New-Canadian Letters

LETTERS lN CANADA, 1943 457 V. NEW-CANADIAN LETTERS WATSON KIRKCONNELL The first volume of Czech poetry to be printed in Canada was published in Montreal in April, 1943. Night on Mount Royal is the work of Captain Rudolf Nekola, member of a Czechoslovak military mission, who has recorded in verse of vigour and modernity his impressions of Canada. Strictly sp~aking, Captain Nekola is not a Canadian; but his present work, like that of the French novelist, Louis.Hemon, represents the effect of the Canadian scene on a sensitive spirit from abroad. As a book inspired by Canada and printed in Canada, it merits a place in the present survey. The volume comprises twenty-seven poems, arranged in three series: The first group, subtitled "Voyage to Canada," consists of seven poems: Liverpool, The Irish Sea, Homesickness at Sea, On Deck, A Psalm at Sea, The Convoy, The Last \Vatch. The second group, subtitled "From Sea to Sea," consists of nine poems: I Saw the Light of Halifax, Montreal, The Prairie, Maria Chapdelaine, Christmas at Quebec, Moon over the Rockies, Chinook, Vancouver, A Song from Canada. The third ~nd longest section, subtitled "Night on Mount Royal," includes eleven poems: Moon over Montreal, Saturday Evening, Sunday, Sport, Conversation, Till I Shall be Home, Serpentine in the Park, Victory, The Humble Pilgrim, Night on Mount Royal, Good-bye. In his minuscular line-headings, his free verse, his e)imination of ali punctuation except question-marks, and his frequent use of incantatory repetition , Captain Nekola is a sophisticated modern. Nevertheless, he has an eye for traditional patterns as well, and frequently uses. strictly rhymed quatrains, cinquains, sestets and octaves as stanzaforms . His impressions of Canada are interwoven with his tragic memories of Czechoslovakia. Thus, in his title-poem, the nocturnal mass of Mount Royal, rising high and dark and implacable amid the human maze of Montreal, becomes a tremendous symbol of the obstacles that stand in the very midst of the world's life today. By leaving his experiences of Canada in enduring poetic form for Canadians to appreciate, Captain Nekola has forged a permanent cultural link between our countries. Ukrainian fiction is 'represented by Volume II of Elias Kiriak's Sons of the Soil, the first volume of which was published in 1939. This work is entirely innocent of plot and novel-structure in the ordinary sense. It attempts rather to present the day-te-day life 458 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY of .a small Ukrainian community somewhere in Western Canada. The first volume (reviewed in "Letters in Canada, 1939") dealt with the first three years of the pioneer experience, without benefit of church, priest, school or physician, in a settlement·eighty miles from the railway and accessible only by an old Indian trail. The adaptation of Ukrainians to life in the New World is presented through five different families of varyin.g types; and one can see both their colourful heritage of East European tradition and their versatility in facing the hard problems of the frontier. The second volume brings the iit.t1e community a stage further in its progress towards Canadianization. We watch the building ·of the church and the school, the coming of the first teacher, the celebration of the first Mass, the opening of the post office and the neighbourhood store. Mr Kiriak is also interested in th-e changing mor~s of the community, and shows how some of the daughters, after finding employment in a distant town, bring back innovations to the homes~ of their parents. Intermarriage enters the picture, and with it the problem of the mutual relations between Slav and Angle-Saxon in the community. Sons of the Soil is not great fiction, but it is a sociological document of real value, setting forth with interest, and even with touches of humour, the drama of human readjustment involved in the life of Ukrainian pioneers in the Canadian West. Mr Kiriak, who came to Canada in 1906 as a boy of thirteen, has lived through the whole experience and presents it in convincing detail. He received his education at the University of Alberta, and has taught school for the past twenty-five years. In...