 Poetry: March 08, 2017 Issue [#8163] |
  Poetry
This week: Tekahionwake Edited by: eyestar~*  
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Hey folks, I am pleased to be a guest editor for this edition. Today I would like to share with you one of my favourite Canadian poets in honour of Canada's 150th Birthday this July and this anniversary month of this author's birth and death: the iconic Emily Pauline Johnson ( March 10 1861 to March 7 1913.) Or in her Mohawk tongue Tekahionwake (doublelife)  
"Poetry is part of the way we share our being." ~Margaret Atwood
"When the Gods do not intend to destroy
they first make mad with poetry." ~ Archibald Lampman
"Poetry is just the evidence of life.
If your life is burning well,
poetry is just the ash." ~ Leonard Cohen
"What the mind separates, a poem can unseparate." ~ Jeff Bien |
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E. Pauline Johnson was a woman ahead of her time, an independent woman doing things that the Victorian era might not have appreciated! A poet, dramatist, a lady of letters!
Emily Pauline Johnson was born March 10 1861 and raised on Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario. A poet and performer, she was the daughter of a Mohawk chief Teyonhehkon and his English wife Emily Howells and during her life her struggle to reconcile her two heritages is reflected in all her works. They were quite affluent and famous people would visit Chiefsfield. Pauline would often do readings for them.
She was well educated mainly at home, and at the Collegiate Institute, studying both English literature and Mohawk oral history and legend. She helped raise money for her family when her father died in 1884 . She enjoyed dramatics and writing. In 1886 she wrote "The Ode to Brant" to mark the unveiling of a monument to Joseph Brant. The poem brought her first acclaim. She often wrote in newspapers and eventually began performing her works to support her family.
She toured Canada, US and Britain for 17 years, gaining international recognition with primarily non-Native audiences. She wrote of Canada and its history and of native heritage-- to reconcile her two heritages. She created the Indian Princess persona, signing herself as both Pauline Johnson and Tekahionwake. She would dress native for half the show and English dress for the other part to honour both of her cultures. She inherited Mohawk cultural artifacts like masks and wampum belt, which she would show in her performances.
She began writing as a teenager and some of her works provide insights into the life, love human condition and portrayed life of indigenous woman and children. In "A Red Girl's Reasoning" she wrote of the stereotypes faced by indigenous peoples and the cruelty of the Christian influence at the time. She was a strong voice for feminism and for the injustices to the native people especially during the trials of the Plains tribes. She lead the way in bringing awareness to these trials.
Her first book was published in 1895 :"The White Wampum" and later "Flint and Feather" in 1912. Some of her poems were added to a collection by W.D.Whitehall in 1889--the first to include native poetry, which gained her more recognition.
In 1898, her mother died so they lost the family home and she had to move to Brantford from the family home. Being single and mixed race woman helped her career in a way and yet the inequalities remained and she was never financially secure.
In 1909, she moved to Vancouver from Winnipeg and died of breast cancer there in 1913, at age 53. There is a monument to her in Stanley Park and a stamp was issued to celebrate her 100th birthday. Her original home is now a national Historic site and museum. In 2016, she became the first Canadian indigenous writer woman icon on a banknote!
It is interesting that she was very popular while she was alive and yet forgotten after death, until 1961 interest was renewed. That is likely why I found out about her in school! I still have an old copy of Flint and Feather!
I appreciated her role more as I grew older and spent time with women's circles lead by indigenous teachers.When we discovered that one of my French ancestors had married a native woman settled among native tribes in the Ottawa valley, it became an interest to study.
E.Pauline Johnson remains an influencial icon who sought to define a place for women and First Nations people on a international stage. She helped define Canadian literature At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Actor Donald Sutherland read from her Autumn's Orchestra.
I particularly love her vivid nature poems. I recall this one from school days. She was an expert in canoeing!
Her most famous one: The Song My Paddle Sings
WEST wind, blow from your prairie nest,
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
O wind of the west, we wait for you!
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,
But never a favour you bestow.
You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.
I stow the sail and unship the mast:
I wooed you long, but my wooing’s past;
My paddle will lull you into rest:
O drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep!
By your mountains steep,
Or down where the prairie grasses sweep,
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.
August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I
Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift
On either side of the current swift.
The river rolls in its rocky bed,
My paddle is plying its way ahead,
Dip, dip,
When the waters flip
In foam as over their breast we slip.
And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow:
Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl
In many a dangerous pool awhirl!
And far to forward the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore;
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe and boil and bound and splash.
Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel,
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.
We ’ve raced the rapids; we ’re far ahead:
The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway,
As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away.
And up on the hills against the sky,
A fir tree rocking its lullaby
Swings, swings,
Its emerald wings,
Swelling the song that my paddle sings. "
Here are some various readings of this poem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQp8CAWdvJ0
 I recall her Acrostic on Canada. I love Acrostics!
"Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec;
Atlantic and far Pacific sweeping her, keel to deck.
North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival's stealth;
Aloft, her Empire's pennant; below, her nation's wealth.
Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold,
Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold."
and The Marshlands- - I love nature and how she could find the words to vividly describe it is appealing. This one is a favourite. I walk along marshes now so it has even more relevance. 
"A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,
And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh's brim.
The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,
Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold.
Among the wild rice in the still lagoon,
In monotone the lizard shrills his tune.
The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering,
Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling.
Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight,
Sail up the silence with the nearing night.
And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil,
Steals twilight and its shadows o'er the swale.
Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep,
Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep."
~Emily Pauline Johnson
 Cool sources:
Double life-- undefinable woman of our age!
http://www.nativeamericanwriters.com/johnson.html
http://womensuffrage.org/?p=21070
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Pauline_Johnson
You can hear the poems here:
archive.org/details/my_paddle_librivox/song_my_paddle_sings_johnson_apc.mp3
Song of My Paddle put to music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeA33M2MefM
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQp8CAWdvJ0
Wonderful videos:
The first one really shows how her works are meant to be dramatized. Good capsule of her life.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j17dXUocD2A
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdBN-m_ZNI
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