Wedding in Fire Country - Darren Bifford (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Wedding in Fire Country.  Darren Bifford.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2012.

In yet another example of just how buried in the sand my head can be Today's book of poetry is only now encountering Darren Bifford's 2012 publication Wedding in Fire Country.  Some things are really worth waiting for.

Milo and the research team insisted I read a couple of the reviews that appeared when Wedding in Fire Country was released but I'm not sure they read the same book I did.  Those reviewers should have been raving, Bifford is brilliant.

These poems have tender precision on the ends of a raptor's muscle ripping talons.  These poems demand respect.  Bifford can barely contain his many influences as Robert Kroetsch and Robert Lowell spill out of the back court, Czeslaw Milosz and Walt Whitman power it up and down the wings and then big old nasty William the Faulkner dances down the middle with his boozy wisdom.  Oh ya, they're all in here along with Creely and the Beats.  But Bifford never steals from his heroes, he gives them the respectful and polite nod and moves on from one breathless idea to the next.  

Possibilities of Prometheus

Did he really think he'd get away with it?

That no one was watching?

It could have been Prometheus was after

Something else all along -- not that fire --

But made a mistake -- wrong drawer! --

And fumbled for whatever

Would fit his hand.

The fire fell

Because he tripped, stumbled 

On a loose stone, and managed to strike

Humanity across their heads.

And like a dynamite wick

History's cord was lit.

...

Some of these poems hit you like sunshine does when you walk out of the darkness of an afternoon movie.  That CRACK of daylight/information hits like a smack.

Today's book of poetry hit a proverbial wall about a week ago where all poems started to look a little like the same disappointment but Darren Bifford has snapped us out of that.  Wedding in Fire Country is exactly the tonic we've needed.  In a world where there has been a dearth of heart recently we discover that the talented Mr. Bifford has a heart as big as we need and it is right out there at the end of his articulate sleeve.  It might be hunted by bears, wolves or cougars and haunted by fire, nightmare or impending disaster but this heart is in the game.

Today's book of poetry gets future hopeful when we encounter books this fine.  There is an army of excellent young poets hammering away in Canada and Bifford certainly stakes a claim with Wedding in Fire Country.  Bifford had us on the edges of our seats during this morning's read.  Our Jr. Editor, Kathryn, read the hell out of Bifford's long poem "Letters to Milosz" and confirmed what I'd thought from the start.  Kathryn is a pistol and Darren Bifford's Wedding in Fire Country is delightfully dazzling poetry of a velocity you don't often see.

Crowded Theatre

There was a time I thought

I was all alone

and free. I never imagined

growing older, weaker;

I imagined being famous and humble.

Now it is as if I'm sitting

in a crowded theatre, in a ratty red chair

too tiny for my legs, its armrests too narrow to share.

Even when I look behind me

people are pushed around the other way.

I've come this far, reached out and clung

to your damp hand.

And we hold each other here

though the building has begun to shake,

and the show is not the one we asked for.

...

Quiet foreboding. Bifford has that nailed.  Frankly, Today's book of poetry was a bit flustered (but not frustrated), by how familiar this new world was.  Bifford is able to dial into a deep folkloric pool and emerge with new understanding of old wisdom.

Today's book of poetry really would like you readers to think of this blog as a "taster's menu" because it simply isn't possible to get to the several main courses a good book offers.  Wedding in Fire Country is as good an example of this paradox as any we've encountered.  Main course here, main course there.  Taste this...

Nightmare

What is that knocking, mother?

It's the wind's knuckles rapping the window, my son.

What is that squeaking, mother?

That's the procession of the mice within the walls, my son.

What is that rotting in the basement, mother?

Those are harvest apples in a bucket, my son.

Who are the men crouching at the door, mother?

They are my friends, my son. And they're coming.

...

The best part of our mandate here at Today's book of poetry is finding gems and sharing them with you readers.   Wedding in Fire Country is the sort of book that can make you fall in love with poetry again, instantly.  These poems are smart like a challenge, clear and refreshing like a quenching tonic.

Today's book of poetry couldn't get enough.

Darren Bifford

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darren Bifford is the author of Wedding in Fire Country (Nightwood Editions, 2012) and Hermit Crab, forthcoming from Baseline Press. He lives in Montreal.

