Wilson MacDonald
Encyclopedia
Wilson Pugsley MacDonald (May 5, 1880 – April 8, 1967) was a popular Canadian poet who "was known mainly in his own time for his considerable platform abilities" as a reader of his poetry.Robert Service
and Pauline Johnson
."
in Hamilton, Ontario
, and graduated in 1902. He began publishing poetry in the Toronto
Globe
in 1899, while still a student.
Canadian poet Albert E.S. Smythe described MacDonald as a "slight, lithe, graceful Italian figure, the same dark eyes and olive complexion, the same inscrutable smile of the shy but friendly soul."
After graduating, MacDonald worked at a number of jobs. As he later wrote: "I have been, in my varied career, a view agent, seaman, cabin-boy, bartender (one night), school-teacher, actor, inventor, producer, playwright, composer, advertisement writer, newspaper reporter, editorial writer, columnist, banker, and poet. When my poetry would not sell, circumstances forced these other tasks upon me."
His first collection of poetry, Song of the Prairie Land, was published in 1918. In 1921 MacDonald self-published a book of Christian
poetry called The Miracle Songs of Jesus.
Because he refused to be anything but a fully committed poet, now that he had been published, in the early 1920s "MacDonald managed to" find a way to "supplement his income by engaging in lengthy and rather successful tours of readings and lectures.". He became what Doug Fetherling in the Canadian Encyclopedia called "a barnstorming versifier with an unbending faith in his own greatness." MacDonald travelled both Canada
and the northern United States
reciting his poetry in large city and small town alike. "His personal shyness disappeared on stage, where he became dynamic; humming, chanting, and singing, he synchronized his whole performance to make poems come alive for his audience."
MacDonald was not the first Canadian poet to make a living from performance; Pauline Johnson had done so 30 years before. But he is the first noted for merchandising his tours. Fetherling noted, with an apparent shudder, MacDonald's books that "he himself hawked at his 'recitals,'". And not just books. MacDonald "was something of an artist, a designer. Frequently he illustrated his own poems and dabbled with illumination and typography." There are many examples online of individual poems illustrated and/or calligraphed by MacDonald, which look like merchandising aimed at those unwilling or unable to buy a whole book.
Of course, everything bought at a performance could also be autographed; MacDonald, like George Moore before him, or A. Edward Newton
, was an author whose books are seldom found unsigned.
MacDonald's most popular work, Out of the Wilderness (1926), went into ten editions.
Critics seldom paid attention to his work, and his work was not taught in schools. MacDonald went around that barrier by reciting his poetry for free in high school auditoriums across Canada, paying for it with his merchandising. "He was the one poet a generation or two of Canadian students had ever seen or heard."
A fan club, the Wilson MacDonald Poetry Society, was active in several cities, including in the United States, "and at least one such group still survives." From 1953 on, when MacDonald was in his 70s and no longer performing, the Poetry Society supported him financially.
singled out MacDonald as one of three postwar poets representative of modern trends. Roberts said of him: "Wilson MacDonald is purely a lyricist, with a very wide range of form and theme. His best work is forged in the white heat of emotion and is always definitely stamped with his own personality. It is primarily subjective. In his shorter, personal lyrics, such as 'Exit,' he achieves at times an unforgettable poignancy. In his passionately humanitarian poems he is modem in spirit, but in form he is distinctly classical." (Italics in original.)
The Encyclopedia of Literature praised technical aspects of MacDonald's poetry "The poems are invariably well balanced because of his musical interest; parts of stanzas are repeated for emphasis and direction — as major melodies in music would be — with other lines juxtaposed to heighten the emotional effect."
Fetherling was frankly dismissive: "It is surprising the extent to which MacDonald was often taken seriously as an artist and equally surprising that genuine poems or hints of them can sometimes be discovered in his collections by those willing to wade through his vapid romanticism
and pre-modernist
conventions."
Some of MacDonald's poetry certainly does not hold up: for example, the books Caw-Caw Ballads and Paul Marchand and Other Poems, which employ dialect verse – here the French-Canadian habitant dialect of English popularized by William Henry Drummond
– more entertaining if heard performed rather than read, and even then more embarrassing than entertaining.
Other pieces of MacDonald's work stand the test of time. The title poem of his collection Out of the Wilderness has something of the strength of Walt Whitman – "I, a vagabond, gypsy, lover forever of freedom, / Come, / Come to you who are arrogant, proud, and fevered with civilization – / Come with a tonic of sunlight, bottled in wild careless acres,/ To cure you with secrets as old as the breathing of men."
Roberts said of that poem that MacDonald "has been so bold as to experiment frankly with Whitman’s peculiar form and content, and he has justified the experiment. He has succeeded at times in breathing into that harsh form a beauty of words and cadences which Whitman never achieved."
Robert W. Service
Robert William Service was a poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon".Service is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough...
and Pauline Johnson
Pauline Johnson
Emily Pauline Johnson , commonly known as E. Pauline Johnson or just Pauline Johnson, was a Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century...
."
