At The Congress Café in Austin, Texas, A group of men & women came in, Workers in some state office. They ordered drinks, then meals. After just twenty minutes, You could hear the drink they’d drunk Suddenly, happily, speak out in them. This sound of community went on until we left. I have no doubt that afterwards The drink they had taken Coupled some of them in matching ecstasies On Murphy beds.
How many things seek their voice in us? Unsuspected demons & angels Wait for the arrangement we provide Of gut, enzyme, funny bone, nervous system, mind.
Blood we lost long ago? (On Frederick’s great battle field When first he conquered Angria) Seeking to recirculate once more?
The apples of the orchard young Elmer Scheerer’s Father planted Which his son pressed into cider barrels, then drank Which then became his wild mouth organ music Played from a Pippin tree top, or (husband) on wilder bed spring, Printing press of his sons, Stanley & Geordie, Early friends of mine, O Congress Café.
James Reaney, 2005
“New mouth organ in the orchard” Woodcut on paper by James Reaney (1988)
“The Congress Café” is from Souwesto Home, a collection of James Reaney’s poems from 2005 available from Brick Books.
( ( ( 0 ) ) ) Listen to Jeff Culbert read “The Congress Café” and other poems from Souwesto Home here.
In the 1976 Alumni Gazette (UWO) article “Souwesto Theatre: A Beginning” excerpted here, James Reaney describes the years he spent researching the Biddulph Tragedy of February 4, 1880 and how the knowledge he gained about the Donnellys’ world helped create the Donnelly trilogy.
Orlo Miller, who wrote the historical book The Donnellys Must Die (1962), had based his research on local courthouse documents of the time. Miller’s collection of relevant documents was available to Reaney at the University of Western Ontario’s Regional Archives:
“One of my early experiences back here* […] was to go with my father to hear Orlo Miller lecture at Middlesex College on his recent book The Donnellys Must Die.As a child I had heard the story of this tragic family from our hired man, and my interest was revived now, especially when I heard that Mr. Miller had, in the thirties, collected a huge heap of legal and municipal documents with relevance to the Biddulph Tragedy from the attics of the courthouses at Goderich and at London […]. [In the archives] I entered the really magic world of the past which can only be reached through such fragile ladders and windows as bundles of counterfoils from Sheriff’s cheque books, Court Criers’ Bills, Surveyors’ Notebooks, Chattel Mortgages (whole inventories of people’s furniture and beasts and implements), Jury Lists, Assessment Rules, Crown Attorney Letterbooks and, last of all, mountains of blue paper containing an endless stream of Information and Complaint – the term used for the form you had to fill out when some fellow pioneer had dogged your cattle, tried to pour boiling water on you, torn down your fence, milked your cow furtively or torn down your house with you inside. [Alumni Gazette 1976, pages 14-15]
One of my first research lessons was to train myself to read nineteenth century handwriting and abbreviations; for example, for about a year I somehow assumed that “Inft” meant “infant” so that when you read “.… and poured boiling water over the Inft” I naturally saw the very darkest picture imaginable; suddenly one day it dawned on me that the early Huron District backwoods scene was indeed horrible, but that “Inft” did at least stand for an Informant fifty years old and perfectly capable of running away! Now these documents where a Plaintiff accuses a Defendant of doing something are extremely dramatic, partly because of the variety of things accused, and I made them into one of the choral passages in Sticks and Stones (Part One) in order to show the social situation at its tumultuous litigious mad worst, which is always the dramatic best! [.…] Propelled by the magnetic names “Donnelly” and “Biddulph” I read all the Huron District and County Archives from the beginning to 1863 when Biddulph Township leaves Huron County; I knew that I wanted to write a play about these people, but I wanted to get inside their world first and those hundreds of boxes filled with blue paper – it gets white about 1870 – were the keys to this state. Whoever filed away things in the Huron County Courthouse filed away everything, and I am eternally grateful […]. [H]ere you often get pictures of whole families talking at each other in a way that no history book ever thinks of showing you: one of my favourite lines from the trilogy – “It’s not enough that we should starve, but we must freeze to death as well” – comes right out of a Chancery document. [Alumni Gazette 1976, page 15]
Now there is probably a reason for this material being dear to a dramatist’s heart; a court case is after all a drama – with its lawyers arguing so one-sidedly against each other, with its witnesses opposing each other too and with a Judge, who quite frequently in the early days, climaxes everything with a knock on the head or wallet all around! If at the time you were to have taken a Constable’s Bill to the constable who had just filled it out and told him that it would make a good scene in a play he would have laughed at such foolishness. But time going by changes all that and scholars and artists have as their duty the finding out of just how time does give ordinary things meaning. After the five years were over and I found myself with Five Legal Blue Binders with transcribed material, I found that the three plays of The Donnellys corresponded to three of these binders. All – all!?, I had to do was pare things down from 200 hours of dialogue and action to three hours per binder! [Alumni Gazette 1976, page 15]
After a series of workshops with my own group, the Listeners, at Alpha Centre and Mini-Theatre, where we used this material in prototypes of the Donnelly plays called “Antler River” and “Sticks and Stones”, I did some more shaping until in 1972 I was invited down to Halifax to work with Keith Turnbull, a former student here on the material using local children and professional actors. The actors wolfed down the contents of the binders – and I think that in their performances you can see that they have genuinely touched some area of time not our own […]. [Alumni Gazette 1976, page 15]
This article originally appeared in Western’s Alumni Gazette in 1976 (pages 14-16). Read the full article here.
