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 DIE LUISTERAAR: ANDREW SUKNASKI (1942-2012)

Ek het verlede jaar enkele gedigte deur die Kanadese digter Andrew Suknaski gelees en omdat ek nogal ‘n sagte plekkie vir die prêriedigkuns troetel wou ek meer oor hom uitvind. Al die gewone daaglikse doen en late het egter tussenbeide getree en ek het eintlik min of meer van hom vergeet totdat Glen Sorestad, wie se gedigte ek al hier geplaas het, my laat weet het dat Suknaski in Meimaand in my tuisdorp Moose Jaw oorlede is, sowat twee maande voordat hy sy sewentigste verjaardag sou vier.

Dit was vir my nuus dat Suknaski in Moose Jaw woonagtig was, had ek dit geweet sou ek beslis ‘n poging aangewend het om hom te besoek, alhoewel ek nie weet of sy gesondheid enigsins ‘n betekenisvolle gesprek sou toelaat nie.

Andy Suknaski is gebore in Wood Mountain, ‘n klein dorpie in die suide van Saskatchewan. Die naam is ontleen van die Mestiese “Montagne de Bois” – Berg van Hout, weens die groot aantal populierbome in die andersins taamlik plat, barre gebied. Mestiesfrans is een van die twee tale wat gepraat word deur die Mesties, ‘n etniese groep met gemengde Indiaanse en Europese voorouers. Die ander taal is Michif, ‘n mengsel van Cree en Mestiesfrans. Ek weet nie hoeveel mense nog Mestiesfrans praat nie maar daar is tans minder as 300 Michif-sprekers.

Die prêries is, wel, plat – ek werk vir die Five Hills Health Region en wonder na byna vyf jaar hier nog steeds waar hierdie vyf heuwels nou eintlik is. Newwermaaind. Die Wood Mountain Heuwels suid van die dorp Wood Mountain self is, naas Cypress Hills, die tweede hoogste gebied in westelike Kanada. Die dorpie het vandag slegs twintig inwoners.

Wood Mountain en Cypress Hills het ‘n turbulente geskiedenis. Blackfoot Indiane het hier te perd teen hul vyande geveg. Buffeljagters van Amerika het die grens oorgesteek op soek na hul prooi. Whiskeysmokkelaars uit Montana het rotgut aan die Piegan en Blackfoot verkoop. In 1876 het Sitting Bull daarheen gevlug om van Amerikaanse troepe te ontsnap.

Suknaski was die seun van Poolse en Oekraïeniese ouers en het eers op skool leer Engels praat. Hy het sy ouerhuis op sewentienjarige ouderdom verlaat en sewentien jaar rondgeswerf, onder andere in Brittanje, Australië en Suid-Amerika, waar hy homself as trekarbeider bestempel het. So tussendeur het hy van tyd tot tyd  na Kanada teruggekeer en opleiding ontvang by die Universiteit van Victoria in Brits-Columbië, die Montrealse Museum vir Skone Kunste se kuns- en ontwerpskool, Notre Dame Universiteit in Nelson, BC, Simon Fraser Universiteit en die Kootenay kunsskool waar hy skynbaar sy enigste formele kwalifikasie ontvang het. By tye was hy haweloos en het in Kanada soms sy brood as straatmusikant verdien. Al het hy op hierdie manier maar min geld verdien het hy dikwels die munte wat in sy bordjie beland het uitgedeel aan ander mense wat op materiële gebied nog slegter af was as hy. Tydens sy intermitterende besoeke aan Kanada het hy begin skryf, skets en skilder.

