Merrybegot

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

Drawing on the oral tradition of Newfoundland storytellers, Mary Dalton
paints clear pictures of “the salt of the earth,” a sturdy,
hardworking, sea-dependent people. Her poems incorporate vocabulary that
is unique to Newfoundlanders. Even the title of the
collection—“merrybegot,” meaning a child born outside of
marriage—is a wonderful word.

Dalton portrays people she met or heard about while growing up in
Conception Bay. They are people who state their minds and live a hard
life with determination tinged with a belief in fate. Nature plays an
integral part in their day-to-day living and dying. Even the shortest,
simplest verse tells a story: “We hated them mad rocks, yes, / Worse
even than a hog’s nose -/ The saltwater hove up out of itself /
Spinning out and up like a wild top -/ Mad Moll and Crazy Betty, / Snaky
with their sea-weed hair, / Slimy and slobbering,/ With the water moving
over their heads. / That lapping over and over. / A sea drooling for
blood.”

The poet says it best herself as she describes the collages of words
she has created: “They’re out to capture a music, a vigour, a wild
joie de vivre, a sense of the tangly quality of community connections as
reflected in little bursts, out-rushes of verbal energy.” Dalton has
not included a glossary of the Newfoundland-specific words because she
rightly believes that the meanings can be figured out through the
reading of the poems. She also hopes that people will make an effort to
search out The Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

Dalton teaches English at Memorial University. Merrybegot is her third
collection of poetry.