MASCULINIDANS-30

5 June 2011

Conversation between Gregory Scofield and Sam McKegney at the Trader’s Grill at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, during the Northwords Writers’ Festival.

GREGORY SCOFIELD (Cree/Métis) is a poet, teacher, social worker, and youth worker whose maternal ancestry can be traced back five generations to the Red River Settlement and to Kinesota, Manitoba. He has published an autobiography, Thunder Through My Veins: Memories of a Métis Childhood (Harper Flamingo Press, 1999) and several books of poetry, including Native Canadiana: Songs from the Urban Rez (Polestar, 1996), Love Medicine and One Song / Sâkihtowin-maskihkiy êkwa pêyak-nikamowin (Kegedonce Press, 2008), Singing Home the Bones (Polestar, 2005), and Louis: The Heretic Poems (Nightwood Editions, 2011).

GREGORY SCOFIELD: Coming to my own masculinity began with me having to work to be in touch with my own body. Because at one point I was so disconnected with any of the male role models in my life that it was like being in a very asexual place, you know? So part of being able to get in touch with my masculinity was being able to specifically get in touch with my body. I started working out, I started building up parts of my body, I started feeling the places where I was physically strong. And there was a kind of liberation within that process—a liberation through claiming. It was like, okay, this is my body, and I’m starting to claim parts of my body, other than my male parts. I’m claiming other parts of my body because I don’t have an issue with the emotionality; I don’t have an issue with the spirituality. But it’s really the physicality. And so once I was able to do that, I felt like I was physically strong and able to protect myself. It’s very different when you go into a situation where you feel as though you are protected. You negotiate very differently with life and with people. And in my case, I began to negotiate very differently with other men and women in my life. And in being able to negotiate differently, I was able to start coming into my own power. And from there, of course, other pieces started to fall into place.

Finding my dad, finding who he was, finding what type of person he was, being able to forgive him and all of the other men—the terrible ones, if you will—enabled me to put them in a place of powerlessness. I was able to now protect myself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. I was able to look after myself. And once I was in that space, of course, I was open to create and write.

SM: Colonization has been described as a process of alienation from the body. How does one reintegrate elements of selfhood? You illustrated this for yourself as a process of taking ownership over your body in a particular way, but how can one encourage embodied experience for others?

GS: When we’re talking about masculinity, the male context, that kind of recognition would have required, for me, probably one of two things: First, a sense of love or of being loved in an unconditional way. So I’m not talking about being loved for sex, I’m not talking about being loved for what you can provide. I’m talking about just being loved for your whole, individual self. Second, it would require an offer of confidence and encouragement to find self-confidence. Because, really, it’s within that confidence that a person is able to make good decisions. And really, the decision that you’re making, in this context, is around trust. Do I trust this person? Do I not trust this person? So, without confidence, without love, people are oftentimes in situations where they make decisions based upon need, which can lead to unfortunate results.

SM: When I initially talked to one of the writers interviewed in this project, she said she was very uncomfortable as a woman talking about masculinities, saying something along the lines of, “It’s not my place to discuss these things.” And I suggested to her that ideas about being a good man don’t just come from men. Your poetry often attests to the profound influence of the women in your life in providing foundations for you to become the man you’ve become. So my question is, are there roles for women in creating space for manhood and evaluating what proper masculinity ought to be?

GS: In my case, my women—in particular, my mom, my auntie, my grandmother, the three major women in my life—really had no choice but to provide for me and foster what they thought would be the healthiest things for me. You also have to keep in mind that I grew up primarily with a mother whose young adulthood was in the sixties. She was very well-read, she was very astute on matters of politics and Eastern philosophies and religions. You could talk to her about anything. So of course she really fostered reading and learning in me. Being a product of her generation, my mom was very open to me becoming whatever I wanted to be. She never led me in any one direction. You know, she never pushed me to become this, that, or the other thing. If anything, she really took a step back when it came to my own personal decision-making.