Life
Wilson MacDonald was born in Cheapside, now part of the municipality of Haldimand, Ontario. He attended McMaster UniversityMcMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
in Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, and graduated in 1902. He began publishing poetry in the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
Globe
The Globe (Toronto newspaper)
The Globe was a newspaper in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1844 by George Brown as a Reform voice. It merged with The Mail and Empire in 1936 to form The Globe and Mail.-History:...
in 1899, while still a student.
Canadian poet Albert E.S. Smythe described MacDonald as a "slight, lithe, graceful Italian figure, the same dark eyes and olive complexion, the same inscrutable smile of the shy but friendly soul."
After graduating, MacDonald worked at a number of jobs. As he later wrote: "I have been, in my varied career, a view agent, seaman, cabin-boy, bartender (one night), school-teacher, actor, inventor, producer, playwright, composer, advertisement writer, newspaper reporter, editorial writer, columnist, banker, and poet. When my poetry would not sell, circumstances forced these other tasks upon me."
His first collection of poetry, Song of the Prairie Land, was published in 1918. In 1921 MacDonald self-published a book of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
poetry called The Miracle Songs of Jesus.
Because he refused to be anything but a fully committed poet, now that he had been published, in the early 1920s "MacDonald managed to" find a way to "supplement his income by engaging in lengthy and rather successful tours of readings and lectures.". He became what Doug Fetherling in the Canadian Encyclopedia called "a barnstorming versifier with an unbending faith in his own greatness." MacDonald travelled both Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the northern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
reciting his poetry in large city and small town alike. "His personal shyness disappeared on stage, where he became dynamic; humming, chanting, and singing, he synchronized his whole performance to make poems come alive for his audience."
MacDonald was not the first Canadian poet to make a living from performance; Pauline Johnson had done so 30 years before. But he is the first noted for merchandising his tours. Fetherling noted, with an apparent shudder, MacDonald's books that "he himself hawked at his 'recitals,'". And not just books. MacDonald "was something of an artist, a designer. Frequently he illustrated his own poems and dabbled with illumination and typography." There are many examples online of individual poems illustrated and/or calligraphed by MacDonald, which look like merchandising aimed at those unwilling or unable to buy a whole book.
Of course, everything bought at a performance could also be autographed; MacDonald, like George Moore before him, or A. Edward Newton
A. Edward Newton
Alfred Edward Newton was an American author, publisher, and avid book collector. He is best known for his book Amenities of Book Collecting which sold over 25,000 copies...
, was an author whose books are seldom found unsigned.
MacDonald's most popular work, Out of the Wilderness (1926), went into ten editions.
Critics seldom paid attention to his work, and his work was not taught in schools. MacDonald went around that barrier by reciting his poetry for free in high school auditoriums across Canada, paying for it with his merchandising. "He was the one poet a generation or two of Canadian students had ever seen or heard."
A fan club, the Wilson MacDonald Poetry Society, was active in several cities, including in the United States, "and at least one such group still survives." From 1953 on, when MacDonald was in his 70s and no longer performing, the Poetry Society supported him financially.
Writing
In a 1933 talk on “Canadian Poetry in its Relation to The Poetry of England and America”, Charles G.D. RobertsCharles G.D. Roberts
Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts, was a Canadian poet and prose writer who is known as the Father of Canadian Poetry. He was "almost the first Canadian author to obtain worldwide reputation and influence; he was also a tireless promoter and encourager of Canadian literature......
singled out MacDonald as one of three postwar poets representative of modern trends. Roberts said of him: "Wilson MacDonald is purely a lyricist, with a very wide range of form and theme. His best work is forged in the white heat of emotion and is always definitely stamped with his own personality. It is primarily subjective. In his shorter, personal lyrics, such as 'Exit,' he achieves at times an unforgettable poignancy. In his passionately humanitarian poems he is modem in spirit, but in form he is distinctly classical." (Italics in original.)
The Encyclopedia of Literature praised technical aspects of MacDonald's poetry "The poems are invariably well balanced because of his musical interest; parts of stanzas are repeated for emphasis and direction — as major melodies in music would be — with other lines juxtaposed to heighten the emotional effect."
Fetherling was frankly dismissive: "It is surprising the extent to which MacDonald was often taken seriously as an artist and equally surprising that genuine poems or hints of them can sometimes be discovered in his collections by those willing to wade through his vapid romanticism
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
and pre-modernist
Modernist poetry in English
Modernist poetry in English is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional...
conventions."
Some of MacDonald's poetry certainly does not hold up: for example, the books Caw-Caw Ballads and Paul Marchand and Other Poems, which employ dialect verse – here the French-Canadian habitant dialect of English popularized by William Henry Drummond
William Henry Drummond
William Henry Drummond was an Irish-born Canadian poet whose humorous dialect poems made him "one of the most popular authors in the English-speaking world," and "one of the most widely-read and loved poets" in Canada....
– more entertaining if heard performed rather than read, and even then more embarrassing than entertaining.
