THE CADRE, TUES., APRIL 9. 197lt'Page é '

by PAMELA sexsmm

MILTON ACORN *

Milton Acorn is a native poet of Prince Edward Island. Acorn was educated_on the Island, became a carpenter by trade, and went to Toronto~ where he married writer Gwendolyn MacEwan. They were later divorced. He then went to Montreal and it was at this time, around 1956, that he pawned his carpentry tools and began to write seriously.

At his own expense he published a small book of poems entitled In Love and An or. There followed The Brain’s The Target in 1935, A ainst a Lea us of Liars in 1961, an in 9 , Jaw reakers.

In 1968 Acorn reoeoited the four books and collected several poems from each, along with two short stories and some newer unpublished poetry, and created the volume Ive Tasted My Blood, which was published the following year. In 1970 these selected poems won the "Canadian Poetry Award”, an award granted by a group of Canadian Poets in opposotion to the Governor General's Award..With this award, Acorn received the title,"The People's Poet”. Ironically, in the same'year the A establishment's Governor General's award was won by poets George Bowering and Acorn's ex-wife Gwendolyn MacEwan.

Acorn's latest publication

is entitled More oems For Fee is and is a very fuIEing experience for those who have enjoyed his ‘earlier work., _ . Milton Acorn is, according to his friend Al Purdy, the only communist poet in Canada. The_ label "communist" immediately conjures up an image of pages of radical hostile antagonistic poetic literature, yet Acorn's apolitical poetry tends to be. rather subtle and based on an

‘idealistic, rather than a

philisophical or technical criteria. "Communism is some- ’what of a religion to Acorn" to quote A1 Purdy, from the

introduction of I've Tasted

M! Blood. '

"He pro ably knows the

Manifesto by heart, but I

doubt that he would label the Russian invasion of Czecho- slavakia as anything other.

than a crime against humanity.“ In an earlier interview with the Cadre, Acorn classified himself as a Canadian Socialist. Acorn's involvement with any seeialist organization is nil and he W111 not identify himself With any political party in Canada.

‘ To Acorn, human involuoment is of the utmost importance to his poetry. If he is writing a. poem about an old barn and he 18 able to find a way~to get an old man into that barn; Acorn lS‘ satisfied. To quote Dorothy LiVesay: "Acorn's aim is to bring living objects, life

‘interested in various methods of

,an experience in form to me".

‘a man who has "tasted my blood

‘People’s Poet"

itself, back into perSpective so that we may look at them freshly, not cynically. ‘ Obscurity and mystification are not a part of this method". In this earthy-life-filled gusty-poetry, one finds vivid Imagery, a strong rythmic progression and most important of all, the ability to integrate form and content. Acorn says: “My favorite painter is Picasso. I love him because he is conscious of form, of the approach. Like him, I am deeply

presenting the content of my poetry. I find myself incapable of Writing two poems with the same formal idea. Each poem is

Milton Acorn's poetry is an artistic extension of as working-class consciousness that hits out like an angry fist..... at poverty, inequality, hunger, want, dehumanization, and class- struggle in a capitalistic society. ‘

His is the searing anger of

too much,to abide what I was born to". ‘

Yet we find within some of his work the gentle workings of a sensitive and loving being. Acorn is 'with love' as a woman is *with child'. 0f Acorn one can saygthat his poetry touchs the universal as well as the particular; and while crying out for love, he crys out for Humani

THE ISLAND

Since I’m Island-born home’s as precise as if a mumbly old carpenter, shoulder-straps crossed wrong, laid it out, '_ I refigured to the last three-eighths of shingle. Nowhere that plow-cut worms " heal themselves in red loam; spruces squat, skirts in sand; - or the stones of a river rattle itsdark .tunnel under the elms, is there a spot not measured'by hands; no direction‘I couldn’t walk to the wave-lined edge of home.

In the fanged jaws of the Gulf,

a red tongue.

Indians say a musical God

took up his brush and painted it; named it, in His own language, “The Island.”

I’VE TASTED MY BLOOD ‘

v ._ x V , . .- ‘l \. y'v .t‘..txt\ll

If this brain’s’over-tempered consider that the fire was want and the hammers were fists. I’ve tasted my blood too much to love what I was born to.

But my mother’s look -

was a field of brown oats, soft-bearded;

her voice rain and air rich with lilacs:

and I loved her too much to like

how she dragged her days like a sled over gravel.

Playmates? I remember where their skulls roll! One died hungry, gnawing grey perch-planks; one fell, and landed so hard he splashed;

and many and many

come up atom by atom

in the worm-casts of Europe.

My deep prayer a curse.

My deep prayer the promise that this won’t b6~ My deep prayer my cunning,

my love, my anger,

and often even my forgiveness"

that this won’t be and be.

I’ve tasted my blood too much _

to abide what I was born to.