BOOKS

Bjarnason’s first English poems
ring with faith in humanity |

{T’s a contradiction of our Cana-
dian scene that although our

poets are better known than our
novelists, biographers and _his-
torians, their works are least
read beyond our schools. No one
would describe us as a nation of
poets yet, as every editor knows,
verse constitutes a large part of
the unsolicited contributions re-
ceived by every publication. And
yet, the Canadian Poetry Maga-
zine, long published by the Cana-
dian Authors Association, lang-
uishes with a pitifully small. cir-
culation.

To this can be added still an-
cther contradiction, that there
are a few Canadian poets, virtu-
ally unknown among their Eng-

lish and French-speaking coun-
trymen, whose works in other
languages are widely read in this
and other countries.

One such Canadian is Paul
Bjarnason, who has just publish-
ed his first volume of poetry in
English, Odes and Echoes, in
this city.

Although Paul Bjarnason has
never seen Iceland, the country
from which his ancestors came,
his work has earned him con-
siderable acclaim there and his
name ranks high among a people
which takes pride in its poets.

When his last volume of poetry .

in Icelandic, Freytar, was pub-
lished not long ago, the entire
edition was sold out in Icelandic
communities
bia, Manitoba and elsewhere in
this country, in North Dakota
and other parts of the United
States, and in Iceland itself.

Many Canadian poets, writing

NEW ZENITH
CAFE

105 E. Hastings St.
For The Finest In Good Eating

CONSTANTINE

FINE CUSTOM TAILORING
Ladies’ and Gentlemen

Rm., 118, 603 W. Hastings St.
PA. 5810 Vancouver 2, B.C.

USE OUR
XMAS
LAY-AWAY
PLAN
A deposit will
hold articles.
Special discount
to. all Tribune

readers. Bring
this ad with you.

CASTLE

JEWELERS
752 Granville St.

i tu |
HO HO
CHOP SUEY
We serve only
UNEXCELLED AUTHENTIC
CHINESE CUISINE ,
Pleasant atmosphere
Courteous Service
Reservation for Parties or
Banquets .
Phone PA. 1030, PA. 0713
102 PENDER STREET EAST
Vancouver, B.C.

MT

CUT TS Go eGo

SUSUR BN ENE NENEIE

in British Colum--

BOUT TER te ET TEE ECE ay Ot 0 GT

Reception for poet

TiRGER auspices of the People’s

' Cooperative Bookstore Associ-
ation, a reception will be held
this Saturday, December 4, 2:30
p.m., in Pender Auditorium Can-
teen for "Paul Bjarnason, whose
book, Odes and Echoes, has just
been published here.

By arrangement with the as-
sociation, whose bookstore at 337
West Pender here is handling
his book, Paul Bjarnason will
autograph all copies purchased
at the reception.» °

TT Te

in English, might well envy him
his response.

% 5os 53

‘

Odes and Echoes consists first
of nearly a score of Paul Bjarna-
son’s own poems,’ translated by
the author from the Icelandic in
which he originally wrote them,
and second, of representative
selections from the greatest poets
writing in the Icelandic language,
among them St. G. Stephansson
and Einar Benediktsson, all trans-
lated by Bjarnason.

In his scholarly foreword, Bjar-
*ason indicates the intricate
forms within which Icelandic
poets have fashioned their art
and the problems presented by
ailiteration and assonance to the
translator. It is a credit to his
skill as a poet and his mastery of
English that for the most part he
has overcome these problems
well.

Icelandic, he feels, is a language
which-can best “bring out the
ailiteration, metre and music
that has so long distinguished
poetry from prose.” But Eng-
lish, although it “serves well in
all classes of prose literature...

definitely has its shortcomings in

the field of poetry. ...”

He notes that “many eminent
writers and critics of recent

years have advanced the propa- ~

ganda that poetry is, or rather
should be, ‘altogether indepen-
dent of ferm and style, and
melody. In fact they have gone
so far as to encourage a studied
avoidance of anything suggestive
of symmetry and order, either
thought or im form. . . .”

He attributes this “trend that
threatens to become rather more
than a passing phase” to the dif-
ficulties presented by the Eng-
lish language, to “a painful sense
of frustration” engendered by an
inadequate instrument of expres-
sion. '

Whatever the shortcomings of
the English language, the frust-
ration of the modern poets, like
that of the abstract artists, is one
of content that. finds its expres-
sion in revolt against traditional
forms, in abandonment of all
form as a distorted form in it-
self. Unwilling to face) reality
and the discipline of rhyme and
melody which links them to their
audience, to give new content to

accepted forms, they place a bar-—

rier between themselves and their
audience py resorting to obscur-

antist - and incomprehensible
formlessness.
+ tt bog

Bjarnason’s poetry comes
through translation full of
melody, its message clear.