Because I lost her so early on—I mean, she was forty-eight and I was twenty-six when she passed away—I wasn’t able to go through the process of figuring out my sexuality and saying, “Mom, this is who I am,” and what have you. But honestly, in hindsight, I remember these conversations with her and she would drop these little bombs—not even bombs, but these little permissions—every now and then, saying things like, “You know, honey, I don’t care who you love, as long as you’re safe, healthy, and happy.” And of course, I had no idea what she was talking about. I was just like, “Oh Mom, my love life isn’t of any importance to you!” But in hindsight, basically what she was doing was saying, “My boy, be whoever you’re going to be and be the best you simply can be.”

And, you know, it was really the same thing with my auntie. My auntie was a wonderful storyteller and a wonderful entertainer and a wonderful nurturer, so she was able to foster those qualities in me. Growing up with her, I learned to cook, I learned to sew, I learned to do bead work, I learned to scrub the house from top to bottom, I learned how to fold clothes properly—all of these things, so of course they have played a huge role in my life. They certainly were the ones who lifted up the toilet seat and taught me to pee standing up. They weren’t the ones that, at fifteen or sixteen, gave me condoms and taught me not to get anybody pregnant. That was missing. But in an odd way, I didn’t seem to miss it. You don’t miss what you don’t know you don’t have, right?

But the thing that became glaringly clear—and I’m going to go back to this—is that I didn’t know how to sit and have a conversation with another man. I didn’t know how to do that. And especially an older man. I didn’t know how to be comfortable to do that. My first instinct is I wanted to get up and go away and have it finished, be done.

SM: Do you feel that was influenced both by the absence of your biological father and by the violence of some of the men that were…

GS: Absolutely. Oh yeah, absolutely. For me, it was a longing for what I didn’t have and an absolute loathing for the things that I did. So that is a hard dichotomy to navigate. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life reconciling that. I’ll spend the rest of my life finding ways to come to terms with that and to heal that. And, of course, a lot of that—without sounding pie-in-the-sky about it—is forgiveness. Probably one of my biggest inspirations in looking at my own masculinity has been working to become the type of man that I would like to have had in my life. So to become the type of father to my nieces and nephews, to be the type of lover to my partner, to be the type of friend to my friends, to be the type of big brother that I could be, to be the type of little brother that I could be. That’s what I’ve marked in my growing and evolving masculinity—to strive to be those things.

PROBABLY ONE OF MY BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS IN LOOKING AT MY OWN MASCULINITY HAS BEEN WORKING TO BECOME THE TYPE OF MAN THAT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE.

SM: In the last section of Thunder Through My Veins, you describe cradling yourself in your own “fatherly arms” as an image of coming into strength, of becoming the father needed by your own childhood self. Is that part of the same process?

GS: Absolutely. It reverts right back to what we were discussing about the physical strength in this part of my—I don’t know if it’s a poetic ideology, if it’s a childhood ideology, if it’s just an imagining—but part of being that small boy that I once was carries this idea of a fatherly type that is physically strong who is able to hold you and shelter you from the world, yet reassures you with this kind of quiet love. That’s always been part of the process and it all started physically. It’s like I had to take one of those senses and I really had to hone that one sense before I could go on to the other ones. It’s almost like taking steps in a way in order to become the kind of man that I wanted to become.

What’s really neat about finding my dad—and believe you me, my dad certainly had his faults—but physically, my dad was a big guy, you know? According to my stepmom, my dad and I share a lot of things in common. My dad was very mischievous. My dad could be very charming. My dad was very bright. He was very protective. He was very just. So it feels quite wonderful to know that those qualities that I’ve fostered within myself, had I had the opportunity, I would’ve had parts of that from him as well. And, you know, I’ve certainly come to terms in this particular life that that was not meant to be a part of my path. So I’ve been able to stop that whole ceremony of grieving, and I’ve been able to work towards this ceremony of celebration, of being able to say, “I also embody these things.”

SM: Did your perception of any of this change when you found out that your father did seek to find you?

