South China Sea, A Poet's Autobiography, Ken Norris
Guernica Editions,
2021
If
Ken Norris's South China Sea (2021)
reminds me of any book, it is Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing (2006); both are books of poetry written when their
authors were older, accomplished, and respected poets. While Cohen's book reflects
on various aspects of his past from the perspective of his present life, it is not
deliberately autobiographical; it is a collection of poems, drawings, and song
lyrics. Norris's South China Sea is
his autobiography; in one poem he wonders if Wordsworth's idea of
"abundant recompense" applies to his life experiences; however, "the
still, sad music of humanity" most accurately describes Norris's poems.
All of Ken Norris's poems in South China Sea are written in direct
and unadorned English; this is an achievement, it is more difficult than most
people realize. Sometimes these poems are nostalgic, sometimes these poems are self-deprecating,
sometimes they are self-aware and insightful; and sometimes Norris presents a
dark vision of life. All of Norris's poems in this book are authentic expressions
of psyche which is part of the beauty and accomplishment of the book; it is
this aspect of South China Sea that I
will concentrate on.
South
China Sea is autobiographical in the way that C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962) is autobiographical,
both are "partially autobiographical". Norris's poems recount events of his life and some of these
events may seem minor but all assume significance when put in a poem. This is
not a traditional autobiography, it is not a travel diary, it is not anecdotes
of well-known poets Norris has met or known; there is some mention of a few significant
family members, and friends, and acquaintances that were a part of his life; but
the depth of the book is found in the layers of inner experiences that reveal
the man who has lived this journey. Just as "Tintern Abbey" is
Wordsworth's autobiography, at least in a spiritual sense, this is Norris's impressionistic
and subjective autobiography, an autobiography of the soul and the perceptions
and experiences of the soul; they are poems about his journey in life. Norris
writes,
I hear the
roosters
beyond the city
limits
and know that
dawn has arrived.
A faint light
peeking through the curtains.
Sleepless, awake
since five,
I can't make any
sense of my life.
The train wreck
of dreams behind me. (92)
All poets want to communicate. Writing
poems is to create a bond with the reader, it may even seem to end the poet's exile
or feelings of alienation. What keeps poets writing is the need, sometimes obsessive
and always relentless, to get what they have to say perfectly and exactly expressed.
Most poets have only a few things to say, only a few themes, but they keep returning
to these few things, in book after book, over a lifetime; this is what Ken
Norris has done. And if this succeeds then it should communicate to the reader,
it might achieve communion between the poet and the reader and, coincidentally,
it creates a communion, an understanding, for the poet and his unresolved inner
self.
When anything is done in apparent excess there must be something more going on than what appears on the surface. William Blake famously wrote, "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Norris's travels to different, often exotic, countries are not ten day all-included vacation packages, they are more adventurous and long term than that; Norris is no average tourist, it is also inner journey that he is on; he writes,
Sometimes I went:
off to Asia, down to the Keyes
and Caribbean, over to Europe
for the pleasure of a song.
Anything to get out of
dumb, anesthetized America
where the ether had taken hold,
and everyone was a patient without insurance.
(59)
There is an ironic aspect to this, travel can be both an escape from the self and a discovery of the self; in either event, the self one wanted to escape is usually waiting at the airport to welcome you home. Exile is imposed on some poets, for instance Dante's exile, but there is also exile from one's inner self, one's substantial self. Think of the meaning and context of the artist's exile as it is discussed in Colin Wilson's The Outsider (1956); the title gives something of Wilson's idea of the artists' position in relation to society; he or she may be in society but not of society. Norris writes, "I was always the wanderer/ the exile, sad Ishmael." (37) Robin Skelton writes, "We are all exiles seeking our unknown origins." Robin Blaser described Louis Dudek as a "walking loneliness", someone who was isolated in his own consciousness, someone not at ease with the common discourse of most people. For health reasons D.H. Lawrence escaped Britain's inclement weather but he also wanted to escape "the bitch goddess success" and the British class system, and much of his life was spent in travelling, in exile, moving from place to place;
Norris writes, "I was an exile/ from America, desperately trying/ to find a home." (33)
Romantic relationships recounted in Norris's other books need to be mentioned, they are a consistent presence in this book. For some, romance can be an escape from one's self, from feeling alienated or in exile. Some of the time these relationships may be genuine communion with another person and sometimes they are an obsessive repetition of choosing the wrong person.
Now, let's consider a Dantesque
experience of seeing an expression of the feminine, a Muse figure, in a young
woman who happened to cross Norris's path, and how this transformed the young
Norris into a poet; although he couldn't have known it at the time, it was a life
changing experience, it was when he crossed the threshold into adulthood; Norris
writes,
Fifteen years
old.
Reading James
Bond novels
and listening to Revolver.
I saw her
walking down the
street
barefoot
and that was it
for me.
Introduction to
the muse.
I started writing
love poems
in a blue-lined
composition
notebook.
The poems were
awful,
and being
love-struck
and tongue-tied
like that
was even
worse.
(168)
In this Norris has his own teenage
experience of the positive feminine; it is also his introduction to writing poetry.
