In A Kind of Perseverance Margaret Avison shares with readers two lectures she gave at the University of Waterloo in 1993 -- ‘Misunderstanding is Damaging’ and ‘Understanding is Costly’. Thoughtfully and with precision she tells of her journey, often unfocussed, that led finally to the Christian conversion that is central to an understanding of her poetry.
At the 1963 Poetry Conference in Vancouver, Margaret Avison’s answer to the question ‘What makes a poet’s language distinctive?’ was: ‘It is saying ‘‘I am here and not not-there’’.’ In these Pascal Lectures, Margaret’s context is that of a Christian trying to live out and communicate her faith in a secular environment: ‘... if we are here, we cannot genuinely be there as well. But we can hope to be ‘‘not not-there’’.’
‘I am here and not not-there,’ then, describes Margaret’s stance both as a poet and as a Christian. She would often say that the poetry takes precedence over the poet; similarly the person of Christ takes precedence over the person talking about Him. She hoped her words would communicate to the reader/listener without being distorted by a personal response to her as writer/speaker.
In these lectures ‘Misunderstanding is Damaging’ and ‘Understanding is Costly’ Margaret’s context is specifically life as a Christian in a secular university. The tension between being ‘in the world’ yet ‘not of it’ meant she must listen to and live with compassion towards non-believers without compromising her own values, a duality which could easily lead to misunderstanding and hurt on both sides.
Interestingly, some titles of Margaret’s poetry collections reflect her aim to hold the eternal and the temporal, the ‘I am here’ and the ‘not not-there’, in healthy tension throughout her years as a Christian: Not Yet but Still, Always Now, even No Time in its double meaning. She was continually working out her ‘own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Phil.2:12, NKJV). These lectures give us a rare glimpse into the process, which is the practice of ‘a kind of perseverance’.