Believing is not the same as Being Saved - Lisa Martin (University of Alberta Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Believing is not the same as Being Saved.  Lisa Martin. Robert Kroetsch Series.  University of Alberta Press.  Edmonton, Alberta.  2017.

Believing is not the same as Being Saved is a quietly elegant book of poems.  Lisa Martin comes to Today's book of poetry with a book ten years in the making.  You can see and feel the meticulous care Martin has taken in crafting these poems, constructing this book.

This is yet another case of Today's book of poetry feeling our skill set is not quite up to the task.   How can I explain how the universe of each Martin poem is a self contained marvel or how collectively these myriad universes meld into one clear, constant gaze?  Lisa Martin has some serious jam.

Believing is not the same

as being saved

The summer I was fifteen a girl at my church camp

fell from the high rock where she'd been lying

in the sun. I heard the news on the phone

which rang in a room where I was trying to die

without technically killing myself: it was an age

at which much of what we did passed as pleasure

but was actually terror. The girl who fell punctured

the room with a question: is this really what you

want? Her scream loud enough to travel

an hour's hike away to where the tanned, shirtless

boys' counsellor dressing by the fire recognized

its message. He ran the entire distance in bare feet,

a pair of worn shorts, sweat rising to the surface.

He was a teenager himself -- each footfall

bearing him toward the absolute far edge of youth,

strength. he gathered her in his arms, carried her

body to camp, despite everything. He ran, even then,

though what compelled him had altered, though his

muscles changed, became the animal necessity

we need to get through. Her death cradled to him

like the child of his own he would one day hold, and no

doubt, love. The news came, in the room where I sat,

and then went. And did I gain courage? I knew

the exact quality of light on the surface of that rock.

Each night at camp, the year before, I'd walked

silent amidst the roving beams of flashlights

on the same trail of mulch, moss, rock, not knowing

the choice I would one day run toward, then --

irrevocably, turn from. After that, I absorbed

air, knowledge, like dew -- testing God against

all better judgment. I started thinking that summer

of cedar bark and stones, the texture of the path

beneath the feet of the boys' counsellor as he

ran -- I believe he felt everything -- carrying her

death and love with his body as only the

living can. I flicked off a switch that summer

as I walked. I wanted to understand

darkness, the quality of my heart:not light,

but spark. Even then, the path I was on

extended far past the limit suggested

by the way the path curved gently toward

the bright fire, voices singing softly

in darkness not inflected yet with the cry

of her voice falling impossible through air that

couldn't catch her. Even now, what I want most

isn't to walk past that song into knowledge.

Believe me: I want to sing, despite

everything. I want to believe

we all could be saved.

...

Birth, death, love, loss - yep, they're all in Believing is not the same as Being Saved as bold as brass and writ large.  Martin understands that much of life is a paradox, that joy and sorrow are birds dancing on the same high wire.  Martin is trying to concern herself with how one lives a good life, how one becomes a good person.  Today's book of poetry has always thought this a noble and worthy pursuit.

Luckily for us Martin is completely up to the task.  Reading these poems we know, we see, that Martin is striving for a stab at truth in each and every one of these lyric narratives.  Martin is systematic and as cool as a cat with a bird in her mouth.  These poems are ready to bargain you to another place, just like Bukowski's Mockingbird.

Dancing the path to understanding

Sitting in the audience tonight listening to strings

rub strings in the dark like the frenzied wings of insects

who want to mate -- and, so, survive. Though you

aren't here the memory of you is flickering in me

like filaments in light bulbs at the VIA Rail station

this morning where I left you before the sun

even rose all lit up against the dark. I'm here:

the train you're on is stopped on the tracks

squandering moonlight; I'm watching Pascal

the Quebecois fiddler working with his feet

to artfully dislodge the desired feeling, dancing

the path to understanding, like a bee before bees,

while I regard, from behind, the dark heads

of the others closest to me. Heads still as

stone monuments, yet acute with compound

longing. I'm told lens-bearing-eyes

have evolved at least seven times, so perhaps

there is still something missing, something

we do not yet see. I close my eyes

to listen, to isolate the message, that nectar

we only find if someone else waggles

revelation. That practiced disclosure, art,

is what we live on; it's what we eat, how

we love; it's what all the work sometimes

miraculously amounts to, yet doesn't

guarantee. How hard it is to break through

noise into music. The fiddle's yearning is not lonely

in the darkness but accompanied by bass

notes, the heart's acoustic strum; sadness

like ours isn't empty but filled with what

surrounds it -- as a dance contains

the path it cannot name.