BLURBS

Reading this collection, I feel communicated with, and indeed, carrying it around for several weeks to dip into during my spare moments, I came to feel companionate towards it, as though the poems’ frequent depictions of people enjoying each other’s company had bled into my consciousness, tingeing my worldview with its sociability. I suspect that Wedding in Fire Country will have a similar effect on anyone who spends some real time with it, and I heartily recommend doing so.
-Stewart Cole, The Urge: Reviewing New Canadian Poetry

“Nightmare” leaves you with a chill down your back with the last quote “they are my friends my son. And they are coming.” Bifford asks the question: is this the beginning of the nightmare or the end? These poems do not come together like one big story, but rather like stories told around a campfire; some happy, some scary, all intriguing.
-Thomas Stubbs, Salty Ink

Darren Bifford

Tree Reading Series, Ottawa

Video: Tree Reading Series

nightwoodeditions.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

New & Selected Poems - W.H. New (Oolichan Books)

Today's book of poetry:
New & Selected Poems.  W. H. New.  Oolichan Books.  Fergie, British Columbia.  2015.

New & Selected Poems by the distinguished W.H. (Bill) New is the book of poetry everyone in Canada should take to the cottage for the summer.  This is stuff you want to go back and browse like a catalogue full of goodies.

In it you will find highlights from these fine books:

Science Lessons - 1996

Raucous - 1999

Riverbrook and Ocean - 2002

Night Room - 2003

Underwood Log - 2004

Touching Ecuador - 2006

Along a Snake Fence Riding - 2007

The Rope-makers Tale - 2009

YVR - 2011

Our guy Bill has been nominated for the Governor Generals Award and that doesn't happen by accident.  Today's book of poetry enjoys New's easy calm with language regardless of the form he employs.  Stylistically New ranges far and wide but his rational eagle eye is always in focus and the result is poetry that is always sharp.

That and he can be so humanely tender without making us cringe.

Chemistry

One, Lorna, even to mention her name

causes him to change colour, fires him

into blurted declarations of like. She acts:

he reacts, red and blue as litmus paper

and just as wet. He grins a lot, gawkily,

picks berries with her if he can, flirts

at the edge of touch and gesture,

flushes if others overhear.

In his dream, words like care and kissing

come to him articulate and whole;

awake, he needs a catalyst to say them,

mixes them up, lingers awkwardly till she

places a ripe raspberry on her tongue

and shares with him her taste for bittersweet.

...

Today's book of poetry has told you before how much we love W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" so when W.H. New takes a crack at Icarus in his poem "21.  Safety" we were all ears.  And New does not disappoint.  He has 'the Knowledge'.  New has an old cab driver's understanding of the ins and outs of things, the quickest way to get from one place to another with the smallest fuss.  

21.  Safety

Icarus as a boy played with army

trucks, not frisbees, played cops-&-

robbers, marbles in a ring, not hop-

scotch, kites, addy-addy-I-

over: he watched the ground, held fast

to things -- water, earth -- turning away

from dangerous fire & insubstantial air.

You'd have forecast for him an ordinary job --

something that kept his hands occupied,

farm irrigation, yard work in the maze,

something that gave him the lie of the land,  But he held

fast because of the gnawing away: it was always

there, & the first leap up he was vulnerable --

monster on one side, father on the other,

alternating tales of damnation &

derring-do -- inexorably, flame drew him,

& air appeared to hold him up: what

the old stories never tell is whether

he regretted choosing, or lived finally

only at the point of falling, knowing at last the difference

between fear and safety, tumbling into the sea.

...

Today's book of poetry is convinced of the deep and generous heart at the centre of W.H. New's New and Selected Poems.  Robert Kroetsch has called New "the flaneur" and he is right on.  These observational poems all point in one direction and we here at Today's book of poetry believe that direction is hope - we took an office survey at this morning's reading.

Darwin's Tulip

she talks of things she no longer sees,

fine print,

petitpoint,

thin lines--

listening,

you watch her lift fog from the river,

one hand brushing away the blur

                    *

presence: the scent of

roses in an empty room, the way

bedclothes fold against

bare skin

                   *

listening for what the ear cannot

tell you: the rumpled sea, the halfmoon

shoot of a Darwin's tulip, the first

                   *

drawing a line in air, water, sand:

this far and--

                     oh--

where did it go--

              the river, the wind--

...

"I Want To Talk About You" is blaring from one corner of our office to the other on this rather spectacular sunny spring morning here in the nation's capital.  We have deep, deep respect for Saint John of Coltrane.  One of the best things about running your own operation is having control of the music situation.  Of course I usually let the minions have their way -- but I do remind them from time to time of the classics.  

Books like W.H. New's New & Selected Poems makes our job a cinch.

W.H. (Bill) New

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

W. H. (Bill) New retired in 2003 as University Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. A native of Vancouver, he earned an M.A. in Canadian Literature from UBC in 1963. In 1966 he was awarded his PhD from the University of Leeds, where he specialized in the English-language literatures of the Commonwealth. He then returned to the University of B.C. to set up a Commonwealth/ Postcolonial Literatures program.