Miriam Greene, Patricia Ludwick, Jerry Franken, and David Ferry in James Reaney’s Sticks and Stones at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, 1973.
* In 1960 James Reaney left his first teaching post at the University of Manitoba and came to teach in the Faculty of English at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario: “One of the reasons I decided to leave my first teaching post in Manitoba and come to this campus was that I wanted to find out more about the land of my birth – Southwestern Ontario, or as Greg Curnoe very aptly calls it – Souwesto.” [page 14]
Souwesto history continues to inspire local playwrights: Jeff Culbert has written a one-man musical version The Donnelly Sideshow, Chris Doty restaged The Donnelly Trial in 2006, and Paul Thompson wrote The Outdoor Donnellys (2001) and The Last Donnelly Standing (2016).
Gil Garratt as Robert Donnelly in The Last Donnelly Standing (Photo by Terry Manzo courtesy The Blyth Festival 2016.)
Thank you for joining us at Wordsfest on November 6th to hear author Terry Griggs read the late Stan Dragland’s essay on his forthcoming bookJames Reaney On the Grid. We were honoured to have Terry give voice to Stan’s words and illuminate his thoughts on James Reaney.
Terry Griggs at Museum London, November 6, 2023
Many thanks to Wordsfest for hosting the lecture and to Josh Lambier and Greg de Souza for their help in launching the presentation.
November 6, 2023: Moderator James Stewart Reaney takes questions for Terry Griggs.
( ( ( 0 ) ) ) Link to an archived recording of the lecture here. The text for Stan Dragland’s essay is available here.
Stan Dragland (1942-2022)Stan Dragland’s book James Reaney on the Grid will be published in 2023
The James Reaney Memorial Lecture series celebrates the life and work of Southwestern Ontario poet and dramatist James Reaney, who was born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and found a creative home in London, Ontario.
Our thanks to Wordsfest and the London Public Library for their support of the lecture series, and to Poetry Stratford and the Stratford Public Library for their support in hosting the earlier lectures (2010-2015).
“Near Fraserburg” Watercolour painting by James Reaney, Fall 1985September 1975: James Reaney at the Nihilist Picnic, Poplar Hill, Ontario
There are two events celebrating the work of dramatist James Reaney this month and next:
Patricia Nacamoto as Mattie Medal in Gyroscope: “Is it true, Gregory La Selva, is it true that one of the conditions of your marriage was that, were that you were never, never to read her stuff?”
October 28-30 and November 4-6: James Reaney’s play Gyroscope, directed by Adam Corrigan Holowitz and presented by AlvegoRoot Theatre.
All performances at Manor Park Memorial Hall, 11 Briscoe Street, London, Ontario.
( ( 0 ) ) Listen to an interview with Adam Corrigan Holowitz and Janis Nickleson (who played Hilda La Selva in the 1981 production of Gyroscope!): Gyroscope Conversations on Soundcloud
November 6 at 12:00 noon at Wordsfest: The James Reaney Memorial Lecture at Museum London. Terry Griggs, author and former student of the late Stan Dragland (1942-2022), will present “James Reaney Off the Grid”, the lecture Stan had planned to give.
Wordsfest is at Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North, London, Ontario.
Sunday November 6 at 12:00 pm EDT — Join us in-person or by webinar at Wordsfest for the 13th Annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture. We are honoured to have Terry Griggs, author and former student of the late Stan Dragland, present “James Reaney Off the Grid”, the lecture Stan had planned to give.
Stan Dragland (1942-2022)
For Dragland, the lecture he gave at Wordsfest in 2019 only scratched the surface of what he wanted to say about James Reaney’s work. “In my previous lecture I pointed out that he was only sometimes limited as an artist by the grids he so loved. Today I want to stress the Reaney who knew how important it is to be able to pry or bounce one’s mind outside of inherited, imprisoning systems, who knew how to improvise, who could make plays out of the simplest things he found in his own environment.”