...

The Todays' book of poetry offices are a little different today.  Visiting poets Justin Million and Elisha Rubacha are currently snoring in the Stuart Ross Poetry and Guest Room so the rest of us are trying to keep our vibrant hum to a minimum.  We have the stereo on low.  This morning it is Saint Charles of Parker and Lady Day, the sublime Billie.

Today's book of poetry was recently gifted two large boxes of poetry, mostly Canadian.  After culling through and finding more than a dozen treasures - we left the boxes on the floor of our office for any visiting poet to romp through and take what they please.  Justin and Elisha loaded up upon arrival last night, they are in town for the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair which is taking place this afternoon.   They both read at the gala last night.

Everyone in our offices enjoys taking home new poetry so the arrival of the boxes, much like that of Million and Rubacha, was like Christmas.

But there isn't much celebrating in Today's book of poetry offices this week with the departure of Odin to greener poetry pastures.  As Lisa Martin helps us to remember, helps us understand, there are as many different types of loss as there are methods of grieving.

The office troops rallied when we opened up Believing is not the same as Being Saved.  Kathleen, our Jr. Editor, opined that Martin was "a new kind of feminist" so of course we had to ask what she meant.  Kathleen replied that Martin was a "pragmatic realist and subterranean subversive at the same time."

The troops did rally, Odinless, for an engaged morning read of Believing is not the same as Being Saved as we danced Ms. Martin around the room.  You wouldn't instantly get that these poems are so robust because Martin's smart might be confused for delicate.  Martin is no such thing.  She is detailed, precise  and certain.

Some of what we know about airports in the

21st century

Some of what we know about winter light and the flight of birds

or waiting in long queues of astonishingly ordinary people

like us, or whom we could love, or wouldn't want to. I guess I've been

heartbroken a long time without knowing it -- we do this. Go without

knowing as if the content of our propositions has anything to do

with the great fire fuelled by God-knows-what that's bruised

the horizon. Just as the flare of the refinery and all violent

condemnation makes a bruise in the heart of this terrified world.

Maybe the thing each of us doesn't want to believe in

is what fuels us, our guilt and love fluttering where the walls

meet the ceiling like those birds that live in airports disoriented

by light and warmth they can't leave, even if it doesn't nourish them.

The birds arrive as we do, through the boarding tunnels:hungry,

carrying everything we need, or believed we do, or the one thing

we were able to find. The birds are usually sparrows and enjoy

the plants and the water features, like us. It's only cold in here

because the sun's turned away. House sparrows tolerate the noise

well but suffer, in the end, from lack of darkness. Most of us have

seen them congregating up there, singing to a sky that won't be

reached by available means. Maybe we know only what we must.

Scourge of janitors, those charged with keeping up appearances, birds

can be found by attentive travellers everywhere from Edmonton to Singapore.

Inside anything, at any time:locate a container for something strange.

Geocaching in airports has reached an all-time high, despite the fact

enthusiasts are still taking more than they every put back. Most airports

sport massive viewing windows, but hardly anyone's looking through.

Even so, the sun rises over tarmac. But if you know anything

you know this. You know it's not the sun that turns away.

...

Today's book of poetry was newly smitten by the writing of the talented Lisa Martin and can only hope we don't have to wait another ten years to read the follow-up to Believing is not the same as Being Saved.  We are certain it will be worth the wait but less sure we have another ten years in us.

Lisa Martin, get to work, and thank you.

Lisa Martin

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Martin. Award-winning poet, essayist, and editor Lisa Martin is the author of One Crow Sorrow (2008) and co-editor of How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting: Stories of Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Loss (2013). She teaches literature and creative writing at Concordia University of Edmonton.

uap.ualberta.ca 

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