Fans of Anne living in the United States continually show their appreciation for Anne’s home, Prince Edward Island, and often comment on their desire to visit the place. Now, with Facebook and Twitter, the evidence of their affection for the books and films, and the reason why it appeals to those who live thousands of miles away, across the sea or just beyond the border, has become more clear.
And the appreciation is two-sided. With our recent Heroines and Heroes contests, we have seen a great display of mutual adoration for American and other international heroes of fiction. Starting June 23, in celebration of both Canada’s Confederation – Canada Day (July 1st) and the United States' Independence Day (July 4th), three of Sullivan Entertainment’s western-themed dramas – Love on the Land, By Way of the Stars and Promise the Moon - will be on sale for 40% off, and viewers can buy the first two seasons of Wind at My Back for just $60.
In addition, we’ve selected a poem written by a famous American poet, Billy Collins, which addresses what he thinks about Canada. Interestingly, Collins has been described as having a “remarkably American voice”. He has served as both U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001-2003 and New York State Poet Laureate (2004-2006), and taught at several distinguished American universities.
As a Canadian, reading his take on Canada is an enlightening experience.
Canada
I am writing this on a strip of white birch bark
that I cut from a tree with a penknife.
There is no other way to express adequately
the immensity of the clouds that are passing over the farms
and wooded lakes of Ontario and the endless visibility
that hands you the horizon on a platter.
I am also writing this in a wooden canoe,
a point of balance in the middle of Lake Couchiching,
resting the birch bark against my knees.
I can feel the sun’s hands on my bare back,
but I am thinking of winter,
snow piled up in all the provinces
and the solemnity of the long grain-ships
that pass the cold months moored at Owen Sound.
O Canada, as the anthem goes,
scene of my boyhood summers,
you are the pack of Sweet Caporals on the table,
you are the dove-soft train whistle in the night,
you are the empty chair at the end of an empty dock.
You are the shelves of books in a lakeside cottage:
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson,
Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery,
So You’re Going to Paris! by Clara E. Laughlin,
and Peril Over the Airport, one
of the Vicky Barr Flight Stewardess series
by Helen Wills whom some will remember
as the author of the Cherry Ames Nurse stories.
What has become of the languorous girls
who would pass the long limp summer evenings reading
Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse,
Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse, and Cherry Ames, Flight Nurse?
Where are they now, the ones who shared her adventures
as a veterans’ nurse, private duty nurse, visiting nurse,
cruise nurse, night supervisor, mountaineer nurse,
dude ranch nurse (there is little she has not done),
rest home nurse, department store nurse,
boarding school nurse, and country doctor's nurse?
O Canada, I have not forgotten you,
and as I kneel in my canoe, beholding this vision
of a bookcase, I pray that I remain in your vast,
polar, North American memory.
You are the paddle, the snowshoe, the cabin in the pines.
You are Jean de Brébeuf with his martyr’s necklace of hatchet heads.
You are the moose in the clearing and the moosehead on the wall.
You are the rapids, the propeller, the kerosene lamp.
You are the dust that coats the roadside berries.
But not only that.
You are the two boys with pails walking along that road,
and one of them, the taller one minus the straw hat, is me.
To see other the many other poems posted on our sites, click here!