When: Sunday November 6 at 12:00 pm Where: Wordsfest at Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North, London, Ontario
The James Reaney Memorial Lecture series celebrates the life and work of Southwestern Ontario poet and dramatist James Reaney, who was born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and found a creative home in London, Ontario.
We were saddened to learn of writer, editor, and literary critic Stan Dragland’s passing earlier this month. Stan Dragland was a colleague of James Reaney’s at Western University (1970-1989) and a mentor and champion to writers and poets across Canada.
James Reaney on the Grid, an expanded version of Stan Dragland’s 2019 James Reaney Memorial Lecture, will be available later this fall from The Porcupine’s Quill.
From the Introductory section: This started out as the tenth annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture. It was delivered in London, Ontario, on November 2, 2019. That version turns out to have only scratched the surface of what I’ve been finding to say about Reaney’s literary career. As the talk grew into what it is now, it became ever clearer to me that Reaney’s legacy includes one unmistakable masterpiece, the Donnelly trilogy, a play in three parts so magnificent that it stands, or ought to stand, with the work of literary greats anywhere. But there are many other works of real importance, plus a few that may perhaps be worth reading only to someone like me, interested in all of Reaney, because of what all of it has to say about the best of his work […]
James Reaney’s translation of Pierre Falcon’s “The Battle of Seven Oaks” (“La Chanson de la Grenouillère”) can be found in Margaret Arnett MacLeod’s 1960 book Songs of Old Manitoba.
Pierre Falcon (1793-1876) was a celebrated Métis balladeer and North West Company clerk. “He had a feeling for words, a sense of rhythm, and a love of a rollicking tune. He was strongly dramatic, and his idea of the importance of the Métis Nation may have been more right than his English contemporaries were ready to concede [.…]” (MacLeod, p. 2)
Pierre Falcon’s 1816 ballad commemorating the Métis victory at the Battle of Seven Oaks (Songs of Old Manitoba, p.5)
James Reaney offers these notes on his approach to translating the song:“This translation can be sung to Pierre Falcon’s original tune with some stretching, but no more than to sing his own words requires. In making this translation I have followed Ezra Pound’s practice. Since there can be no translation so inaccurate as that which sticks closely and literally to the surface of a song, I have attempted to make only an English equivalent of Falcon’s ballad and so translate the really important thing – its high spirits.” (MacLeod, p. 9)
1. Would you like to hear me sing Of a true and recent thing? It was June 19, the band of Bois-Brûlés Arrived that day, Oh the brave warriors they!
2. We took three foreigners prisoners when We came to the place called Frog, Frog Plain. There were men who’d come from Orkney, Who’d come, you see, To rob our country.
3. Well we were just about to unhorse When we heard two of us give, give voice. Two of our men cried, “Hey! Look back, look back! The Anglo-Sack Coming for to attack.”
4. Right away smartly we veered about Galloping at them with a shout! You know we did trap all, all those Grenadiers! They could not move Those horseless cavaliers.
5. Now we like honourable men did act, Sent an ambassador – yes, in fact! “Monsieur Governor! Would you like to stay? A moment spare — There’s something we’d like to say.”
6. Governor, Governor, full of ire. “Soldiers!” he cries, “Fire! Fire.” So they fire first and their muskets roar! They almost kill Our ambassador!
7. Governor thought himself a king. He wished an iron rod to swing. Like a lofty lord he tries to act. Bad luck, old chap! A bit too hard you whacked!
8. When we went galloping, galloping by Governor thought that he would try For to chase and frighten us Bois-Brûlés. Catastrophe! Dead on the ground he lay.
9. Dead on the ground lots of grenadiers too. Plenty of grenadiers, a whole slew. We’ve almost stamped out his whole army. Of so many Five or four left there be.
10. You should have seen those Englishmen — Bois-Brûlés chasing them, chasing them, From bluff to bluff they stumbled that day While the Bois-Brûlés Shouted “Hurray!”
11. Tell, oh tell me who made up this song? Why it’s our own poet, Pierre Falcon. Yes, she was written this song of praise For the victory We won this day. Yes, she was written, this song of praise — Come sing the glory Of the Bois-Brûlés.
( ( (0) ) ) Rufin Turcottesings the original French version on this 1963 Smithsonian Folkways Recording “Folksongs of Saskatchewan”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB1knUIOSH0
From Songs of Old Manitoba, Pierre Falcon’s original French lyrics (p. 6-7)
Note: James Reaney’s long poem “A Message to Winnipeg” (1960) includes this translation of Pierre Falcon’s 1816 song. For more about the June 19, 1816 Battle of Seven Oaks, see the entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Daisy’s Aria from John Beckwith and James Reaney’s 1982 opera The Shivaree is now part of a two-volume anthology of soprano arias from Canadian operas produced by Counterpoint Music Library Services.
In collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre, Dr. Nakagawa plans to create anthologies for each voice type.
UBC Public Scholar Dr. Stephanie Nakagawa performs “I Need You Guillaume” from Victor Davies and Maureen Hunter’s 2007 opera Transit of Venus, one of the arias from her collection of music from Canadian operas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRulssBwJXw
Daisy’s Aria from The Shivaree
Caralyn Tomlin (Daisy) and Avo Kittask (Quartz) in The Shivaree, Comus Music Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre, Toronto, 1982.
In The Shivaree, Daisy is abandoned by her lover Jonathan and accepts the marriage proposal of a much older man, William Quartz. The story gives a Canadian rural setting to the Greek myth of Persephone borne off by Hades. In the aria, Daisy regrets marrying Mr. Quartz and longs for Jonathan to rescue her.
Daisy: Oh Jonathan, why have you forsaken me? Is there still time – to take me away?
ARIA Jonathan, you were a strange young man. You never could decide if I was yours, So Jonathan, I tried to make you decide By letting Mr. Quartz keep company with me. But if flowers and leaves keep company with winter, They soon find they’re stabbed with an icy splinter. My heart’s like the lane and the fields in fall, Rusting and stiffening with cold until all Lies buried in colourless snow, Jonathan! Walk above the snow Where the garden was — Walk above the snow That covers me up, Jonathan! That covers me o’er.
Cover for James Reaney’s libretto for The Shivaree, which premiered at the St. Lawrence Centre on April 3, 1982.
Alice Munro Country: Essays on Her Works and its companion Alice Munro Everlasting form a two-volume collection celebrating the work of Canadian writer Alice Munro. Editor J.R. (Tim) Struthers has brought together critical appreciations from 34 contributors, including Catherine Sheldrick Ross, George Elliott Clarke, Jack Hodgins, Judith Thompson, Monika Lee, and James Reaney.
Like James Reaney, Alice Munro grew up in Southwestern Ontario and many of her early stories are set around Wingham, Ontario, in Huron County. Reaney’s essay, “An ABC to Ontario Literature and Culture,” outlines a graduate course he taught at the University of Western Ontario in the early 1970s.
JULY 18: VIII.Through the Years in West Nissouri, Miller, Duncan, Munro. This was local history into fiction day since Alice Munro in Lives of Girls and Women has an historian uncle whose idea of writing is to pile up droplets from the parish pump (Who was the reeve in 1901? When did the school trustees put in cement platforms around the porch?) and never try to drive a line through them. Eventually, the tin box with his research in it is thoroughly drowned by the Maitland River in flood.
Since Sara Jeanette Duncan’s novel about Brantford is our first successful realist novel, you should read it to see how these things should be done; what is frequently depressing about the run-of-the-mill novel about us nowadays is the imprecision of viewpoint; all right, you’re not going to tell us much of a story, but could you have dug out some photographic details just a tiny bit less clichéd than these? [Volume I, page 54]
Alice Munro Country: Essays on Her Works and Alice Munro Everlasting: Essays on Her Works are available from Guernica Editions.
James Reaney’s “An ABC to Ontario Literature and Culture” originally appeared in Black Moss, Ser. 2, No. 3 (Spring 1977).
See also Stan Dragland’s Wordsfest lecture James Reaney on the grid (November 2, 2019) where Dragland recalls being part of an earlier team-taught version of the course when he first came to Western.
The Alice Munro Literary Garden in Wingham, Ontario
James Reaney at the farm near Stratford, Ontario, Summer 1979. (Photo by Les Kohalmi)
Join us at Wordsfest on November 2, 2019 at 12:00 pm at Museum London’s Lecture Theatre for the 10th annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture.
Stan Dragland, poet, novelist, and literary critic, will speak on James Reaney’s love of lists and how he uses them to express his vision, particularly in plays like The Donnellys.
Styling his lecture as “James Reaney on the grid”, Dragland explores how Reaney’s immersion in his local environment brings forth the universal in his art.
James Reaney’s The Donnellys: Sticks and Stones Act I Mr Donnelly: And this earth in my hand, the earth of my farm That I fought for and was smashed and burnt for (Jerry Franken as Mr Donnelly, Tarragon Theatre, 1973)
When: Saturday November 2 at 12:00 pm Where: Wordsfest at Museum London, 421 Ridout Street, London, Ontario Admission is free.
The James Reaney Memorial Lecture series celebrates the life and work of Southwestern Ontario poet and dramatist James Reaney, who was born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and found a creative home in London, Ontario.
Our thanks to Wordsfest and the London Public Library for their support of the lecture series, and to Poetry Stratford and the Stratford Public Library for their support in hosting the earlier lectures (2010-2015).
James Reaney 