Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961)
I Like Canadians
By A Foreigner
1I like Canadians.
2They are so unlike Americans.
3They go home at night.
4Their cigarets don't smell bad.
5Their hats fit.
6They really believe that they won the war.
7They don't believe in Literature.
8They think Art has been exaggerated.
9But they are wonderful on ice skates.
10A few of them are very rich.
11But when they are rich they buy more horses
12Than motor cars.
13Chicago calls Toronto a puritan town.
14But both boxing and horse-racing are illegal
15In Chicago.
16Nobody works on Sunday.
17Nobody.
18That doesn't make me mad.
19There is only one Woodbine.
20But were you ever at Blue Bonnets?
21If you kill somebody with a motor car in Ontario
22You are liable to go to jail.
23So it isn't done.
24There have been over 500 people killed by motor cars
25In Chicago
26So far this year.
27It is hard to get rich in Canada.
28But it is easy to make money.
29There are too many tea rooms.
30But, then, there are no cabarets.
31If you tip a waiter a quarter
32He says "Thank you."
33Instead of calling the bouncer.
34They let women stand up in the street cars.
35Even if they are good-looking.
36They are all in a hurry to get home to supper
37And their radio sets.
38They are a fine people.
39I like them.
Notes
19] Woodbine: Toronto racetrack. Cf. Hemingway's article "Toronto Is the Biggest Betting Place in North America | 10,000 People Bet $100,000 on Horses Every Day," Toronto Star Weekly (Dec. 29, 1923): 17.
20] Blue Bonnets: Montreal racetrack.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Ernest Hemingway, Complete Poems, ed. Nicholas Gerogiannis, rev. edn. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992): 66-67. PS 3515 E37A17 1992 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1923
Publication date note: Toronto Star Weekly
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1999.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/17
Composition date:
1923
Composition date note: in Toronto? Hemingway's articles in the Toronto Star Weekly run from Feb. 14, 1920, to Jan. 19, 1924 (he Was dropped from the newspaper payroll on Dec. 31, 1923); see note to line 19 below. Attributed to Hemingway on grounds of provenance (TSW), style, and his use of "By a Foreigner" as a by-line in manuscripts at the Kennedy Library.
Rhyme: unrhyming
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