Category: Dorothy Livesay

I’ll have to admit I’m always hesitant to read personal history into a poem, even though it’s clear some “confessional poets� intend their poems to be a record of their personal struggles. While personal history can undoubtedly give us insight into a poet’s meaning, a poem, like a short story, is obviously not an autobiography or even a personal essay.

However, it’s difficult not to read the author’s personal life into a poem when she includes her own name in a poem entitled “Ballad of Me:�

BALLAD OF ME
i
Misbegotten
born clumsy
bursting feet first
then topsy turvy
falling downstairs;
the fear of
joy of
falling.

Butterfingers
father called it
throwing the ball
which catch as catch can
I couldn’t.

Was it the eyes’ fault
seeing the tennis net
in two places?
the ball flying, falling
space-time team-up?

What happened was:
the world, chuckling sideways
tossed me off
left me wildly
treading air
to catch up.

ii
Everyone expected guilt
even I —
the pain was this:
to feel nothing.

Guilt? for the abortionist
who added one more line
to his flat perspective
one more cloud of dust
to his bleary eye?

For the child’s
‘onlie begetter?
He’ll make another.

For the child herself
the abortive dancer?

No, not for her
no tears.
I held the moon in my belly
nine month’s duration
then she burst forth
an outcry of poems.

iii

And what fantasies do you have?
asked the psychiatrist
when I was running away from my husband.
Fantasies? fantasies?
Why surely (I might have told him)
all this living
is just that
every day dazzled
gold coins falling
through fingers.
So I emptied my purse for the doctor
See! nothing in it
but wishes.
He sent me back home
to wash dishes.

iv
Returning further now
to childhood’s Woodlot
I go incognito
in sandals, slacks
old sweater
and my dyed
hair

I go disarrayed
my fantasies
twist in my arms
ruffle my hair

I go wary
fearing to scare
the crown

No one remembers Dorothy
was ever here.

Section i is certainly generic enough that most of us can relate to it, or at least I can. Most of us end up “treading air� trying to live up to our own expectations, much less our parents’.

Section ii is a little more difficult. Is the abortion suggested in this section one the author actually had? Was it a metaphorical abortion, one that led to an “outcry of poems?� Or, did a real abortion, with all the accompanying heartbreak, lead to an outburst of poems?

Section iii could easily be autobiographical since it was widely known that she and her husband had marital difficulties, that it was faddish to consult psychiatrists during that period, and, like most men of the period probably considered it “normal� for a woman to be at home taking care of the home, washing the dishes.

How many of us are famous enough to be remembered when we return to our childhood home? How many of us can ever rediscover those childhood fantasies, much less have them come true. Or do we discover that the Wizard of Oz isn’t a wizard at all, but a charlatan that impresses us with our own fantasies?

Dorothy Livesay introduces the section of poetry called Rites of Passage with:

Rites of passage are generally recognized within the context of the adolescent’s struggle towards individual identity. In my view, however, these stages of ritual passage also characterize the search for relationship between a man and woman — the phases of love.

My favorite poem in this section

EVERYWOMAN EVERY MAN

Nailed to two crosses, his and hers,
the mother’s
the father’s
How to resurrect
is the intense question
How to make of thine
mine?
Out of such desperate inharmonies
to become
one human domain?

The pain of it held me
thisway thatway turning
through fiery furnaces
eternally burning

If I have come out of it
shining
calm clear as glass
it is because
you each one kissed me goodnight
without reprisals
sent me to sleep
on earth’s pillow
the solace that green grass

I was allowed to dream.

seems to exquisitely summarize several of the ideas in this section and reveals a universal truth that is all too often forgotten when parents disagree or fight with each other.

Livesay’s parents apparently had some strong disagreements, but their love for her allowed her to bridge those differences and emerge as a strong person. It is the loving acceptance of our parents, both our parents, that gives us the power to forge successful personalities, one that honors both parents. Without that love, personal weaknesses and it’s accompanying flaws seem inevitable.

I’ve been reading Canadian Poet Dorothy Livesay’s The Self-Completing Tree between working in the garden and taking walks. I’ll have to admit that I probably like what she has to say more than I do the way she says it. In fact, I was a little amazed at how similar our views of the world were when I read Linda Rogers’ excellent introduction. Nor am I sure I like that the book is arranged thematically rather than chronologically.

That said, I have found much that reawakens old feelings, even if there is little to bring new awareness. I did like this poem from the opening section that focuses on the title of the collection which offers an entirely different perspective from the similarly titled poem by Yeats:

SECOND COMING

What unwithering

is this?
the gnarled tree un-
knotting itself?
While in autumn
the dogwood blossoms —
against red rowan
is green and white
coming be
coming.

Actually, it reminds me of a favorite William Carlos Williams poem about a “dead� cherry tree that blossoms forth in the spring. Perhaps I merely like the poem because it reinforces my prejudice that despite my old bones I’m still blossoming forth with new ideas and new works of art.

I’m sure that my fondness for “Life Styles� comes from the same kind of prejudicial view of the world:

A city street
a corner
a nest
is always
over-peopled

but I accept
the situation
enjoy the tucked-in
kosher grocer
listen with silent laughter
to the sweet
private Hebrew lingo
demand
my buttermilk
my yogurt
FRESH!

I’m so lucky:
Can fly off
beside the rivering waters
cabined and closed
facing the sunset
than fans the fast-flowing
river Opposite
are the shivering yellow woods
sturdy enduring

I’d like to think
we will never give up
the two life-styles:
smell
of the teeming, jostling city
and life surrounded
by elms oaks maples
harbouring bluejays and squirrels:
scent of earth fast flowing water
gold drift of leaves—

I’d like to think
my grandchildren
would understand —
breathe hard —
seize unto these
two ways of being human.

I sometimes worry this is a hypocritical, not to mention unrealistic, view of the world, but I’ll have to admit to loving life in a sophisticated, international city with fine restaurants and art studios but thrive on nearby wildernesses. No matter how delightful the city, I cannot be happy unless I can escape to the country or to what passes for wilderness in the 21st century.

I only hope that my grandchildren and their grandchildren can somehow share that experience of two very different, but very enriching worlds.