National Poetry Month Bookend

The end of National Poetry Month. Can't say it was much different from March – at least not here in little Saint Marys. I close with this photo, taken yesterday, of 92 Wellington Street North. This Victorian Italianate, eight short blocks from the home of James MacRae, is the birthplace and childhood home of David Donnell, whose Settlements received the 1983 Governor General's Award for Poetry.

Cardinal Villeneuve's Folly

Les Demi-civilisés

Jean-Charles Harvey

Montreal: Éditions du Totem, 1934

Seventy-five years ago today Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec, had Les Demi-civilisés placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, thus ensuring that there will always be those who make a special effort to track it down. Not always an easy thing to do. While Cardinal Villeneuve's condemnation most assuredly helped spur sales – the 3000 copy print run sold out in a matter of weeks – it also meant that the novel, Harvey's second, remained out of print until 1962, when a revised edition was published.

In his 'CONDEMNATION DU ROMAN "LES-DEMI-CIVILISES"', the Cardinal cites article 1399, 3°, of the Code of Canon Law, which calls for the banning of works that 'purposely attack religion or good morals'. In fact, both are left unscathed; the reader finishes the novel with virtue intact. Harvey doesn't attack religion, but the Church. His demi-civilisés are not the uneducated, but their repressors: an alliance of clergy, politicians and businessmen.

The Globe and Mail, 30 April 1938

A pariah to some, a hero to others, Harvey did maintain a certain profile, and was sought out as a speaker. Pierre Chalout of Le Droit called him the 'grand-père de la révolution tranquille', yet during the final years of his life Harvey fell out of favour with a thud. His promotion of bilingualism and defence of federalism, as articulated in Pourquoi je suis anti-séparatiste (1962), alienated a great many Quebec intellectuals. Thirty-two years after his death, Quebec City has no rue Harvey, nor does Montreal. All but one of his books is out of print.

Les Demi-civilisés is one of a very small number of Canadian novels to have received two English language translations. The first, by Lukin Barette, is saddled with the rather unfortunate title Sackcloth for Banner (Toronto: Macmillan, 1938). As if that weren't bad enough, it may well be the worst translation yet made of a Canadian novel. Barette omits passages, changes names, invents dialogue and commits what amounts to a rewrite of the final two chapters. All is set right with Fear's Folly, John Glassco's 1980 translation, published two years later by Carleton University Press.

Object and Access: Sadly, predictably, all but absent from our public libraries. A decent copy of the first edition is currently listed online at US$30.00. An incredible bargain. English-language editions aren't dear. As Sackcloth for Banner, it goes for between C$60 and C$135. Fear's Folly is usually on offer for about C$15.

Drapeau, Destruction and a Blue Plaque Candidate

I do not like you Jean Drapeau,

And well I know the reason why;

Your concentration on the cash

(That peasant passion)

Shows always in the lipless grin

Under the little merciless moustache,

Revealing what ideas swim within

The circle of your skull

To make our city — in the modern fashion —

Not beautiful

But only big, and rich, and dull.

— John Glassco, Montreal, 1973

A sequel, of sorts, to yesterday's post. On my recent trip to Montreal I took several photos of things Glassco. The poet had a complicated relationship with the city of his birth. At eighteen, he saw it as a place of provincialism. Glassco famously fled for Paris, where he enjoyed and endured Montparnassian adventures and was very nearly felled by tuberculosis. Yet, this same Montreal – the Royal Victoria Hospital, to be precise – held the knowledge and ability that saved his life. After his recovery, Glassco again escaped the city, settled in the Eastern Townships, and lived for decades as a semi-recluse. It was only in his last two decades that he truly returned. Many of his final years were spent on an unpublished novel, Guilt and Mourning, set in a fantastic Montreal that has been spared the destruction of the 20th century.

Above is the westernmost entrance to the Guy-Concordia Metro, located at the northwest corner of St-Mathieu and de Maisonneuve. In 1909, it was the site of a grand house in which the poet was born. This stretch of de Maisonneuve was then known as St-Luc – hence, 'Jean de Saint-Luc', the pseudonym he claimed to have used for Contes en crinoline, his non-existent first book. St-Luc was made part of de Maisonneuve in the 1950s (following modifications to the intersection at Guy).

Simpson Street's Chelsea Place, looking towards Sherbrooke. A large gathering of Neo-Georgian homes with pleasant courtyard, it rests on the foundation and grounds of Edward Rawlings' mansion. Rawlings, the founder of the Guarantee Company of North America, was Glassco's grandfather. The poet often claimed the mansion as his birthplace – not true, though he did live there for several years as a boy. In 1925, it was sold and razed; the gardens were plowed over and its peach orchard was destroyed. All that remains is a lone chestnut tree (to the left of the passing PT Cruiser).

3663 Jeanne-Mance (right door, two uppermost floors), Glassco's final Montreal address. He shared this flat with his second wife, Marion McCormick, for nearly ten years. On 29 January 1981, the poet died in a small room on the top storey.

Blue Plaque Special

The launch of Project Bookmark Canada today, an initiative that brings to mind a recurring question: Where are our blue plaques? Even the most dozy and inattentive visitor to Greater London is familiar with these simple, yet elegant fixtures. They number over eight hundred, marking historic sites and former residences of great figures like Jimi Hendrix and George Frideric Handel — next-door neighbours separated by 208 years. A personal favourite is located at 24 Onslow Gardens, once home to Andrew Bonar Law of Rexton, New Brunswick, the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles. The success of the 142-year-old scheme is such that there are tourist guides devoted not to Greater London, but to its plaques. Next week will see a new coffee table book, Lived in London: Blue Plaques and the Stories Behind Them, published by Yale University Press.

Despite all good intentions, and a great deal of effort, we have nothing that compares in this country. I imagine developers don't much like the idea. They've had a hard enough time ripping down venues like Montreal's Seville Theatre without a fixed reminder that Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee performed on its stage.

And so, I choose to blame developers and indifferent city councillors for this embarrassing admission. Early in my work on John Glassco, I enjoyed a pint at a Bishop Street pub, entirely unaware that the very space in which I was sitting had once served as his pied-à-terre.

Update: Expat writer Mark Reynolds, who posted the interesting comment below, shares further thoughts on the matters of historical markers and the naming of our streets and schools on his blog View of the marching fishes.