that MacDonald "spent a pleasant old age" in the library, where he poured over "books on controversial subjects like political economy and religion."


In the three years I've lived in this little town, I've done a bit of digging into MacDonald's life, but until last week knew nothing of his verse beyond the few scattered snippets Deacon had chosen to reproduce in The Four Jameses. MacDonald's writing – all self-published – is not exactly easy to find. Poems of J. J. MacDonald, a Native of County Glengarry, the c. 1877 volume from which the chapbook is drawn, has almost vanished. Held by a handful of academic universities, it's much more common in microfiche – which is to say that it isn't common at all.

The exposure to MacDonald's writing has been something of an eye-opener. Nothing in Deacon prepared me for the quantity of venom in MacDonald's verse. Drops are found throughout, even in otherwise innocent and inoffensive poems like "The Scattered Family", a sentimental thing about home, hearth, and momma and papa:

We left our sweet home distant climates to range,
To meet there with nothing but infidels strange,
Who know not our feelings, who know not our hearts;
Such is often the fate who from parents departs.

We left all the pleasures of birthplace and home,
To wander about, for a living to roam,
Cast on the wide world – so unfriendly, so cold
Where honor and virtue mean riches and gold.

How bitter is life, full of sorrow and woe,
When children from father and mother must go!
When brothers must part from the sisterly smile,
To live with the stranger, the wretched and vile.

Now, is that any way to talk about one's neighbours?

MacDonald lived amongst the wretched and vile of St Marys and its environs for over sixty of his nearly eighty-eight years. "Among the townspeople he was reported to be mildly eccentric," writes Deacon, "which probably means nothing more than a strongly marked personality intensified by a touch of the artistic temperament, without which no poet is properly equipped... I like to picture him as he has been described to me – sitting in the Library, lost in a book, and, as the theme grippd him, conducting audibly an animated debate with himself, and finally becoming quite excited as the argument progressed."

What better to argue over than politics, especially when religion, hellfire and damnation are added to the mix:

Epitaph for a Grit Politician

As your victim with Government money has got away,
We Canadians, Satan, would thank you sincerely
If you kindly consent to return to Ottawa,
When you come for the next of the clique you love so dearly.

There's plenty of hate in this poetry, most of which is inflicted upon Charles Chiniquy. The protestant convert and conspiracy theory kook is the focus of "Father Chiniquy’s Prayer", "Lines Written on a Bill Announcing One of Chiniquy’s Lectures" and this poem, in which he imagines the man's death:

For Chiniquy

Here lies the priest who changed his creed
To get what custom calls a wife,
But solemn vows most strongly plead,
He never led a married life.

St. Peter, if your dome he seek,
Refuse to open heaven’s door,
For he would scarcely stay a week,
When for a wife he’d hell explore.

Dear reader, please in mind to bear,
That in the realms of bliss above,
There is no wife permitted there
To Man, however strong his love.


The former Father was a healthy sexagenarian when MacDonald published these poems – he would live for a further two decades. Although Chiniquy isn't mentioned by name, it is clear that he is also the subject of this final fantasy:

For a Fallen Priest

Ye passers by here pause to mourn
Around this melancholy urn,
Where loathsome maggots careless feast
Upon the poor degraded priest.

No more the hungry passions rave;
The appetites no longer crave
Their usual supply of ill,
And all around is solemn still.

The soul – that slave of fear and dread,
Of shame, remorse, and pride – is fled.
Oh! Poor, immortal soul, couldst thou
Reveal what’s thy religion now.

For some time now I've been pushing for recognition of MacDonald in this, my adopted hometown, all the while describing him just as Deacon does: a mildly eccentric man. Now I'm beginning to wonder... is it really so strange that his books aren't found on the shelves of the library in which he "spent a pleasant old age"?

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04 April 2009

The St Marys James


John James MacDonald (a.k.a. James MacRae)

A bit of research at the St Marys Museum answers a few questions raised by The Four Jameses, including the source of John James MacDonald's nom de plume (his mother's maiden name). For 42 years, a period covered by the span between his first and second books, he farmed in the Township of Downie, close to St Marys. The poet died on 23 June 1937, just short of his 88th birthday. This sad news was reported the following day on the front page of the St Marys Journal-Argus, under the headlines:

JOHN J. MACDONALD
PASSES TO REWARD
AGED CITIZEN HAD SCHOLARLY
MIND AND CONTRIBUTED TO
CURRENT LITERATURE —
WAS NATIVE OF GLENGARRY

MacDonald is buried in the St Marys Cemetery, sharing a plot with his wife and a daughter.

