Friday, November 17, 2006

Manitoba's true Poet Laureate?














University Receives Lost Louis Riel Poem
Globe And Mail
November 16, 2006
Page A8

SASKATOON - In the weeks leading up to his hanging for high treason 121 years ago today Louis Riel struck up a friendship with his jailer.

This week a poem the Metis leader wrote for Robert Gordon becomes a prized part of the archives at the University of Saskatchewan.

"It's a beautiful piece of writing," says Maria Campbell, a Metis author and playwright who has studied Riel extensively.

Traditional historians tended to overlook Riel's artistic side and the social context in which the events of his political life took place. The poem provides a window into both, Ms. Campbell says.

It's also significant because it doesn't need translation.

"This is the first poem that I know of that he wrote in English because all of his work has been translated from French to English. So for me, that's what's exciting about reading it."

Written in Riel's flowing script, the poem was apparently penned at Mr. Gordon's request. The loose pages, now yellowed with time, are dated Oct, 27, 1885. Riel was hanged about three weeks later on Nov. 16.

"The jailer was a very sensitive man, and in a couple of places there is mention where he said that when Riel's wife came to visit him, he allowed them some time alone," Ms. Campbell said.

Edna Warrington, development officer for the University of Saskatchewan library, said officials were "blown away" when a woman who was in her late 80s approached them a year ago with the intention of leaving the poem to the library in her will.

It's unclear what happened to the poem in the years immediately after Mr. Gordon received it. The woman who bequeathed it to the university was not one of his descendants.

The guard is one of many characters to be portrayed in a multidisciplinary performance by musicians, poets and actors directed by Ms. Campbell at the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company's third annual Louis Riel celebration today.

Candaian Press

'Let virtue be our soul's food'

A poem and introduction written by Louis Riel for his jailer about three weeks before Riel was hanged for treason:

Robert Gordon I beg your pardon for so having lept you waiting after some poor verses of mine. You know, my English is not fine. I speak it; but only very imperfectly.

The snow,
Which renders the ground all white,
From heaven, comes here below:
Its pine frozen drops invite us all
To white - keep our thoutht and our acts,
So that when our bodies do that,
Our merits, before God, be facts,
How many who, with good desires,
Have died and lost their souls to fires?
Good desires kept unpractic'd
Stand, before God, unnotic'd,
O Robert, let us be fond
Of virtue! Virtues abound
In every sort of good,
Let virtue be our soul's good.

Louis (David) Riel Oct. 27, 1885 Regina Jail


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