A fine BC political poet
Milton Acorn: An Essay
by Ron Dart
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Milton Acorn (probably one of our finest High Tory political poets) was on the west Coast from 1963-1968. Acorn came west (from Toronto and earlier the Maritimes), consciously so, to challenge the trendy Tish (American-Canadian anarchists) poetic movement, read his nationalist poetry at the “Advance Mattress coffee house” (on Alma-10th Avenue where I once lived while attending UBC). Acorn was a contributing editor of the anarchist and still published The Georgia Straight. It did not take him long to see through the reactionary ideology of Tish and The Georgia Straight and his deeper poetic and political vision emerged, making him a travelling Gulliver of sorts.
I’ve Tasted My Blood was published in 1969, and many thought the poetic missive would take home the Governor General’s Award in 1970. George Bowering and Gwendolyn MacEwen won the Awards, and there was an immediate reaction to this disappointment. Robin Mathews played a significant role in blowing the whistle on the decision, and many others joined the opposition, and Acorn was offered the first Peoples Poet Award in 1970 as a stinging rebuke to being bypassed for the GG Award. And, Acorn did win the much-prized GG Award in 1976. Milton was probably one of the finest Canadian Anglican poets of the 20th Century, he was offered an honoured doctorate from the University of PEI alongside former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1977 and he is buried in St. Peter’s Anglican Cemetery in Charlottetown.
Al Purdy was instrumental in the bringing together I’ve Tasted My Blood, and he wrote a lengthy and informative introduction to Acorn’s collection of poems. Most of I’ve Tasted My Blood is poetry, and poetry at the highest, most challenging, and suggestive level, but there are two short stories at the centre of the book. ‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ and ‘The Red and Green Pony’ are Acorn at his parabolic and storytelling best. Purdy wrote “the stories are not ones that could be written by any other poet in Canada. They are a complete surprise, especially coming from a word-buster like Acorn.”
Purdy thought that both ‘The Legend of the Winged Dingus’ and ‘The Red and Green Pony’ are literary masterpieces and only Acorn could have composed such evocative stories. This short essay will reflect on the content of ‘The Red and Green Pony’ and ponder the political and ecological meaning of it.
The Red and Green Pony is one of the most important Canadian political parables. Written in the 1950s, Acorn’s tale is a well-told political fable that records and anticipates much that was about to unfold in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The leading protagonist is Tommy, and there is good reason to suspect that Tommy could be identified with Tommy Douglas (voted the most important Canadian in the 20th century in a CBC survey in 2004 and still on secret and classified files of the RCMP and CSIS). Acorn was holding Douglas high in a time when most reviled, opposed and sought to topple Douglas through a variety of questionable means. Douglas, for those who do not know, was the father-in-law of Donald Sutherland and the grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland.
The Red and Green Pony has a dynamic momentum to it, and it is divided into five sections that intricately interlock with one another. Section 1 walks the reader into a dream sequence in which Tommy enters a forest. The trees and leaves have a way of speaking to Tommy in this magical realm about things that went to his deeper longings and soul. It was in this dream world that Tommy met the red and green pony that was both red and green at the same time. It was hard to believe, even in a dream, that a pony could be both red and green. A conversation ensued between Tommy and the pony about the actual reality of the pony. There is no doubt that Tommy is drawn to the feisty pony, but he is young on the journey, and he is not quite sure what to make of the vision and conversation with the pony. The hair of the pony was ‘tangled’ and Tommy noted that it needed “combing.” It was just a matter of time before “the dream was gone,” “he was lying in bed,” “it was day and not as bright as the dream,” and Tommy had to remember to bring a “comb and a hairbrush” when he next returned. This first section has a naïve visionary quality about it, but there is much in it about the tangled idealism of the political left that needed combing to formally engage the political process in a meaningful manner. Most knew what ‘Red’ meant on the political spectrum, and ecological ‘Green’ was just emerging. The political pony that Acorn envisioned in this parable would be a fusion of left-of-centre ‘Red’ and ‘Green.. But there would be opposition from the old guard. It is in the next section that the dialectic of thesis becomes antithesis and a waking from the dream occurs.
Section 2 shifts from the dream world to a sort of waking state. Tommy is now in his parents’ home, and he is about to join them for breakfast. His father is reading a paper, and his initial comments are “CCF’s running a candidate here again. Are they ever going to learn that we here in Ontario don’t want them?” Tommy’s mother is a faint echo of his father’s political views. His father then mentions the USA: “Yanks kicking up a fuss about Negroes going to white schools again.” Tommy’s mother tries to move the discussion from newspaper politics to Tommy’s need to be clean and eat a proper breakfast. There is no doubt that Tommy comes from a family that is right of centre on the political spectrum. It is just a matter of time before Tommy blurted that he had had a dream, and in the dream he had seen a red and green pony. His father has no problem with the dream provided it remains a dream. “Now did you ever see a pony on the street with red and green patches?” Tommy wants to make it clear that the dream was real, and it has significant meaning. The mother makes clear “it was only a dream.” Both father and mother become quite worried that Tommy might confuse a dream with reality and begin to act rather foolish “on the street.” The conversation ended, and Tommy went upstairs and looked out the window. He saw a sign that said “Warning. No swimming or fishing. Water polluted. Order of Ontario Department of Health.” Tommy was late for breakfast that day, and he soon forgot about the red and green pony. The day soon passed, “but when Tommy went to sleep that night he put a comb under his pillow.”
