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More Richly in Earth – A Poet’s Search for Mary MacLeod by Marilyn Bowering

McGill-Queen’s University Press (2024)

A Review by Cynthia Rogerson

I first came across Bowering when I read her second novel Visible Worlds in 2008, longlisted for the Orange Prize. I’ve followed her career ever since, enjoying her poetry collections as much as her fiction and essays.

Bowering has written about her current obsession – the 17th century poet Mary MacLeod from Skye.  Why was she so haunted by a writer most of the world was happy to forget? It’s a little mysterious even to herself, though she can date the interest to a holiday she took in the Hebrides many years ago.  One day, with time to kill, her husband wandered one way and she wandered another. She didn’t know it at the time, but the place she paused to admire the view and let her thoughts wander happened to be the place Mary where used to live. Was this a kind of visitation? MacLeod’s posthumous urge to be in people’s consciousness again? Bowering never states anything quite so mystical, and yet there it is - since that moment she began her quest to discover as much as she could about Mary MacLeod.

She tracked down and studied archived documents in the Library of Scotland as well as interviewed literary academics and Gaelic poets. One of the things she discovered is that much of what is known about MacLeod is up for debate.  Scholars disagree and contemporary Gaelic poets spout contradictory versions of her life.  A woman bard in those days was viewed with suspicion by some and feared by others. It is well documented that Mary herself instructed that she be buried face down – an odd request, given that position is often associated with witch burials.

Because Bowering is a writer with integrity, she never jumps to dramatic or sentimental conclusions. She speculates intuitively and sensitively.  Her theories feel well-considered and plausible. In fact, MacLeod came to life for me so convincingly that even now, a month after reading the book, I feel I know her (and like her).  In addition, because Bowering is a poet interested in the form, she examines MacLeod’s lines in depth – both form and content.  She magnifies each word and line and considers numerous meanings.  Many chapters contain a MacLeod poem or extract, so the reader can also experience her work.

Against these literary explorations are the Scottish journeys Bowering took with her husband over decades.  The place descriptions and the feel of each era – not only in her life, but of society at that time – are exquisitely evoked. I felt nostalgic reading them, even though they weren’t my own past journeys. It made me remember how travelling can shake one’s preconceptions out of ruts.

But these are not the only treats.  Intertwined between Bowering’s forensic search for MacLeod clues, her immersion in the poetry and the Scottish road trips, are threads of Bowering’s own distant past. In particular, the times she spent as a young child in the company of her grandmother. These passages widen the book considerably, and it becomes about the nature of memory and story-telling in general.  Perhaps her curiosity about MacLeod was the impetus to unwind to her own beginnings as a poet.  These short memoir chapters are poetic and narrative masterpieces. If there were more of them, they could stand alone in a book about the legacy of Northern European emigration to Canada from a female perspective.  In the context of More Richly in Earth, they give a deeper context to MacLeod’s history, for Bowering is also a woman poet formed by a culture which has historically undervalued, misunderstood or feared creative women. These chapters offer glimpses into the genesis of all stories.

I am not a poet or an academic or a militant feminist or a prolific poetry reader. I’m not even a big fan of non-fiction. Nevertheless I read this book with intense pleasure. It felt like a detective novel in the most aesthetically pleasing sense. I wanted to know more about MacLeod, as well as Bowering.

More Richly in Earth is short, rich and nourishing.  I recommend reading it slowly, the way proper Christmas cake should be savoured slowly to enjoy the many layers and nuances. It’s too good to race through – you will not want it to end.

 

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