Na sy swerftogte het hy tydelik na Wood Mountain teruggekeer, sy loopbaan in die kunste voortgesit en begin om beelde uit was en klei te skep. Ongelukkig kon ek geen voorbeelde van hierdie kunswerke op die internet opspoor nie. Mettertyd het hy die woorde van haikoes wat hy geskryf het op die oppervlak van kleipotte ingebed. Gedurende die sestiger- en sewentigerjare het hy visuele poësie geskryf en sy eie Elfin Plot Press op die been gebring. Hy het van sy gedigte in sy vriend en mededigter Al Purdy se sigaarhouers opgerol en dit in die North Saskatchewan River laat afdryf, een keer het hy ‘n uitgawe van Elfin Plot Press in papiervliegtuigies gevou en dit uit ‘n vliegtuig losgelaat. Ander gedigte is op bergkruine begrawe of in tabletvormige kerse (tabletvormig soos in iPad) ingebed en op strande agtergelaat vir vreemdelinge om te vind, waarskynlik met die bedoeling dat die gedig sowel as die kersvlammetjie die pad vorentoe sal verlig. Of so neem ek aan.

Ek kon nie van Suknaski se visuele poësie in die hande kry nie want blykbaar bestaan daar min voorbeelde daarvan, heel waarskynlik omdat hy teen die einde van sy kreatiewe loopbaan baie van sy geskrifte verbrand het. Hy het hierdie genre later min of meer vaarwel toegeroep en ‘n baie sterker narratiewe styl het in sy werk posgevat. Hy was ‘n groot luisteraar, die groot luisteraar, altyd toegerus met ‘n notaboek en pen. Dikwels het hy iemand onderbreek en die persoon gevra om ‘n sin of frase te herhaal en dit dan neergeskryf. Die storie was wel vir hom belangrik maar hy het ook baie fyn opgelet hoe dit oorgedra is en die verteller se eie persoonlike kadanse, infleksies en uitdrukkings word met dieselfde energie en lewenskrag as die verteller in sy gedigte gevind.

Ek dink dat ‘n goeie voorbeeld van Suknaski se vermoë om te luister – of liewer sy onvermoë om nie te luister nie – is deur Glen Sorestad vertel:

“Suknaski was a frequent visitor at our home in Saskatoon… when our children were growing up. On one occasion, Andy was visiting us and we bedded him down in the same room as our youngest son Myron, who was about ten at the time. The room had two single beds and so we thought the arrangement would work very well. What we forgot was that Myron, the most voluble of our children, had a habit of talking in his sleep…. (I)n the morning, after I had made coffee and Andy wandered into the kitchen, I thought he looked a bit dazed and groggy. So I asked him if anything was wrong and whether he’d slept well. ‘Sorestad’, he replied, ‘Sorestad… that Myron… would you believe… he talked all night long? All night… he just wouldn’t stop talking.’

‘So why didn’t you just ignore it, pull the covers over your head, plug your ears or something?’

‘Sorestad, I couldn’t. It was just too damn interesting. I didn’t want to miss any of it. I even had to get my notebook to write some of it down.’

Sy gedigte het dikwels die verhale vertel van die byna vergete verlede van mense van Saskatchewan, inheems sowel as immigrante of kinders van immigrante. Hierdie provinsie was vir die eerste sowat sewentig jaar van die twintigste eeu bitter arm en ‘n betekenisvolle persentasie inwoners het maar ‘n redelike raap-en-skraap bestaan gevoer en Suknaski het baie van hierdie verhale opgeteken. (Interessant genoeg het Saskatchewan vandag een van die meer vooruitstrewende provinsiale ekonomieë in Kanada.)

Suknaski was ‘n verbete, byna kompulsiewe skrywer en het deur die jare duisende en derduisende bladsye aantekeninge, gesprekke, gedigte en idees vir gedigte versamel – dit was trouens sy pogings in hierdie verband wat tot ‘n groot mate verhoed het dat die vroeg twintigste-eeuse inwoners van Saskatchewan se herinneringe in vergetelheid weggesink het. Natuurlik was hy nie eiehandig hiervoor verantwoordelik nie maar hy het heelwat ander digters en skrywers geïnspireer om soortgelyke verhale op te diep en aan te teken en as prosa of poësie te verwerk. Mens kan hom beslis beskou as een van die grondleggers van prêriepoësie.

