Fifteen months ago, Doug Beardsley didn’t know if he was going to live or die.
But one thing was for sure — he knew he was going to write.
Victoria’s Beardsley, 73, is a retired university professor and writer who has just published his ninth volume of poetry. Swimming With Turtles (Thistledown Press) will be launched at Munro’s Books on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., with Beardsley reading five poems.
In person, he’s a soft-spoken, unassuming guy. However, Beardsley told me a story that revealed his passion for poetry most dramatically.
In late 2012, he underwent surgery for prostate cancer. A few days later, something went haywire. Beardsley had no pulse and his blood pressure plummeted. He was taken to Royal Jubilee Hospital’s intensive-care unit.
His doctor decided to operate once more.
“He said to my wife: ‘I’ll phone you at 2 a.m. But I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to find,’ ” Beardsley said.
It turned out he had suffered a blot clot, which blocked circulation to his lungs and heart. Meanwhile, litres of blood had accumulated in his stomach region.
Beardsley stayed in intensive care three long nights. He didn’t really know what was going on. But — get this — whenever he came to, he wrote on a pad of paper beside his bed.
That’s because Beardsley knew that, no matter what the future held, he was definitely having an interesting experience. During his intensive-care stay he experienced three vivid dreams. He was beside a stream, where water flowed over large rocks. Beardsley had this same dream three times — only each time the water was a different colour: red, blue and then emerald green.
“When I talked to a Jungian psychologist about this, he just went nuts,” Beardsley said with a chuckle.
Swimming With Turtles is a compilation of poems written over two decades. They take the shape of a travel narrative, literary reflections on his many trips to such locales as Mexico, the Caribbean and Hawaii. The final poem, Sacrificial Presence, is about Captain James Cook’s slaying in 1779 at the hands of native Hawaiians.
The poems are written in simple, precise language. The imagery is vivid. Here are the opening lines of the poem Guayaquil:
High tide as we chug our way four hours up
the Guayas River, jungle granny-apple
green to the chocolate water’s edge.
In Swimming With Turtles, Beardsley is very much aware that, like Captain Cook, he’s a “white guy from up North” experiencing foreign lands from an outsider’s point of view.
One poem, Dark Hummingbird’s Dance, is about Beardsley’s experience of visiting Las Caletas, a beach near Puerto Vallarta. He and his wife boated to the beach at night, where they had an outdoor buffet. It was fun, although he admits it seemed “a bit hokey” and touristy.
This was followed by the performance that inspired Dark Hummingbird’s Dance. The diners were taken to an outdoor theatre in the middle of the jungle, set against a terraced hillside.
Performers in spectacular feathered costumes danced and told Aztec myths. Finally, another dancer wearing an enormous plumed helmet, the dark hummingbird, descended. This dancer represented death.
“He emerged out of the jungle night — it was an extraordinary effect,” Beardsley said.
In Dark Hummingbird’s Dance, he writes: “Temple steps ascend to the starlit sky where moon and Milky Way offer whatever light they’re able. Men’s heads spin, mad with terror.”
Beardsley taught English at the University of Victoria for 25 years. Originally from Montreal, he’s a high-school dropout (“I was so bored”) who later returned to school. His literary mentors include Irving Layton and Al Purdy. Beardsley wrote two poetry books with Purdy.
After retiring eight years ago, he received a master’s degree in theology.
After our interview, Beardsley gave me a new poem he wrote, Rivers of Living Water. It is based on his near-death experience in hospital, using the notes he made. Part of the poem goes: “I’m back, this time/ an emerald/ green connecting earth and sky/ my body alchemically connecting to me/ upon the waters ... upon the many waters”.
In a letter dropped off with the poem, Beardsley explained why he kept writing from his hospital bed, despite puzzled looks from doctors and nurses.
“I imagine all writers are witnesses and hope to record what is going on in the world [or in their world or another] and that was what I was trying to do. The thing was — as I try to make clear in the enclosed [poem] — I was afraid of whatever was happening. That was what was most amazing.”