GS: It’s a powerful thing to be able to ask those questions: “Why? Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?” Each of us as children—whether it’s with mothers, whether it’s with fathers—each of us as children inevitably at some point has the burning question: “Why?” And the particular poem that you’re referring to was basically me being able to ask my dad, in spirit, why he didn’t do certain things.1

And so how did I feel, you’re asking, when I found out that his vacancy from my life was not necessarily his whole idea, 100 percent? What’s really important about that—and I think in the context of what you’re working on with masculinity—is that there is absolutely no way that I can find only my dad’s story, because in finding my dad’s story, right beside it was my mom’s story. There’s an old saying that goes, “There’s three sides to every story: his story, her story, and the truth.” So, what happened in that situation was, yes, I certainly got to find out my dad’s story, and I certainly got to find out a lot more of my mother’s story, and things I wasn’t supposed to find out, or that she didn’t want me to find out—which, I will say, she had every right not to tell me. There were things I was not supposed to find out. And then underneath all that stuff was the truth about why. Why was he not a present figure in my life?

And so, in finding that truth, there was certainly a lot of reconciliation and a lot of emotion towards both my parents. There were times that I was equally angry at both of them. There were times that I took the side of one over the other. There were times that I would take the other side. There were times that I was incredibly proud of one. There were times that I was incredibly proud of the other. And there were times that I loved them both immensely. And, at some point, I was able to reconcile that besides being my mom and my dad, they were both individuals… individuals who were allowed to make mistakes.

AT SOME POINT, YOU STOP ASKING “WHY?” AND YOU SIT WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF “BECAUSE.” YOU SIT WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE AND TRY TO APPLY IT TO BEING A BETTER PERSON.

But the bottom line is that despite everything that my childhood was punctuated with, I was extremely fortunate to grow up with a mother who loved me tremendously and who worked diligently to keep me from being lost in a system where so many other kids were lost. And somewhere in the world, which happened to be England, there was also a man there who thought about me a great deal and who continued to question his availability, or lack thereof, in my life. So, at some point, you stop asking “why?” and you sit with the knowledge of “because.” You sit with that knowledge and try to apply it to being a better person.

There are wonderful things that I share with my male friends that are completely male-based. We deal with them because we are male and we are products of a system and an environment that has taught us we have to behave a certain way. And so that is how we approach things. And there is solidarity in that. There is solidarity in knowing that we can transcend those places, and that we can do them as strong, healthy, kind, brilliant men. That we can forge ahead, and not be our fathers, or not—I can’t say not be our fathers, because it diminishes them somehow—but not be limited by what our fathers were limited by and not be limited by what our grandfathers were limited by. And the same thing can be said to be true with the women in our lives.

SM: One of the central difficulties of the project that I’m working on emerges from labelling and biological determinism: the idea that the male-female binary is a form of limitation. And in queer and Two-Spirit theory a lot of work deconstructs that binary opposition. But what I’ve noticed is that, in doing so, it often effaces maleness. Is there a danger or a cost when we try to avoid maleness because of its connection to patriarchal history?

GS: First of all, in relation to the ideology of Two-Spirited theory, I always back away from that three-hundred fold. I mean I don’t consider myself Two-Spirited. I don’t really work within that context, if you will. Not that I’m disparaging of it. It’s just that I think it’s very multi-layered insofar as the politicization of the word and how it’s come about and its interpretation and its reinvention and the reinterpretation of things.

I see very much what you’re talking about in regards to the lack of male representation within that context. I think basically you answered your own question because I think there is a paternalistic, misogynistic, kind of loathing, in a way. I won’t say fear because I think people have worked really hard to get past that fear. But I think that there’s such a loathing of historical oppressive maleness. And there’s still a lot of work to do to stem the societal—and I’m not just talking cultural, I’m talking societal—representation of those binaries of maleness and femaleness that you’re talking about because there’s still this stigma. There’s still an expectation about what denotes masculinity and strength. I mean, look to the sports that we see on TV. Look to how our sport figures conduct themselves, look to the simple debates about head shots in hockey. Until there’s a gentleness woven into that expectation, then it’s going to be one of those things that’s constantly in tension, especially by a group of people who—and I’m not just talking Two-Spirited—in these discussions around masculinity, look more towards the maternal.

SM: Can I ask you about embodiment and sensuality in Love Medicine and One Song? In “Ôchîm ♦ His Kiss” the kiss of the beloved is described as “maskwa pawing / all his winter hunger,” and the speaker in the poem continues: “so I yield up roots and berries / and lie back / my whole abundant self” (10).2 It’s a beautiful image that demonstrates agency because it’s a decision: “I yield up.” And yet to yield oneself up is to be totally vulnerable. Can you speak to the tensions involved in that need for physical intimacy along with the danger such intimacy might bring?