Die volgende paar paragrawe is ontleen uit ‘n artikel deur Rob McLellan in die Maple Tree Literary Supplement van Augustus 2010:

“Suknaski’s poems were written as stories about the land and the people that lived there, working their way toward myth, and the myth of the place, even as he told the “real story” of various residents of the village of Wood Mountain. Like his friend John Newlove, Suknaski was one of the first to write any stories about the Native peoples in that part of the country, well before it would have been considered “voice appropriation,” and helped more than a few other writers open up to tell their own stories down the road. There is a particular kind of deceptively simple prairie plainspeak that Suknaski seemed to perfect in his poems, and one that is repeated by many of the writers that came after him, but often without the kind of nuance that Suknaski was known for, through his series of seemingly endless departures and returns. As Scobie wrote in the introduction to Suknaski’s previous selected poems, The Land They Gave Away (1982):

Suknaski has had an immense influence upon the development of Prairie poetry over the last ten years. This “anecdotal” style has become an orthodoxy, and, in the hands of less skillful writers, a cliche. Suknaski’s best work retains the energy and vitality of the speech he is quoting – but the danger of the style is that the poetic rhythms will go flat and dull, producing only some mildly interesting short stories which might just as well be told in prose….

There is a line by Euripides that the late poet Irving Layton referenced when he wrote his “Birthday Poem for John Newlove” that could also apply to Andrew Suknaski, writing “Whom the gods do not intend to destroy / they first make mad with poetry.” In her piece “Essay Parcels from Andrew Suknaski” from the anthology Trace: Prairie Writers on Writing (1986), prairie writer Kristjana Gunnars wrote of receiving dozens of packages of poems and bread (made from the ash of Suknaski burning his papers) from Suknaski, the bulk of which she couldn’t even bring herself to open, writing “The artist is a poet. It was as I had feared. The artist was mad.” In a piece that doesn’t really show the best side of either, she starts the short piece with:

It was April when the parcels started arriving. The snow was melting. Yellow grass could be seen by the fence. I went home after work one evening. Opened the screen door. Two large thin parcels fell to my feet. The postman hid them between doors.

I did not open the parcels. They went into the basement. Next day four cards in the mailbox. Four more parcels at the St. Norbert post office. I picked them up. Not because I wanted them, but because of the Francophone clerk. He was so excited.

Those parcels went into the car trunk. There they stayed, unopened. When the warm weather came a great perfumed smell arose from one of the packages. When I got into the car it made me think of a field of tulips in Amsterdam.

Suknaski’s poems continually return to that edge to acknowledge the stories around him that might otherwise have been lost, writing of his own family histories and those of friends and neighbours, to various of the other nations and nationalities around him, including the immediate Sioux (ever aware of his immigrant guilt), the Chinese, Polish and Ukrainian immigrants, and various others of the native peoples. It is important to note that the word “honour” is repeated throughout his poems, as is the word “remember.” Suknaski does remember, including stories of Big Bear, Sitting Bull and Crowfoot, Gabriel Dumont and the Teton Sioux, much in the way other writers, such as his friend, the poet John Newlove also did, another Saskatchewan poet who left the land, but, unfortunately, was unable to return (he considered himself a Saskatchewan poet for the rest of his life). For Suknaski, perpetually leaving and returning, the land itself is important to him, from his father and mother as well as the physicality of his home base of Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan (elevation 1,013 metres), close to the Cypress Hills (the highest point between Labrador and the Rocky Mountains), site of the infamous Cypress Hills massacre.”

Iewers in die tagtigerjare het Suknaski opgehou skryf . ‘n Psigiatriese siekte het toegeslaan en hy het sy laaste jare deurgebring in ‘n tehuis in Moose Jaw wat beskerming aan sulke pasiënte bied, finansieël bygestaan deur vriende en mededigters. Hy is op 3 Mei oorlede en sy as is in Wood Mountain gestrooi. Die oorblyfsels van sy dokumente, manuskripte en notas, dit wil nou sê wat hy nie verbrand het nie, word bewaar by die Universiteit van Manitoba se Argiewe en Spesiale Versamelings.

