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Meet Traute Klein,
AKA biogardener.

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The Books

Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan
by Paul Hiebert, illustrated by J. W. McLaren, New Canadian Library

"Willows Revisited" can be thought of as the second volume of Sarah Binks. It does not appear to be in print at the moment, probably because it was never as popular as the first volume. In Manitoba, it is available in libraries.

The Hiebert Articles

Paul Hiebert, a Manitoba Legend
A little biography of my friend, Paul Hiebert.

Sarah Binks, Sweet Songstress of Manitoba
Sarah Binks, is really the "Sweet Songstress of Manitoba."

Sarah Binks Translates Heine
A comedic parody of Heine's immortal "Lorelei."

About Sarah Binks, AKA Paul Hiebert

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

What readers and critics say about Paul Hiebert, AKA Sarah Binks. Paul Hiebert through the eyes of his readers. He seems to have fooled at least one into thinking that Sarah Binks is a great Canadian poet, a real one.

Convincing?

Here is the first Amazon.com review of Hiebert's Sarah Binks written by a reader who gives it a 5 star rating:

***** The Life and Times of a Little-Known Poetic Genius

October 26, 1999
Reviewer: Charles Liard, cliard@hotmail.com, from Vancouver

Paul Hiebert is best known as a writer of light humour. As such, his suitability as a biographer of a brilliant poet could be questioned. Readers may be reassured that the treatment given Ms. Binks' life and works is serious indeed, as it should be. Possibly the best feature of this biography is that the poems of the 'Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan' are set in the context of each crucial phase of her career: her upbringing, adolescence, young womanhood, and maturity. This context is critical for a deeper understanding of her work. For example, the knowledge that 'Dog's Heaven' was written shortly after the tragic death of her canine companion adds a rich poignance that could not be gained from the reading of this brilliant poem in a mere anthology. This biography is a piece of 'Canadiana' (hateful term!) to the extent that Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' is merely a statement of mid-twentieth century Black culture. Sarah Binks, like Ellison, speaks for all humanity. Hiebert's biography brings her to life as a vibrant and feeling woman.

And here is the second Amazon reader review, also with a 5 star rating:

***** She's Not Real!!!

November 13, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Chicago

For anyone stumbling upon this book by accident, I feel it's my duty to point out that Sarah Binks is a fictional character. This mock biography is satire, and pretty good satire at that — for example, Binks' untimely death occurs when she bites a horse thermometer in half and succumbs to mercury poisoning. The horse thermometer was awarded to her as a prize for one of her spectacularly bad poems. The entire book is a parody of rural life in Canada.

Review of Reviews

My first reaction to Charles Liard's review was that he is playing along with Hiebert, pretending that Sarah is real, but the seconds reviewer, the reader from Chicago, seems to think that he was actually fooled. If he was, then Hiebert would have been tickled pink knowing that he had pulled off his deception convincingly. Mind you, it is inconceivable to me how anyone could consider that horrible poetry of Sarah's anything other than parody.

I have emailed Mr. Liard twice, asking him which of the two interpretations of his review is correct. I also warned him that I would to use his comments in this article and thought it only fair to give him a chance to explain his comments. He has not answered me.

Official Bulletin

I also found an official review of Paul Hiebert in the Manitoba Author Publication Index at the site of the Manitoba Writers' Guild:

Hiebert, Paul Gerhardt (1892-1987), Professor, poet. Born in Pilot Mound, Manitoba, and raised in Altona, Hiebert graduated from the University of Manitoba (honours philosophy), and received an MA from the University of Toronto in Gothic and Teutonic philology and a PhD from McGill University in physics and chemistry. Professor of chemistry at the University of Manitoba, he was also the author of the parodic poetry of Sarah Binks, "the Sweet Songstress of Saskatchewan," first published in 1947 in a "biography" entitled Sarah Binks. "Sarah" writes deliberately awful poetry, which does offer a nostalgic view of the pre-Depression prairie West in which so many Canadians grew up. Hiebert also wrote a number of other works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His papers are at the UML Archive.

More on Hiebert

My articles on Hiebert and his Sarah Binks are linked in the left-hand column of this page.