MILTON ACORN TALKS ABOUT POETRY, POLITICS AND MILTON ACORN

Milton Acorn is a poet, Charlottetown native, ex-carpenter, working-class intellec- tual, and cross-Canada traveller. His latest book of poems, an anthology called “I’ve tast- ed My Blood,” has been nominated for this year’s Governor-General’s Award for Poetry. The award is due to be given this month. .... ..

Acorn (who is well described by fellow poet Al Purdy in his introductions to “I’ve Tasted My Blood”) likes sitting around talk- ing—the discussion usually drifts betWeen poetry and politics, with poetry dispensed with r at h e r early in the conversation — through one of the large cigars to which he seems addicted.

He is not sure if the Louis Cormier re- ferred to below is the correct name of a young man who once showed him some poems.

The following interview is a slightly edit- ed version of a typically long and rambling conversation we had recently.

CADRE: Is there any particular poem or poems that you’ve written that you like especially?

Acorn: Oh, yeah, all of, them. Wait a minute, I’ll read you one, let me see. . . "

Hear with the wind still, the grass still, sharp and erect like animal ears,

its green darkened,

its air and its light dark green,

birds hidden in the just trembling

leaves, chirping hoarse wonder,

and one white butterfly dancing into shade, the rustle of the rain coming on

CADRE: 'Do you find you still write many poems about the Island or are they mostly about other places, Toronto and what not?

Acorn: I’ve wandered over this country, you know, from shore to shining shore, as I think Woody Guthrie said, and the social situation everywhere is awful. The country is in a bad way. I’ve gone to northern towns where the chief occupation of the people seemed to be staggering around drunk, or drifting around stoned, and not just the Indians. As a matter of fact, I’ve been in places where the Indians were conspicuous examples of sobriety.

CADRE: What’s your general opinion on the state of Canadian poetry?

Acorn: Oh, I think it’s very high. The quality at least measures up to American poetry, and it is well ahead of British poetry, in spite of the differ- ence in population. .

CADRE: Who are some of the Canadian poets you like?

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Acorn: Well, Bowering, MaeEwan, “Red” Lane, — he died a few years ago — and Pat Lane, his brother, Bill Bissett, that’s all I can think of right now. Oh yes, Lionel Kearns. \ ,

CADRE: How about Alden Nowlan‘? Acorn: Oh yes, Alden Nowlan, he’s a geni‘ous.

CADRE: How do you rate some of the who are better known, like Leonard Cohen and Purdy, some of these people. ’

Acorn: Well Leonard Cohen really belongs in the class of French poets at that. He’s not with the modern thing at all. He writes in English but he is writing 'as you would expect a French poet to write.

As for. Irving, the man has been insane for years.

CADRE: Who’s ?

Acorn: Irving Layton . . . yeah, I mean he’s spent the last 10 or 15 years plagiarizing himself.

Purdy, well,- you know, Purdy is equally enh titled to me to be called the poet‘of the working nfi‘all, he’s very good, there’s no doubt about t at.

CADRE: This is sort of off the topic but have you ever heard of a poet by the name of Mark Strand? x ,

Acorn: No, you see, when I was starting to write poetry, you could count the number of poets of any quality in the country on the fingers of two hands, today there’s thousands of poets.

’ CADRE: Well the reason I asked you is I was reading a book called The Young American

'Poets, leafing through it, and there’s this guy Mark

Strand, he’s from Summerside and I han’t heard of him before. I picked up the New American Review the next day and he was in it, he’s been published in the New York Review of Books and the New, Yorker, he’s got two books out, one by Atheneuin, and it just sort of amazed me because nobody around here has heard of him or knows that he’s from Summerside.

Acorn: Ah yes, and Ryerson Press also has two good poets, who are published in the New York Times, working'in its print office.

CADRE: Are there any poets on the Island that you know of? , Acorn: Well I know, Frank Turgeon, I think he’s got a godo deal of promise, and Louis Cormier the same way, I think he has promise.

CADRE: What happened with the League of Canadian Poets?

Acorn: Did anything happen to it?

_ CADRE: Well, why» was it started and what is it domgr? ii Acorn: Blessed if I know. I meant when the League of Canadian Poets was started up I natur- ally thought it would be to improve conditions for poets, and the first thing I knew it was engaged in cutting down rates.

CADRE: You mean, cutting down the amount the poet would receive?

Acorn: Yeah. . . .

CADRE: How hard is it to get a book pub- lished by any fairly major publisher in Canada?

Acorn: Not hard, if you’re even half good. Or at least it was when I started, now there may be some good ones being overlooked.

CADRE: Have you read much of what's called the “Black Mountain” school in the States?

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Acorn: Yeah.

CADRE: What do 3 \ Olson and Greeley?

Acorn: Well Olson ha I read Olson’s projective w idea of what I was doing. on prosody, advanced pros they call it prosody, but science of poetry,” that’s 3. But that’s the best book he wrote it with his tongut got to read it with a grain

CADRE: What happi the Georgia Straight in V2

Acorn: Well I was c outfit that gave me the ta political started amongst t Such a thing requires a lb was a false start before in it took about two years to me and Pierre Poupee go‘ Maoists had forgetten the task.

They started a policy” an article, they’d write an

Of course it didn’t hel’

, culati-on from the first w: theirs. CADRE: You were is What political philbsbphyic‘ have? »

Acorn: Oh I am a Can

CADRE: Do you folio tical lines, Lenin, Marx, Tr

Acorn: I think this tl ism has been tried for Ion years. It is obviously not W we have been forced into the OCIF, NDP (the party every ten years, every tim ally I came to the decision might realize, came to the to do it ourselves and they say, that after all three or the system of government ‘ munism, amongst the India be listening a lot more to t have certainly got the sy‘st talking to an Indian, mo They’ve certainly studied- white man and the whlte the white man «does.

CADRE: Are you pres socialist group in Canada?

Acorn :, No, I periodi< papers. I write for “The 1 And, you know, various un Outside that, no. I’m veI‘: Canadian: activists of any about premature orgamzat:

CADRE: Don’t you th groups are going to have going’to be a force?

Acorn: No, I think ti be a. unified socialist part3 even though that murder empted the name. It’s 8'01: ing to be national, and 1110 present groups that are at of that. ‘ ‘

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