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The Prose And The Poet
by Phil Hall

FOR A MAN who tends to shrug off his role as a poet, Howard White is quietly revealing himself as an original and unshrug-offable one, albeit based (in very few poems. In The Men There Were Then (Pulp Press, 1983), and now in Writing in the Rain, we get to see some of this slim output. Poems must hang around in White`s head a long time, slowly defining themselves, or they must come out quickly and get set aside while he rushes, off to do something else. But already, two poems of his are among my head-anthology of Canada`s best: "Leveling the Revelstoke" (in the 1983 book) is a hauntingly casual, nut-tight lament; "Oolichan Grease" (here), with its challenging indigenous/historical compression, has already been celebrated and reprinted as a B.C. gem. What Writing in the Rain displays, finally at some length, is White`s voice; his lucid, populist prose style; his humour, curiosity, and knowledge - his importance beyond British Columbia. Seven of the historical essays here first appeared in issues of his magazine, Raincoast Chronicles. They are biographical cat and down-home scholarly by turns or at once. Do you know the story of Metlakatla, that "sleepy little Indian village` on Vancouver Island where inhabitants, encouraged by the missionary zeal of one William Duncan, reconstructed the buildings, mores, and trappings of Victorian England during the latter part of the 19th century? Do you know what a cadborosaurus is? Or why it should be believed in? If you think coastal tides must make for dull reading - think again. White`s essays incorporate stories and dialogue as effortlessly as they do dates, names, maps, diagrams, and photos. The poems also make room for stories that loop back upon themselves, and for caustic asides that just hang there: the one word I never heard in the workingclass town where I grew up was the word workingclass The only problem I see with White`s noble, seat-of-the-pants credentials is that therein sprouts a tendency toward self caricature, as evidenced by the comical, titleliteral drawing of the author on the cover. At best this is a manifestation of the dismissive shrug already mentioned. At worst it can underscore and diminish other aspects of a passage. White writes from within the weight and buoyancy of the lives of his neighbours. Social responsibility and the accountability of these texts to their subjects, then, become qualities by which to also praise this book. Along with Barry Broadfoot (who provides an introduction to White`s book), and the Ottawa Valley chronicler Joan Finnigan, White is doing us all a vital, self-effacing service by defending, preserving, and promoting the "regional" in our literature. His own writing`s worth may be obscured by this service, but at last we have a volume in which to consider and enjoy its range and quality.
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