Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie - Jay Ritchie (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie.  Jay Ritchie.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

"like an inner tube at a pool party

nostalgic for asphalt."

                                                                                    "Upcycle" - Jay Ritchie

Jay Ritchie has reimagined what Richard Brautigan might be saying were he alive and living in Montreal.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie does not emulate Brautigan so much as doff the hat in admiration as it continues along in its Jay Ritchie way.  No disservice to the esteemed Mr. Brautigan, Today's book of poetry holds his work in high regard - but Mr. Ritchie is a richer serving.

Today's book of poetry generally has a difficult time with poetry carved from surreal dreams but like my hero, Stuart Ross, Jay Ritchie operates with such efficiency and sleight of hand that you are at his mercy.  These poems are tangential superheroes and dream-thought riddled with reason.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie tries to wrestle the norm out of the daily grind and succeeds with a Cool Hand Luke grin.

The Waiting Room

requires a series

of short commitments,

the way Highway

I needs to 

be reimagined after

each pirouetting pine

tree, the way

an extension cord

needs to be

wound eight times

before it is

a noose. I

made a promise

in the driveway

not to go

inside until I

had sunk twenty-three

baskets consecutively. Light

has a special

way of falling

into polygons in

the waiting room.

The sewage truck

is idling outside

the walk-in clinic

beside the public

library. People fall

out of my

life like oranges

off the back

of a truck.

Residents of Heatherglen

Housing Co-operative Ltd.

were not informed.

A paint stain

on the window

starts to look

modern. The rehabbed

juvenile delinquent said,

Building a house

is just a

series of small

tasks that amount

to something big.

I was out

there in the

driveway until dark.

Here, the Venn

diagram made by

the water's surface

and lip of

the glass. It

was a promise

I made to

luck so that

luck would be

promised to me.

...

Truth be told, and Today's book of poetry always tries to tell the truth, some of Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may have escaped our feeble grasp.  When I passed Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie around the office before the morning read the response was universal: everyone loved the journey but no two of us ended up in the same place.  Today's book of poetry likes to read poetry that takes the reader out of their comfort zone and Ritchie succeeds.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie uses sly humour and the reader is never quite certain if Ritchie's witty asides are detachment or genuine and gentle wonder.

Today's book of poetry had no problem at all believing whatever Ritchie had to say.  These poems rang true, from start to finish, like a metronome.

Loud Familiar Sound

At the end of the year with my bags asking to be let in to the

present. Single-family detached homes with comparable square

footage curve gradually with the cul-de-sac, as usual. Did you

see the addition to the business park? Nothing hurts like not being

in on the joke. My friends tell me I have a tendency to distance

myself from friends, which is troubling. Walking home involved

a Walmart, an overpass, a business park, real estate, a Catholic

elementary school, and a cosmic sense of purpose determined

by faulty or burnt-out street lamps. This is how I remember it:

I learned geometry from rooftops. I might carry my laptop over

the back deck in the morning with a cup of coffee and consider

how a rainbow's favourite high is gasoline. I might be closer to

what I was walking toward and further from where I wanted to

be. I'm unsure if the leaves are a part of the plan. Airport security

said, The easiest way out is to look for an entrance.

...

Our morning read was a rapid-fire affair.  Ritchie's poems elevated the mood, the sun was actually shining in through the windows and had Mr. Ritchie heard our din I'm certain he would have been cheered.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is the genuine article.  Ritchie is playing the long game, he strings things out onto a high wire, adds a bicycle, and then a beach ball, and then the elephant in the room jumps onto the wire.  Everything ricochets skyward, airborne, juxtaposed, upside down and clearly doomed until Ritchie juggles them back down to the wire, each one precariously balanced in the good graces of the others.  

Jay Ritchie is welcome in the Today's book of poetry poetry kitchen any time.  Ritchie can burn the house down.

Celebration of Life

Every mourner was given

a blue, yellow,

or green helium-filled balloon

and was pushed out

into the snow-covered field.

Releasing the balloon

into the troposphere

was a symbolic gesture

for the final stage

in the grieving process:

acceptance, or 'letting go.'

How many leatherback

turtles are going to die

from this mass act of littering?

I had done a project on

leatherbacks in Grade 7.

It was the fourth consecutive day

of putting my suit on, and the fourth

consecutive day of putting

ice cream in my coffee.

Three people had died

in one day, and for three days

there was one funeral per day -

except today is different, today

is a celebration of life.

I unparked the SUV

from the half-frozen mud.

What is going to happen

to everyone's nice shoes?

The nonsmokers look so natural

holding their cigarettes.

I wanted to clarify some negative

comments I had made, but I did not

expect to encounter absence,

which is no encounter at all,

just a persistent humming

at the highest audible register

and its root note at the lowest,

making a chord

with idling city maintenance

vehicles. The possibility

that photographs would be

insufficient occurred to everyone

at once, it was unanimously decided

someone would make a DVD.

The Rocky Mountains

had a better understanding

of us, they had seen

the oil barons as heroes

and were less anxious, they said,

Squint, you can see tomorrow

through tiny pinholes in the air.

...

Today's book of poetry was thoroughly entertained by Jay Ritchie, he certainly cheered us up.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may offer some of the most original poetry you've read this year.

Jay Ritchie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Ritchie was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and lives in Montreal, Quebec. Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is his first full-length collection.

BLURBS

‘With their clever – but never glib – concision of image, and emotional directedness, these poems actually make me feel something, and that is something I really enjoy.’
     – Rebecca Wolff, author of One Morning—

‘Ritchie throws black holes on the wall, disappears through them. His poems are like dreams dreamed mid-movement, just before something happens, as if light, buildings, breath, parakeets, hope, haircuts, Montreal, and art-making are all fragments of the same epiphany.’
     – Sean Michaels, Giller Prize-winning author of Us Conductors

‘Charming, funny, and often elegant. This is a formidable collection.’
     – Ben Fama, author of Fantasy

Jay Ritchie

Jay Winston Ritchie - Poetry (part1) @ Bain Saint-Michel, Montreal

Video: Neil Corcoran

chbooks.com 

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