GS: The best metaphor that I can give is that it’s the scariest ride at a carnival. You wanna go on it, but you don’t wanna go on it. You buy tickets for it, and you walk around the entire carnival, doing all the other rides, eating, doing everything but going on that ride. So finally, it’s getting darker and it’s getting darker, and the lights have come up and the food smells are all around and you’ve got one ticket left. And it’s getting time to go home, but there’s that niggling feeling—I really really really wanna go on that ride.

So you look at this person that you’re with and you go, you know what? I think I’m ready, I think I wanna go on this ride. And so you’re waiting in line, the anticipation is building. You’re questioning yourself, “why am I doing this, should I be doing this,” yet at the same time, you’re really titillated. And you’re really filled with this anticipation and this ball in your stomach and you just don’t know what’s going to happen. The line moves. You and your friend are being ushered into one of the cars and the door is being locked. The gears are being revved up and you start to move. At that moment, you’ve completely yielded up your entire self. At this point, there is no going back. You cannot withdraw into yourself. You cannot get out. And even if you scream, they’re not going to stop anyway. In that split second, you’re thinking, “Oh my god, why did I do this? Why did I do this? What am I going to do?” And then at some point, you just absolutely let go, and say, “Well, I’m doing it.” And then the car starts to flip and you go upside down and the blood rushes to your head and you’re screaming and you’re laughing and you realize you do have a bar to hang on to and that at some point it’s going to be over and it’s okay and at some point very soon you will be upright again. At some point, it will stop and you’ll be on the ground, the arm will lift up, the door will open, you’ll stagger out of the cage, and you’ll be dizzy and you’ll be very grateful and so happy that you went on it. And then you’ll be ready to go home.

So, to me, that’s what that poem is like. In order to experience the absolute and utter jubilation of being turned upside down, you need to first of all say, “It’ll be okay, I think I can be turned upside down. I will be grounded again at some point.” But really what you’ve done is given yourself permission. You’ve allowed yourself to be vulnerable. And in allowing yourself that vulnerability, you’ve allowed yourself that experience. And allowing yourself that experience, you’ve allowed yourself all of the things that have come with that experience: the terror, the jubilation, the excitement, the panic. You’ve allowed yourself all of these amazing emotions, which once you’ve landed again permeate, they just radiate throughout your body and they become a part of your knowing.

IN ALLOWING YOURSELF THAT VULNERABILITY, YOU’VE...ALLOWED YOURSELF ALL OF THESE AMAZING EMOTIONS, WHICH ONCE YOU’VE LANDED AGAIN PERMEATE, THEY JUST RADIATE THROUGHOUT YOUR BODY AND THEY BECOME A PART OF YOUR KNOWING.

SM: There are many poems in that same collection that linger over elements of the body in a way that remaps the body as a form of landscape. They claim the body in a way—they claim its beauty and they celebrate its beauty. At the same time, they bring in images that don’t tend to exist in poetry. They show the erotic potential of muskeg, of frogs, of slugs, of rocks. Are those two processes intertwined? The recognition of the landscape as significant, sacred, and sensual, and at the same time recognition of the body?

GS: They’re one and the same. One of the most amazing experiences I had while I was working on that particular book was working on a poem called “Ceremonies.” And I was sitting and I was writing, and I can’t tell you if it was late or if it was early or what the day was or what have you, but the image, the idea was—I was thinking about the sweat lodge, and I was thinking about the symbolism of sweating and its benefits and just how long it had been since I had actually gone to a sweat. And I was thinking about this, and the lines came to me, “My mouth, the lodge, you come to sweat.” And I thought, I can’t write that. I can’t write that because that’s taking a sacred ceremony and sexualizing it. And then I started to think… the sweat is a sacred purification. It’s the womb. It’s the womb of Mother Earth. You’re being born and you come out. And what I’m describing is just as much a ceremony, is just as sacred. “I heat the stones between your legs. My mouth, the lodge, you come to sweat.” That was the line. And that embodied, that one simple act, embodied an incredible ceremony. It embodied an incredible sacredness, and I took a stand on it and said, “This is sacred, and this is what Love Medicine, this is what these poems are about.”