Al die onderstaande gedigte kom uit Suknaski se bundel Wood Mountain Poems wat in 1976 gepubliseer is. Alhoewel die boek vanselfsprekend handel oor hierdie gebied moet sy mense dit nie as ‘n geskiedenis van daardie area beskou word nie – dit moet gesien word as ‘n blik op daardie mense en plekke, ‘n blik wat sowel die die hede en die verlede omvat. Tyd bestaan as ‘n gebied wat verken moet word, die dooies word opgewek en keer weer terug na die verlede nadat hulle hul verhaal vertel het.

Die gedigte is nie flambojant of sensasioneel nie. Daar is geen verbale kragtoere nie, maar wel ‘n sin vir plek wat my bekoor, sowel as ‘n heimwee – byna ‘n verdriet – vir dit wat verlore is. Voor in die boek is ‘n aanhaling deur opperhoof Seathl, na wie die Amerikaanse stad Seattle vernoem is: when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wives, where is the thicket? gone. where is the eagle? gone. and what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt? it is the end of living and the beginning of survival.

Nou moet ek (ongelukkig) dadelik byvoeg dat hierdie aanhaling geheel en al apokrief is – Seathl het nooit so iets geskryf of gesê nie, maar toe Suknaski se boek gepubliseer is was dit nog nie bekend nie en ek sluit die aanhaling in elke geval in omdat dit vir my tekenend is van die gees van die gedigte in hierdie bundel.

Die boek bevat enkele foto’s van mense of tonele van Wood Mountain.

Homestead, die eerste en langste gedig in die bundel mag mens dalk die indruk laat kry dat baie van die verse outobiografiese gegewens bevat maar dit is nie die geval nie – die ander gedigte handel byna uitsluitlik oor ander mense en gebeure in en om Wood Mountain.

 

 

HOMESTEAD, 1914

 

i returning

 

for the third spring in a row now

i return to visit father in his yorkton shack

the first time i return to see him

he was a bit spooked

seeing me after eleven years -

a bindertwine held up his pants then

that year he was still a fairly tough little beggar

and we shouted to the storm fighting

to see who would carry my flightbag across the cn tracks

me crying: for chrissake father

lemme carry the damn thing the

train’s already too close!

 

now in his 83^rd year father fails

is merely 110 pounds now and cries while

telling me of a growing pain after the fall

from a cn freightcar

in the yard where he works unofficially as a cleanup man

tells of how the boss that day

slipped a crisp 20 into his pocket and said:

you will be okay meester shoonatzki

dont tell anyvon about dis

commeh bek in coopleh veek time…

father says his left testicle has shrivelled

to the size of a walnut

says there’s simply no fucking way

he’ll see another doctor – says:

the last one tried to shine a penlight up my ass

now son

no one’s ever looked up my asshole

and never will

never

while we walk through te spring blizzard to the depot

i note how he is bent even more now

and i think: they will have to break his back

to lay him flat when he dies

 

in the depot

father guards my bag while i buy two white owl cigars

and return to give him one

we then embrace saying goodbye

and i watch him walk away from me

finally disappearing in the snowflake eddy near a pine

on the street corner

and then remember how he stood beneath a single lightbulb

hanging from a frayed cord in his shack

remember how he said

my life now moves to an end with the speed of

electricity

 

ii mother

 

her ship sails for the new land

and she on it

the fare paid by her brother in limerick saskatchewan

 

dancing in the arms of some young farmer

she remembers her polish village

the day her mother is fatally struck

by a car -

she remembers being 14 when world war one begins

remembers how she and another girl walk 12 miles

to work every three days

shovelling coal onto flatcars for sixteen hours

before returning home

along the boundaries of wolves (their eyes glowing

like stars on the edge of the dark forest)

she remembers the currency changing as the war ends

her money and several years’ work

suddenly worthless one spring day

all these things drift away from the ship carrying

her to the unknown

new land

 

iii father

 

arrives in moose jaw fall of 1914

to find the landtitles office

is given the co-ordinates for the homestead east

of wood mountain village -

and he buys packsack and provisions for the long walk south

sleeps in haystacks for the first few nights

(finally arriving in limerick

buys homesteaders’ essentials: axe saw hammer

lumber nails shovel gun bullets food

and other miscellaneous items)

