A Shape of Breath - Judith Pond

Today's book of poetry:  A Shape of Breath.  Oberon Press.  Ottawa, Ontario.  2012.

Judith Pond is a very serious poet with a dark sense of humour.  A Shape of Breath isn't Sylvia with her head in the stove but it is a scathing indictment of living with compromise.

These harsh poems have a pure beauty to them — Pond is as clear as she is fearless.

This collection is divided into several distinct sections with singular themes.  "As For Me", the second segment of this rewarding book, is a devastating series of call-and-response poems, all about the cold harsh drudgery of a loveless union.

Tuesday Evening, March 5

I've fought it out with myself and won at last. We're going to adopt

Judith's baby...

.

Sweet Revenge

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised

when I find my abstemious husband, who pretends

to be dreaming

beside me each night, has gone to another

and begun a new life, (Who wouldn't, cursed

with a wife who is barely there and furthermore

barren).

_________

He, on the other hand is stunned

when God claims the woman and I

the son.

...

In another section of the book entitled "Coyote Suite", Pond conjures herself covered in fur, it's a clever transformation and an illuminating vehicle for further ruminations on relationships, human weakness and human nature.

Myth: Coyotes Have No Conscience

You think you believe this

because of their yellow eyes

and stealthy ways, and because anyone

who sees one sees himself

as calories: Not pretty

but at least it satisfies.

Like all myths, however, this one, while

easy, is inaccurate. There's a difference,

after all,

between no conscience

and no regrets.

...

Although I'm convinced that the poems I'm showing you stand on their own - in the context of the narrative of each section of this collection, these poems are stirling stuff.  Each chapter of A Shape of Breath reveals another layer of hidden depth.

There's all kinds of sorrow in A Shape of Breath but there is also optimistic hope in a better future, a belief in something pure enough to be called love.

Echo

It is the evening of the day before

spring. Bare and gleaming,

you race through the darkening

rooms, your clear laughter

echoing.

Outside the young light

wanes.

We are playing the game

of me catching you, though you are moving

far too fast for me ever

to win. One by one the stars

wink on.

Here are your small clothes, discarded

on the long-ago floor of an innocent

kitchen. I raise them

to my face and breathe you in, remembering this

night as though

our game were just a dream, as though already

it were an echo, and you

were gone.

...

Judith Pond is the author of three previous books of poetry -  An Early Day, Dance of Death and Lovers and Other Monsters.

http://www.oberonpress.ca/titles.html