It does not take too much reflection to see that Tommy is Tommy Douglas of the CCF, Tommy’s vision often collides with an established view of reality, and the red and green embody leftist thought and ecological issues, and the wild and tangled hair on the solid body (that needed combing) reflected all the diverse and often prickly elements in the political left that Douglas had to comb. The fact that this short story was written in the 1950s makes it abundantly clear that Acorn anticipated many of the substantive issues that were about to emerge on the public stage in the 1960s and 1970s and that we still face today. The dialectical antithesis becomes a more demanding synthesis.
Section 3 walks the reader back into the surreal dream drama of Tommy. The leaves greet Tommy with great joy as he enters the world where the “flowered branches” and the “tufts of the grass” swung over him like “pony-tails.” The red and green pony is there to meet Tommy, and he inquires about the comb—it had been brought and Tommy brushes all the tangles and knots on the pony’s hair. It is just a matter of time before another conversation begins between Tommy and the pony about Tommy’s father and his right of centre political ideas. The question is raised about whose facts and view of reality should be listened to and why. Who defines what is dream and what reality? Tommy bonds closer and closer to the red and green pony, and he is soon on the pony’s back and riding the friendly yet energetic animal with much delight and fondness. This third section ends with the dream over, and Tommy waking to the sound and sight of a starling on his windowsill. Tommy looks down at the “polluted river” and a world in which “ugliness was coiled with beauty.” The vision has definitely deepened and solidified for Tommy here, and the experience of the dream world is set in stark and graphic contrast to the lived reality his mother, father and the economic and ecological setting.
Section 4 takes Tommy and the interested reader back into the world of Tommy’s parents. The red and green pony is now much more real to Tommy, and his interpretation of what he sees and does is informed by such a reality. Tommy’s mother tends to come across in the story as warmer and more affectionate, whereas his father is stern, dogmatic, and ideological. Tommy’s mother finds him down by the polluted river and urges him to return home for dinner. A family feud soon emerges between mother and father about what to do with Tommy’s increasing interest and belief in the reality of a red and green pony. The intensity of the clash becomes so pronounced that Tommy runs away after declaring that he has seen and believes in the Red and Green Pony with capital letters. The commitment to the vision is now dividing the family and parents.
Section 5 brings the tensions between idealism and realism together in a thoughtful manner. It is Nature again that has become Tommy’s real family, and it is in the arms of Nature that Tommy is comforted and befriended. It is Tommy’s mother that comes searching for him, and there is a poignant episode in which Tommy watches a “long legged wolf spider” attack and kill a harmless bug on a tender grass-stem. The Red and Green Pony appears again and wonders if Tommy has brought the hairbrush. Tommy had brought the hairbrush, and he began combing out the deeper knots on the pony, and at the same time he can vaguely hear his parents. There is a distinctive sense in which Tommy is living in two worlds and he needs to know which he will heed and why. There is a surrealistic scene in which the Red and Green Pony runs straight through Tommy’s parents (they seem to have no substance), and he then leaves Tommy with a few comments to ponder as the tale draws to a close. “To listen properly you’ve got to do it and not talk about it.” Much of this story is about who will be listened to and why. Tommy is pulled in various directions through the mini-drama, and there are consequences to live with for not hearing and heeding the best voices. The final lines conclude and sum up the deeper message of the fable. “Where are we going, Red and Green Pony?” he asked. “All the way,” said the pony. “Often and often you’ve got to go all the way so you can properly get back.” There is something in the final few words that has echoes of Plato’s famous cave parable, and I’m sure Acorn was quite aware of this updated version of Plato’s synthesis of philosophy and politics in a mythic form.
The Red and Green Pony hovers on the edge of an allegory—it is part myth, part fable, part parable. The message cannot be missed. The tale is about the process that must be gone through to see through different and more informed eyes. The transition means letting go of much only to receive much. The pilgrimage often means going all the way before the journey back can be taken. We might wonder what going all the way means, but this is the mystery and uncertainty that Acorn leaves us with as the short story ends.
It is significant to note that Milton Acorn’s religious roots were Anglican, and Tommy Douglas’ were Baptist. Both had leanings, even in the 1950s, in the direction of both red and green, and, in this sense, the common good of both the land and people were united in one integrated whole. The Red and Green Pony is a classic Canadian political tale. It is rather sad that so few know such an evocative political parable. There is a significant sense in which Acorn’s The Red and Green Pony and Douglas’ classic parable, Cats and Mice, have much in common, and the obvious convergence of these not to be forgotten tales make two points abundantly clear: art, religion, and politics should not be isolated from one another, and equally important, faith and politics need not unite and merge into a republican brand of conservatism. The more we are immersed in the life, activism, and writings of Tommy Douglas and Milton Acorn, the more we will be walked into a unique Canadian synthesis of faith, literature, and politics that has still much to commend it. I might add, by way of a departing conclusion that Milton Acorn viewed himself as a committed Tory with deep roots in Maritime culture and history. Such a notion of Toryism is almost the exact opposite of what is called “conservatism” these days, much less the more extreme aberration “libertarianism” that so bedevils is in today’s culture wars.
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Ron Dart has taught in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley since 1990. He was on staff with Amnesty International in the 1980s. He has published 40 books including Erasmus: Wild Bird (Create Space, 2017) and The North American High Tory Tradition (American Anglican Press, 2016). [Editor’s note: Ron Dart has recently reviewed books by Glenn Woodsworth & David Woodsworth, Marc Bourdon, Paul Zizka, John Baldwin, Diane Kalen-Sukra, and Stanley Munn & Patricia Cucman for The British Columbia Review. He has also contributed four essays: Canadian mountain culture and mountaineering, From Jalna to Timber Baron: Reflections on the life of H.R. MacMillan, Roderick Haig-Brown & Al Purdy, and Save Swiss Edelweiss Village.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
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Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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