he hires someone with a wagon and horses

to drive him to the homestead

builds a floor and raises one wall that day

and feeling the late autumn cold

nails together a narrow box in which to sleep

the first night

 

the following morning

he rises through two feet of snow to find

all his tools stolen (except for the gun bullets

and knife he slept with)

he searches for a spot on the hillside

to carve out with a blunted knife

a cellar

in which to endure the first few years -

he nails together a roof with a stone

 

philip well is his closest neighbour

and they hunt together

and through long evenings

play cards by light of the coaloil lamp

spin tales of old country wanderings

to survive 40 below inters till pre-emption time

is up

when the landtitle is secured

and a more suitable shack is built-

father walks six times between moose jaw an

the homestead

till haggling civil bastards give him the title

each time

he carries a $10 bill sewn inside his pocket across

the heart

 

iv parting

 

the day i walked fearless between horses’ trembling feet

my father watching with hands frozen

to a pitchfork

is clearer in my memory

than the day he and my mother parted

-she leading the children through the fall

stubble to wood  mountain

 

in the following years

all i knew of father was the lonely spooked man

whom i met each autumn

in the back alley behind koester’s store

while winter descended from the mountains-

it seems he always came during the first storm

and tied his team to the telephone pole

(their manes and nostrils frosted)

he always pulled a side of pork from the hay

in the wagon

and placed it on my sleigh

 

parting

we never found he words

simply glanced at one another’s eyes and turned

something corroding the love in my heart

until i left wood mountain one sunday afternoon-

running away to the mountains

for what i thought would be forever

until another spring

i returned to see father

eleven years later

 

v the funeral

 

sofie in winnipeg

sends each member of the family a telegram announcing

the death of sister eve

 

mother who is 66 at the time

rides a greyhound bus from moose jaw to brandon

all night

father and brother louis drive from yorktown

arrive in brandon the night before the funeral

and het a hotel room-

louis goes out and buys father a pair of pants

and a shirt

returns wondering: how the hell will i get

father out of that sweater he’s sewn himself into?

back in the room

he goes to the bathroom and turns on the water

and returns to subtly introduce the idea to father

who will have no part of it

louis loses is temper and pulls out a pair of scissors

from a shaving kit

and wrestles father to the floor (cuts him out of

the old sweater

while father cries:

okay okay- i’ll take a bath)

 

the following day

the family is all on edge

everyone wonders how mother and father will respond

to one another

after 18 years of silence-

louis drives father to the funeral chapel

where mother is already viewing their daughter

they park outside

and father nervously climbs out as the chapel door opens

(he freezes

while mother emerges and also suddenly freezes

both stand motionless for 30 seconds and then

begin to run toward each other

they embrace

and she lifts him off the ground

he is 79 at the time)

 

vi birth certificate

 

carrying it in my pocket now as father carried

the worn $10 bill across his heart for the landtitle

i have crossed bridges of cities

hoping to find salvation

have gazed into the dark rivers of

spring where others have found love

hoping to glimpse the face of some god-

and stopped by grey-eyed policemen

produced identification and tolerated their jokes:

what do these letters and numbers mean kid?

where is this place?

is this all you have?

 

vii epilogue

 

my father once said:

i might have murdered you all and gone

straight to heaven

 

and having arrived at all these things now

what is to be done with you and love

father?

what is to be done now with that other man who

is also you?