Honoured by the Killam Research and Teaching Prizes (1988, 1996), the Gabrielle Roy Award (1988), the Jacob Biely Prize (1995), the Association of Canadian Studies Award of Merit (2000), and the CUFA Award for Career Achievement (2001), he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1986. In 2004 he was awarded the Governor General’s International Award for Canadian Studies and the Lorne Pierce Medal for his contributions to critical and creative writing. He has taught or lectured in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, and the USA. In 2002, The University of Toronto Press published his Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. It has been praised in Canada and the UK for its innovative perspective and described in France as indispensable. In 2006 he was awarded the Order of Canada. Recently he received the 20th Annual George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award.

oolichan.com 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Vs. - Kerry Ryan (Anvil Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Vs.  Kerry Ryan.  Anvil Press.  Vancouver, British Columbia.  2010.  (Finalist for the Acorn-Plantos Award)

Kerry Ryan's Vs. is a book of narrative poems about her experiences in the cloistered world of boxing.

I have been a boxing fan since I was a very young man.  I've always loved the intensity.

If you watch much boxing at all you'll begin to notice the most remarkable thing.  Almost without exception, when a match is over, the two boxers hold each other like lovers.

throat

Watch the twinned ridges
of gristle twitching
with every strained breath

Never look at gloves
or she'll get you like a pickpocket;
the left distracting with magic and jabs
while the right sneaks in, ransacks

Read next punch
in the shadow of clavicle

Don't let her eyes hook yours,
drown your resolve
in reedy undertow

Lock onto her heaving collar,
throw six inches north or south
look at her nose, chin,
only with the steady leather attention
of your unflinching fists

...

These poems do the leg work that all boxers must.  They are up before dawn and shadow-boxing the sunrise.  Ryan romanticizes nothing about the feel of leather on the nose as the fist behind it tries to dispose of your need or the bruised ribs that fight off sleep, dust your dreams.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote a great book in 1987 called On Boxing that received much acclaim and deserved attention.  Kerry Ryan's Vs. belongs on the same shelf, the same pantheon.

There aren't that many great boxing books by women and this is certainly the first poetry collection I've encountered that dares slip on the gloves.

Muhammed Ali is famous for his poetry and wit - but his poetry, as much as I admire the great man, is the child's nursery rhyme.  Ryan gives us so much more.

ribbing

Hours after, her glove still pries
your ribs apart,
clenches lung, twists

You whimper in the bed,
wake with every breath,
shudder at the lapse
that left you prone
to the boulder of her right

Days later, clinic waiting room
each breath a thimbleful of air,
you press palms against ribcage,
try to contain the fury of a sneeze
ask when you can go
back in the ring

...

Ever had a cracked rib?  It hurts like every sin you've ever committed.

The "beautiful science" is not always beautiful but Kerry Ryan makes it real.  These poems look like an examination of a woman's journey into the gym and into the ring - but a jab is a jab, and a right-cross will flatten you, gender doesn't come into it, and Kerry Ryan is no dilettante.

matched

We never fight
both youngest children
still wanting to please, appease
who learned early small never wins
that injury, injustice
fuel poems and pictures
our different victories

We never compete
except in Scrabble
or sleeping in Sunday mornings
the gap never
wider than five points
such satisfaction in symmetry

So when I demonstrate
a one-two on your shoulder--
soft as a sparrow landing
one foot then the other--
you startle at confrontation,
seep toward the door

I know I've upended our balance
don't want to bully,
but my fists have been taught
to feed on the fear
in your flailing palms

...

Ali's poems were wind-whisp entertainments, the vapour of the cult of celebrity.  Ryan's are the ongoing interior dialogue of a fighter, what it means to hit and be hit.

These poems go the distance with vigor.

Joe Frazier would be proud of her grit.

 Kerry Ryan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kerry Ryan’s poems have appeared in literary journals across the country. Her first collection, The Sleeping Life, was published by The Muses’ Company in 2008 and nominated for the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry in 2009. In March 2009, she competed in, and won, a white collar boxing match. She lives in Winnipeg.

BLUBS

"Muhammed Ali, keep your guard up.  You're being measured by a better boxing poet.  Kerry Ryan has the clarity of vision that comes with a boxer's discipline and daring, the grace of a true poet's music of body and mind made one."

     Robert Kroetsch

"The poems in Kerry Ryan's Vs. come at you like quick jabs of light -- the writing is taut, worked over, sinewy, spare, and lean -- but never mean.  A delightful collection.  What else can be said?  These poems pack a punch."

     Jeanette Lynes

anvilpress.com 

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