After this, everything else follows: travel, exile, romantic relationships, poet
friends, and writing poetry. Like all good travellers, Norris has reduced his
life to essentials; the three pillars of Norris's autobiography might be travel, the
feminine, and writing poetry. Discovering the feminine is both his
awakening and his downfall; it is the leaving behind of childhood consciousness
and the birth of being a separate person with desires and needs that may or may
not be satisfied; he writes,
There's no doubt
that I ran
that I was
constantly running away.
To Canada, to
exotic islands
where the air breathed
spice,
to foreign cities
that contained
a thousand
unimagined mysteries.
Yes, I travelled,
while everyone
else
stayed home.
(60)
One of Ken Norris's biggest
supporters was Louis Dudek. Dudek always rejected autobiography; he felt that whatever
he was willing to say about his life was revealed in his poems, as Susan
Stromberg-Stein has written about in Louis
Dudek: A Biographical Introduction (1983). Dudek said
that fame is just a way for strangers to pester you, but fame is seductive and
our society is built on a foundation of desiring fame and fortune. As a social
conservative at a time when so many were "doing their own thing", or
what Matthew Arnold termed "doing as one likes", Dudek was critical
and felt apart from and critical of contemporary society, but compounding this
were the poems he was writing, poems that most critics didn't like; I refer to Continuation (1981, 1997). Exile and old
age can be lonely; in Dudek's old age he would ask if you were free to have
coffee with him, usually at the Alexis Nihon Plaza, within walking distance of his
home. I regret I ignored these invitations. What was Dudek's religion? Agreeing
with Matthew Arnold, Dudek said his religion is poetry; Arnold wrote, in "The
Study of Poetry", that "what passes with us for religion and philosophy
will be replaced by poetry." Dudek knew that a poet's redemption is in poetry, redemption
is in communion and poetry is the source of a poet's communion, but it is also the
integrating source of the poet's existence. Norris writes,
I live like a shadow.
I keep my essence
concealed.
No one knows the complete
me.
I have friends for all occasions,
but none of them can
calculate the complex angles.
In truth, I'm addicted to
anonymity.
I write my books from the
depths of my secret life
and hold them back till the
self that wrote them
has evaporated and changed
into someone else.
I'm
never happier than when I'm faceless and nameless
in an obscure hotel in a
country
no one's ever heard of,
in a place where no one I
know has ever been.
(90)
And then, a few pages later, Norris
writes,
Thoughts of Louis, his
Atlantis,
and where exactly do I find
Taishan?
I'll find out, consult a
map,
and go there.
If it still exists.
(93)
I am not a traveller, I prefer the comforts of home over
airports, foreign cities, and the loss of belief in my own existence I suffer after
a day of site-seeing; I can take only so much wandering around as a tourist
before I want to return home. This is some kind of purgatory Norris has visited
on us, "As if life were/ an hour in a bus station.// Waiting for the bus
to depart/ to that better destination." (129) But it's not an hour, it's a
lifetime of "waiting for Godot", and it is not mere site-seeing, it
is being driven by a need to travel. The journey is universal; it is
Gilgamesh's journey, it is Odysseus's journey. It is also an American archetype;
it is Whitman's open road, Kerouac's on the road, and others. But it isn't Henry
David Thoreau's way, he was no traveller and never went far from Concord; Thoreau
observed, "I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops,
and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing
penance in a thousand remarkable ways." Thoreau's observation that
Americans, and others, live lives of "quiet desperation" still
describes contemporary life over 170 years since Walden was written. We are all seekers for truth, for meaning in
life, and for Thoreau staying in the same place was an opportunity for introspection
and simplifying one's life, but Norris finds the inner life in travel.
Where can we find communion with something
that ends our sense of isolation? Is it found in Atlantis, that mythical place
in Dudek's poetry? Or is redemption in Taishan which Norris mentions? When Norris mentions
Taishan he reminds us of Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos; after World War II Pound
was incarcerated in Pisa, for treason, and associated a hill he could see on
the Pisan landscape with Mt. Taishan, a mountain which has spiritual importance
in China. This association gave Pound hope at the time of his deepest despair;
it also reminded him of the feminine and redemption by the feminine. Norris's allusion
to Pound's Pisan Cantos, one that would have been familiar to Louis Dudek who
was a friend of Ezra Pound, deepens our understanding of South China Sea and helps tie together three aspects of Norris's
writing: travel, the feminine, and writing poetry. Most of us will never be
travellers to the extent that Ken Norris has travelled but we are all on this
journey to find meaning and purpose in life. This is the inner journey, in
search of individuation, and it is the journey described in Ken Norris's South China Sea.
Montreal
born poet Stephen Morrissey is the author of twelve books, including
poetry and literary criticism. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree,
Honours in English with Distinction, from Sir George Williams University in
1973. In 1976 he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from
McGill University. In the 1970s Morrissey was associated with the Vehicule
Poets. The Stephen Morrissey Fonds, 1963 - 2014, are housed at Rare Books and
Special Collections of the McLennan Library at McGill University. Stephen
Morrissey married poet Carolyn Zonailo in 1995. Visit the poet at
www.stephenmorrissey.ca
