The Resumption of Play - Gary Geddes (Quattro Books)

Today's book of poetry:
The Resumption of Play.  Gary Geddes.  Quattro Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2016.

Gary Geddes starts his most recent book of poems with this line from Friedrich Nietzsche,

     "We have art in order not to die of the truth."

And then goes on to fill our cup to brimming with nothing but the truth.  

Today's book of poetry feels as though we have been conducting a conversation with Gary Geddes since we first moved to Ottawa in the early 80's.  One of my first jobs in Ottawa was working for Saint Rhys of Knott at his Avenue Bookshop.  Avenue Bookshop was in a cluster of fine secondhand bookstores on Bank Street in the Glebe. The Avenue Bookshop specialized in Canadian Literature and it was a gold mine.  It was heaven, and that is where I discovered Gary Geddes.

When I say conversation, I have to confess that it has been entirely one sided.  I've never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Geddes but I've had ample opportunity to get to know him.  Today's book of poetry send Milo, our head tech, to the stacks this morning and he came back with the following Geddes titles:

rivers inlet, 1972

Letter of the Master of Horse, 1973

Snakeroot, 1973

War and Other Measures, 1976

The Acid Test, 1980

The Terracotta Army, 1984

Hong Kong Poems, 1987

Light of Burning Towers, 1990

The Perfect Cold Warrior, 1995

Active Trading, 1996

It's hardly a complete list but Today's book of poetry isn't finished in that department.  

The Resumption of Play joins an esteemed body of work with more of the same clear, clean line that Geddes has almost always embraced.  The Resumption of Play opens with a long poem of the same name and it is a steam-roller, a longer poem, a poem of haunting truths and brutal realities.  Geddes goes inside the horror of residential school experience and no one comes out clean.

In other parts of the world other sorrows echo and the truth seeking Geddes cuts a wide swath.

Blues for Kony

I told the nuzungu my story, a reporter

I presumed. He wanted all the details

I could remember. Okay, I said. Yes,

there was pain, but that's not the worst

part. Besides these holes in my face

there is a vast hole in the universe

called the future, with no place

for the mutilated. Without my ears

I can still hear. Cutting off my nose

did not affect my sense of smell. Lips,

I discovered soon enough, are not made

to kiss, but to hold food in the mouth

while it's being chewed. A hand clasped

over my face serves two purposes:

enables me to eat and covers the shame.

Unlike the sister seated on my left,

I was not forced to kill my husband

in front of the children or serve as whore-

de-camp. Pregnant, I survived, God

knows why. Perhaps they had orders,

a logic that escaped me. The severed

parts, a bloody pulp thrust in my hands,

disgusted me, but I couldn't bear to toss

them in the bush. Human rights, that

was the phrase the reporter used

before slipping the ballpoint pen in a vest

pocket and closing his blue ring-binder

like a schoolboy anticipating recess.

As he unravelled his legs from the chair

and rose to leave, he asked a final

question, still unable to look at me:

What's needed to stop this carnage,

bring Kony's monsters to the courts?

Ah, justice. A quaint abstraction. Abducted

boys in posh jail cells in The Hague,

clutching a remote control instead of

an AK-47, watching vehicles blow up

in Kinshasa, Kandahar, London, Abidjan?

Bring them home, let the healing begin,

discharge a tender reconciliation.

...

Geddes hasn't limited his scorn for residential schools and the dignity stripping madness of cultural genocide in Canada.  Geddes has made a life's work of humanism in his poetry, he forces us to come face to face with the abundant injustices and indignities.

The Resumption of Play visits Somalia, there is a brief tribute to Virginia Woolf, a nod to the excellent poet Bronwen Wallace and more.  These poems visit the grave of Ezra Pound and "Tintoretto's version of The Last Supper." 

The one thing Geddes poems share in common is they are accessible because in Geddes world it seems clarity and honesty are always the high cards.

Monkey Business

What did we know of mythology

out there in the desert? Coyotes,

ravens, trickster figures, how

they take pleasure in havoc,

screw up the best-laid plans,

turn a clear stream blood-red,

and transform a friendly booze-up

into butchery? Scott's monkey

looked innocent enough, leather

collar, eyes closed, soft brown fur,

and one small paw clutching his

dog-tag, half obscuring the tattoo

on Scott's chest. What was going on

behind those smooth, pale lids?

Before the moon had paid its dues

a prowling teen lay bludgeoned

and dead, a string of bloody

spittle drying on his lips,

his last words, Canada, Canada,

still hanging in the air.

...

Our morning read was a little longer than usual.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, read the title poem "The Resumption of Play" in its entirety.  The staff rumbled through the other ten Geddes titles strewn about the office table and read from each of them, in sequence.

And then Kathryn read "The Resumption of Play" again because she was sure it deserved a second reading and she was right.  The only reason Today's book of poetry doesn't share this particular monster is because of the length.  But reading the poem "The Resumption of Play" is worth the price of admission to The Resumption of Play.  The rest of the book is good gravy.

A Song of Recall

And so it is with longing, you extend a hand

into the mist expecting to take hold of something

lost, perhaps the very thing you'd yearned for

but could not claim, a dream-shape, an unwritten

melody, insistent, that flitted in and out of your days

leaving its residue on your pillow, the faint smear

on an otherwise blank page, a colophon of desire.

You glimpse an apron, blue, with a pale, stitched

hem, a smudge of flour near the generous pocket,

enough to hold for a moment that lost mother

disappearing into the night who might, just might

be yours, wisps of her long dark hair surviving

cancer, surviving the flames, making a mockery

of memory itself, that insatiable canvas needing

to be filled, framed, needing to have occurred.

...

Today's book of poetry was very pleased when The Resumption of Play arrived at our offices several weeks ago.  We are honoured to have the opportunity to tip our hat in the direction of one of Canada's best poets.  Mr. Geddes has been sharing his fine poems with Canada and the rest of the world for more than five decades and we are happy to tell you that the song DOES remain the same.  The Resumption of Play is as contemporary as tomorrow's news.

Every poetry shelf in Canada should have some Gary Geddes on it.

Gary Geddes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Geddes has written and edited more than 45 books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation and anthologies and won more than a dozen national and international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), the Lt.-Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence and the Gabriela Mistral Prize from the government of Chile, awarded simultaneously to Octavio Paz, Vaclav Havel, Ernesto Cardenal, Rafael Alberti, and Mario Benedetti.

Gary Geddes

Attic Owl Reading Series

Video:  Lee Thompson

quattrobooks.ca 

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