And so what you’re saying about the land, about the ceremonies, about the things that come from that land, it’s all interconnected. The muskeg, the reeds, the rocks, the smell of the earth, the bogs, all of these things are medicines from the earth, and those are the things that we possess within our own bodies. We don’t have to look very far. Parts of our bodies are muskeg. Parts of our bodies, there are frogs there. And it was really just throwing those physical elements up and being able to give them to the spiritual energies where they exist. To me, people have oftentimes taken the spirit out of sex and sexuality. And if they haven’t entirely taken out the spirit of sex and sexuality, they’ve long since stopped looking to the ceremonies that accompany those things. When you think of these sacred ceremonies—of give-aways, naming ceremonies, fasting—sex and sexuality is all a part of that. You name things on someone’s body. You fast those things, you hunger them, you crave them, you sing those things, you dance those things, you taste those things, you feast them.

PEOPLE HAVE OFTENTIMES TAKEN THE SPIRIT OUT OF SEX AND SEXUALITY. AND IF THEY HAVEN’T ENTIRELY TAKEN OUT THE SPIRIT OF SEX AND SEXUALITY, THEY’VE LONG SINCE STOPPED LOOKING TO THE CEREMONIES THAT ACCOMPANY THOSE THINGS.

SM: Young people often don’t have people telling them to treat the body as sacred, to find sensuality in ways that are celebratory. Do you seek to reach those audiences as well with your poetry? How can your songs be heard by those who most need them, I guess is what I’m asking.

GS: I sing different songs to that audience. Not because what we’re talking about is not appropriate for them, but I sing different songs to them because what we’re talking about takes a long time to come into, if you will. So I sing songs to them or read poetry that aims to inspire them to find their own experience and be able to articulate that. Because sex and sexuality is still so new to them, and rightfully so, that it remains a private thing. And they need to be able to hold that privately and do what they want to do with it and not necessarily have to share it or talk about it. But just because they’re maybe not talking about one little area doesn’t mean we’re not talking about other areas—and they’re all rivers that lead to the same lake.

SM: It’s interesting to me how poetry is so private, so intimate, especially when read in solitude, and yet it can also be so social. When I attend a reading by a gifted reader of poetry, I feel like I inhabit my body differently. I feel like a more embodied person when I’m in that moment of engagement because there’s the sound, there’s rhythm, volume, and cadence, there’s the visual element, and there’s the audience of other bodies being interconnected through a common experience. Do you feel that the poetry does different things when it’s in its book form versus when you are reading it aloud?

GS: Poetry does different things when it’s lifted off of the page. When I’m reading the poetry, I’m essentially presenting it the way that I wrote it. I’m very mobile when I write. I have a very hard time sitting still. I always say that poetry is like a rattle. Our bodies, as poets, are like a rattle that needs to be shaken to move the words off the page. Your body needs to vibrate and you need to shake it up and you need to get the sound going. There are so many different sounds that you can make with that rattle. So, I guess, the same could be said for those words actually being delivered onto the page. Maybe you’re shaking your rattle and all of those little seeds are spilling over the page and you have to arrange them.

The primary difference between the written word and the spoken word of the same piece is that without having heard me, you’re going to read the poem with your own filters. You’re going to be reading the poem in the voice in which you would read or maybe the voice in which you’ve once heard someone else read. And what becomes different is not that there isn’t a spirit in the words on the page, but rather that when you are reading, you are being charged with sorting through the words and stanzas to find the spirit. Whereas when somebody’s reading aloud and they’re shaking the rattle, the spirit is being flung, the spirit is being directed, it is being moved around the room, so you have no choice but to move. It’s like a wave. You have no choice but to move with that spirit and to be taken by it. And the spirit will resonate with you, even after the poet stops speaking. That’s what I actually take a great deal of responsibility with: I know that I’m rattling and I know that I’m spinning the spirit of the poem around the room like a lasso. I’m spinning it and I have to be careful with that lasso because I want it to envelop as many people as possible and I want the spirit to resonate with them long after we’re done.

1.The poem referenced here is “If” from the collection Singing Home the Bones (Polestar, 2005).

2. Maskwa is the Cree word for bear.