Other pieces of MacDonald's work stand the test of time. The title poem of his collection Out of the Wilderness has something of the strength of Walt Whitman – "I, a vagabond, gypsy, lover forever of freedom, / Come, / Come to you who are arrogant, proud, and fevered with civilization – / Come with a tonic of sunlight, bottled in wild careless acres,/ To cure you with secrets as old as the breathing of men."
Roberts said of that poem that MacDonald "has been so bold as to experiment frankly with Whitman’s peculiar form and content, and he has justified the experiment. He has succeeded at times in breathing into that harsh form a beauty of words and cadences which Whitman never achieved."
Recognition
The Wilson P. MacDonald Memorial School Museum near Selkirk in Haldimand (the school MacDonald attended as a boy) has been designated a National Historic Site of Canada. Dedicated "to preserving the history of rural education, the heritage of the surrounding community, and the memory of poet Wilson Pugsley MacDonald," the museum "allows students to experience a typical day in a 1925 one-room rural school. Costumes, role playing, lessons and games help modern youngsters learn about their heritage and the history of education. The day-long programme is especially tailored to the school curriculum."Poetry
- The Song Of The Prairie Land and Other Poems. Albert E.S. Smythe intr., Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 19181918 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*Robert Graves marries Nancy Nicholson...
. - The Miracle Songs Of Jesus. Toronto: W. MacDonald, 19211921 in poetry— Wilfred Owen, concluding lines of Dulce et Decorum Est, published this yearNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:...
. - Out Of The Wilderness. Ottawa: Graphic Publishers, 19261926 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The remains of English war poet Isaac Rosenberg, killed in World War I at the age of 28 and originally buried in a mass grave, are re-interred at Bailleul Road East Cemetery, Plot V, St...
. New York, London: C. Scriber's Sons, 1926. - An Ode On The Diamond Jubilee Of Confederation. Toronto: W. MacDonald, 19271927 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* T. S. Eliot enters the Church of England and assumes British citizenship-Canada:...
. - Caw-Caw Ballads Montclair, NJ: Pine Tree Publishing, 19301930 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Canada:*Alfred Bailey, Tao: A Ryerson Poetry Chap Book, ....
. - A Flagon Of Beauty. Toronto: Pine Tree Publishing, 19311931 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*Louis Zukofsky edits the February issue of Poetry magazine. The issue eventually will be recognized as the founding document of the Objectivist poets...
. - Paul Marchand and Other Poems. Guy Ritter illus., Toronto: Pine Tree Publishing, 19331933 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* A. E. Housman delivers his influential Leslie Stephen lecture, "The Name and Nature of Poetry", in which he asserted that poetry's function is "to transfuse emotion—not to transmit thought but...
. - Quintrains Of "Callender" and Other Poems. Toronto: S.J.R. Saunders, 19351935 in poetryLinks to nations or nationalities point to articles with information on that nation's poetry or literature. For example, United Kingdom links to English poetry and Indian links to Indian poetry.-Events:* Canada -- Charles G.D...
. - The Song Of The Undertow and Other Poems. Toronto, Buffalo: S.J.R. Saunders, Broadway P, 19351935 in poetryLinks to nations or nationalities point to articles with information on that nation's poetry or literature. For example, United Kingdom links to English poetry and Indian links to Indian poetry.-Events:* Canada -- Charles G.D...
. - Comber Cove. Frank A. Stockwell illus., Toronto: S.J.R. Saunders, 19371937 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Iowa Writers' Workshop founded by Paul Engle at the University of Iowa...
. - Greater Poems Of The Bible: metrical versions, biblical forms, and original poems. 19431943 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* September 12 – Abraham Sutzkever, a Polish Jew writing poetry in Yiddish, escapes the Vilna Ghetto with his wife and hides in the forests. Sutzkever and fellow Yiddish poet Shmerke...
. - Armand Dussault. Toronto: Macmillan, 19461946 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* W. H. Auden becomes a U.S. citizen...
. Buffalo, NY: Broadway P, 1946. - The Lyric Year. Toronto: Ryerson, 19521952 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* November — The Group British poetry movement of the 1950s and 1960s began at Downing College, Cambridge University, Philip Hobsbaum along with two friends — Tony Davis and Neil Morris...
. Buffalo, NY: Foster & Stewart, 1952. - Pugwash. Toronto: Pine Tree Publishing, 19621962 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Writers in the Soviet Union this year were allowed to publish criticism of Joseph Stalin and were given more freedom generally, although many were severely criticized for doing so...
. "No type is used in this book, It is unique in that it is one of the few books which reproduce the author's own handwriting". - The Angels Of The Earth. Toronto: Nelson, 19631963 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* January 26 – Raghunath Vishnu Pandit, an Indian poet who wrote in both Konkani and Marathi languages, publishes five books of poems this day* The Belfast Group, a discussion group of poets in...
.
Misc.
- Wilson MacDonald's Western Tour, 1923-24: a collage of letters (to, from and about Wilson MacDonald), newspaper clippings, poems, drawings and miscellaneous MacDonaldiana assembled by Stan Dragland. Toronto: Coach House, 1975.