01 April 2009

Local Poet!

The Four Jameses
William Arthur Deacon
Toronto: Macmillan, 1974
A bit of a risk acknowledging National Poetry Month on a day when people are looking-out for hoaxes and practical jokes. I double the hazard by focusing on this book, with its lousy cover and cheap sales pitch. The whole thing looks a bit fake - but, as George Fetherling (then Doug) notes, Deacon's book is 'that rare thing in Canadian literature: an underground classic.' As is often the fate of titles that fall into this category, The Four Jameses has had an unusual history. First issued as a hardcover in 1927, its publisher, Graphic, was felled by the Depression. After a period in limbo, unbound sheets were bought and issued in paper wraps. In 1953, Ryerson published a revised edition, which was followed, a little over two decades later, by this Macmillan paperback. With one publisher done in by hard times, and the others victims of manifest destiny, you'd almost think that The Four Jameses was cursed. Still, I keep it on my shelves.
Deacon's book centres on James Gay, James McIntyre, James D. Gillis and James MacRae, four poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are, as Fetherling points out, united by Christian name, nationality and sheer lack of talent. That said, I'm quick to express my doubts that they are 'Canada's Four Worst - And Funniest - Poets', as claimed on the cover. True, their work can raise a smile or two, but I've read much worse.
Of the four, I prefer James MacRae (né John James MacDonald), who published his first book of verse, Poems written by J. J. MacDonald, a Native of Glengarry, in or about 1877. Deacon is good enough to provide several lines from this extremely rare book, including:
How oft thus lay the secret way
In which the game is played:-
A shapely mass, by name a lass,
Is artfully arrayed.
Is neatly bound with metal round
And trimmings wisely made,
And padded o'er with worthless store
To cover unbetrayed
The sad defects, which one detects
When nature is displayed.
Forty-six years elapsed between the poet's debut and his second book, An Ideal Courtship. Published in 1923 under the nom de plume James MacRae, it is described by Deacon as the poet's magnum opus. An Ideal Courtship is a long narrative poem telling of the company kept between Mary Campbell, formed by her parents as a chaste 'model for the public to admire', and William Chisholm, a stick-in-the-mud farmer from the Maritimes. There doesn't appear to be much amour or ardor in this poem. In MacRae's world, an ideal courtship ends not at the altar, but the grave:
Mary suddenly took sick, and human skill could find no relief
Render her in her distress, which made the tragic struggle brief.
But, wait, a few days later the grief-stricken William is found dead, lying on his fiancée's grave:
Though so often disappointed by events beyond their power.
They were finally reunited at their own appointed hour.
But so well their lives were ended, and so holy was their love,
We may hope that they were married at the altar steps above.
MacRae didn't let another 46 years pass before publishing his next book. A septuagenarian, how could he? His Poems and Essays was published in 1930.
Sadly, The Four Jameses provides little biographical information about MacRae. Deacon tells us that the poet was born in 1849 in what was then Alexandria, roughly 40 kilometres north of Cornwall, Ontario. In 1875 he arrived in St Marys, Ontario, and was living in the town when his first volume was published. It seems MacRae stayed in St Marys for about a decade, before settling out to farm in parts unknown. According to Deacon, in 1918 the poet returned to St Marys, 'where he spent a pleasant old age, and where the Public Library was an unfailing source of enjoyment... Among the townspeople he was reported to be mildly eccentric, which probably means nothing more than a strongly marked personality intensified by a touch of the artistic temperament, without which no poet is properly equipped.'
Here I admit that my preference for MacRae is influenced by my move to this pretty little town last year. I, too, have found the library to be an 'unfailing source of enjoyment' - though, I regret to report, it contains not a single volume of MacRae's verse. Nor does it have a copy of The Four Jameses.
St Marys Public Library
Object: We all live on a yellow hunk of cheese... I can't imagine how many people were turned away by the cover. Fairly typical of Macmillan's paperbacks, at 35 it's holding up quite well.
Access: The Four Jameses is readily available in our larger public libraries, most often in the Macmillan edition. The Graphic Publishers first is by far the most attractive, and includes illustrations and photos not found in the others. Nice copies of the cloth and paper editions can be found for under C$30. The Ryerson edition, the least desirable, can be had for C$20. Macmillan's 1974 edition benefits from Fetherling's informative Introduction. Curiously, it's the least common of the three - only two copies are currently listed online: one going for US$11, the other at US$59.85 (on offer from an optimistic bookseller in Little Elm, Texas).