that other man so long ago on a hot summer day

far too hot for man or beast

the day mother at the well with the rope

frozen in her hands watches louis

who has ceased haggling with you

sadly carrying a bucket of staples to the barn-

you father something frightening

slowly sweating and walking after him

you slowly raising a fence post above your thoughts

swimming in familiar rage

over that day’s fence posts’ improper spacing-

louis stopping suddenly for some reason

not looking back

but merely gazing across to tall wheat growing

beyond the coulee’s black shadow

(you suddenly stopping too and seeming afraid

and then lowering the fence post

as you turn around and return to the picket pile

to continue sharpening your newly sharpened axe)

that other man beating mother with a rolling pin

by the cream separator one morning

she pregnant and later sleeping in the late afternoon

to waken from a dream while the axe rises

above her grey head

her opening eyes staring into the eye of death

you father slowly turning away once again frightened

and ashamed

 

you once warning us of that other man within you

when these things happen to me

do all you can and help one another save yourselves

from me

 

that other man once sharpening mower blades

when brother mike plays and suddenly tips

a bucket of water used to soak blades-

that other man suddenly drowning in black rage

grabbing a long scarf from a coat hook in the porch

then seizing mike to knot the scarf around his neck

and around the end of the grindstone’s pulley

bolted high in the porch corner

the trembling right hand slowly labouring to turn

the crude sandstone

(mother and sister sofie fortunately arriving just in time

to fight you and free your son)

 

father

i must accept you and that other dark man within you

must accept you along with your sad admission

that you never loved anyone in your life

(you must be loved

father

loved the way a broken mother loves her son

though he must hang in the morning

for murder)

 

viii suicide note

 

silence

and a prayer to you shugmanitou*

for something

to believe in

 

*shugmanitou:  coyote in dakota  indian language

 

 

SOREN CASWELL

 

as gods of a vanished tribe

caswell’s rusting model-a’s were another world

where one hid while playing runsheeprun

old caswell fiercely moving through gasbarrels

was something to fear while gleeful smashing of carwindows

ceased and one ran to hide in lovenzanna’s coulee

 

caswell’s speech in the village hall and the yearly movie shown

by the greysuited man from the implement company

were something to look forward to when we were children

the trees and grass of ontario farms were greener

than anything we knew

 

in the village two thirds deserted now

caswell spends his day pottering alone in the garage

some days sells a few gallons of gasoline

and each afternoon saunters over to the pub for a beer

before returning home to his silent supper

no longer permitted to drive

he walks now

and following the meal

returns to the garage to dawdle away an hour or two

where he sometimes scrawls out a letter ending with the faint

illegible signature-

then retires again to the pub for a couple lasting

till closing time (he no longer wears his hearing aid

and seldom speaks- is merely a smile in the corner)

late in the darkening night he ambles home

and the street lamp next to the romanian church  is a star

guiding him as he no longer notices the boarded up

houses along his street

 

 

PHILIP WELL

 

prairie spring

and i stand here before a tire crimper

two huge vices held by a single bolt

(men of the prairies were grateful to a skilled man

who could use it and fix wooden wheels

when the craft flourished)

 

i stand here

and think of philip well found in his musty woodshed

this morning

by dunce mcpherson on the edge of wood mountain-

philip well lying silent by his rusty .22

 

and i ask my village: who was this man?

this man who left us

 

in 1914

well and my father walked south from moose jaw

to find their homesteads

they slept in haystacks along the way

and once nearly burnt to death

waking in the belly of hell they were saved by mewling mice

and their song of agony-

a homesteader had struck a match and thought he

would teach them a lesson

 

well and father lived in a hillside and built fires

to heat stones each day in winter

they hunted and skinned animals to make fur blankets

threw redhot stones into their cellars

overlaid the stones with willows

and slept between hides

 

father once showed me a picture

nine black horses pulling a gang plough

philip well proudly riding behind (breaking

the homestead to make a home)

 

well quiet and softspoken

loved horses and trees and planted poplars around his shack

when the land began to drift away

in tough times well bought a tire crimper

and fixed wheels tanned hides and mended harnesses

for people

 

and later (having grown older and often not feeling well)

moved to wood mountain village

to be near people who could drive him to a doctor

if necessary

 

today in wood mountain

men’s faces are altered by well’s passing

while they drink coffee in jimmy hoy’s cafe

no one remembers if well had a sweetheart

though someone remembers a school dance near

the montana border one Christmas-

well drunk and sleeping on a bench in the corner

while the people danced

well lonelier than judas after the kiss

(the heart’s sorrow like a wheel’s iron ring

tightening around the brain till

the centre cannot hold and the body breaks)