Most of the poems were writ-
ten in the mid-thirties, during
the great depression, and bear

the bitter imprint of those days.
In “The Doxology,” for instance,
he says:

“1 looked about and saw what
seemed

A mummy in the rain. :

Who with a span of mangy
mules

Was ploughing down the grain.

| asked him why, in face of
want,

He wouldn’‘t save the wheat.

He smiled with sympathy and
said:

‘With lots there’s less to eat.’ ”

And in his “A Reverie” is this
vision of a people’s future:

“And Earth shall be an Eden
Where mankind, happy, dwells;
Where no one bows to worry
And none his honor sells;
Where every serf is willing
And love, not fear, compels.”

Again, in “The Unaloque,” he
voices his confidence in the plain
people of the world to achieve
this future:

“’Go help thyself.
doubts

That so confuse thee now.

Should’st thou forget, the
master key

‘Is limned upon thy brow.

Dispel the

au

The translations embrace a far
wider field, from Benediktsson‘s
nostalgic “Thule” to Stephan-
sson’s fine anti-war poem, “Ar-
mistice.” They afford an insight
into the literary heritage created
by Icelandic poets, both in Ice-
land and in North America, a
small part of which Paul Bjarna-
son has now made available to
English-speaking Canadians.

.Odes and-Echoes is a labor of:

love. It deserves to be widely
read, for love and beauty in man
and nature is its dominant theme.

—HAL GRIFFIN.

Soviet ballerina

A rare treat for Londoners
were the performances. recently
given by Raissa Struchkova, So-
viet prima ballerina (above) and
other members of Moscow’s
famed Bolshoi Theatre.

screenwriters

ae

Salt of the

Earth in Interior

At its western premiere in Copper Mountain, the Mine-Mill movie
Salt of the Earth packed the local theatre to capacity. The film
was sponsored by Copper Mountain Community League with the

cooperation of Local 649, Mine-Mill.

No theatre in Trail will show

Salt of the Earth (scenes from the union-made picture are shown
above) but Cominco workers will be able to see it at Castlegar on

December 15-16.

Gay nineties musical

oe the style. of Oklahoma,
Seven Brides for Seven Bro-

thers is a snappy tuneful musi-—

cal, some of the songs and par-
ticularly the dances being as
good if not better than the stage
hit.

For that you can thank the cast
of professionals which includes
singer Howard Keel and dancers
Mare Platt, Jacques d’Amboise,
Tommy Rall, Matt Mattox, Jeff
hichards, Russ Tamblyn.

You can thank Michael Kidd
for his comic choreography and
Albert Hackett,
Tvances Goodrich and Dorothy
Kingsley for their witty adapta-
tion of the late Stephen Vincent
Penet’s short story, “The Gob-
bin’ Women,” which was based
en Plutarch’s legend of the ab-
duction of the Sabine women of
sncient Rome. . ‘

The setting has been changed
t¢ the Oregon frontier in the late
eighties where, as the movie
opens, Jane Powell has gone to
start life afresh with her new
husband, a sly fox who has over-
looked telling her that he has
six orphaned brothers and they
will all be living together in one
cabin.

That’s all the plot you ‘can
have, but even if I give away the
whole story you couldn’t begin
to visualise the hilarious routines
that Michael Kidd has worked
cut for the dancers, especially
the terrific country dance and
barn-raising episode.

This colorful and exciting “hoe-

makes snappy movie

down” works up to a furious cli-
max of dizzy acrobatics, plain
and fancy ballet, log rolling, fist
fighting, tumbling, jumping and
vaulting.

f —DAVID PLATT
xt ces xt

Granted that Alfred Hitchcock
is the master of suspense, as he
Culy proves again in Rear Win-
dow, this quality alone cannot
make palatable a story with so
unpleasant a central figure as
this film has.

James Stewart is an ace photo-
grapher laid up with a broken
leg, who gets a morbid satisfac-
tion from spying on his neigh-
bors with binoculars as he sits
at his window in a wheelchair.

When not thus engaged, he
boasts of the toughness of his job
and resists the efforts of his rich
society girl-friend, who finds him
fiscinating, to interest him in
something normal and_ healthy
like marriage or at least sex.

Suspense? Plenty of that, and
pienty of expert filmcraft. Did
the salesman over the way really“
commit a murder? We're com-
pelled to become Peeping Toms
ourselves. At first we succumb
to the fascination of peeping, but
in the end we’re revolted by it.

Grace Kelly brings a certain
amount of charm to the part of
the girl-friend. But all James
Stewart’s skill fails to make the
backyard snooper other than re-

pulsive.

—THOMAS SPENCER.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 3, 1954 — PAGE 8