Today's book of poetry: Gulf. Leslie Vryenhoek. Oolichan Press. Fernie, British Columbia. 2011.
Leslie Vryenhoek's Gulf is her first book of poetry but it is not the work of a rookie. Vryenhoek's poems, fiction and memoir have won the Dalton Camp Award, two NL Arts & Letters Awards and the Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem in 2010.
The poems in this volume are very consistent in tone, they have a fierce intelligence and a twist of dark humour.
Dirty Secrets
What if home is just
the taste of dirt
in the woods behind the house
on Clairmont Drive? Best
at the V where a tree's trunk diverged
into roots that submerged
in that powdery earth.
A raw potato taste, metallic undercurrents
like the blood of a loose tooth, a smell
like the first seconds of rain, of earthworms
offgassing their relief. Home: elemental
and fading as tastebuds.
I licked that soil from my fingers for years
more than anyone suspected, stopped
when we moved to where the mud was coarse
and vulgar. Grown, I had a lover
with a sandstone carving. Wet, it hinted
of potatoes and earthworms but eventually
he caught me, my tongue seeking asylum
along the rounded edge.
I didn't get to stay there either.
...
Vryenhoek's poems have a conversational feel to them but she is beyond that and wicked clever. These poems work as descriptive narrative, and work very well, but it is the swiftly changing current, the ebb of human nature that stirs underneath, this is where Vryenhoek excells.
These are stories we all know but under the subtle hand of Vryenhoek we get to reexamine what we believed to be true.
Leslie Vryenhoek's poetry has moments of clarity that rival Sharon Olds, lyric beauty that old Milt Acorn would have admired. How's that!
www.oolichan.com
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
The Flicker Tree, Okanagan Poems - Nancy Holmes
Today's book of poetry: The Flicker Tree, Okanagan Poems. Nancy Holmes. Ronsdale Press. Vancouver, British Columbia. 2012.
This lovely book has been nominated for the 2013 Raymond Souster Award, and for good reason.
Holmes is the author of four previous collections and is a writer in full stride in The Flicker Tree. There are moments of hilarity, passages that will break your heart, and a consistent voice of reason tinged with beauty is everywhere.
These are "nature" poems if they have to be labelled but I would resist - this sort of wisdom is universal.
Don McKay said that "Nancy Holmes increases our awareness of what real ecological dwelling might be like. The Flicker Tree establishes a benchmark among Canadian nature poetry - a book, and a practice, to savour and celebrate." And he should know, Don McKay is a national treasure.
Toads Are Us
I just read this:
"The planet's health can be measured
by the state of its amphibians."
So, I am proud of the toad in my garden.
My grass and dew are clean.
My shade is certified organic.
The dandelions in the lawn
sing like canaries
in their light green cages.
But toad,
I watch you cling to the lip
of my flowerpot,
and feel a little worried.
You are
trembling and
you look like a piece of my lung
torn out.
...
Nancy Holmes The Flicker Tree, Okanagan Poems is a tribute to the land and a beautiful offering for us.
This sort of poetic wit, intelligence and splendour is a rare combination. This book should be savoured.
www.ronsdalepress.com
This lovely book has been nominated for the 2013 Raymond Souster Award, and for good reason.
Holmes is the author of four previous collections and is a writer in full stride in The Flicker Tree. There are moments of hilarity, passages that will break your heart, and a consistent voice of reason tinged with beauty is everywhere.
These are "nature" poems if they have to be labelled but I would resist - this sort of wisdom is universal.
Don McKay said that "Nancy Holmes increases our awareness of what real ecological dwelling might be like. The Flicker Tree establishes a benchmark among Canadian nature poetry - a book, and a practice, to savour and celebrate." And he should know, Don McKay is a national treasure.
Toads Are Us
I just read this:
"The planet's health can be measured
by the state of its amphibians."
So, I am proud of the toad in my garden.
My grass and dew are clean.
My shade is certified organic.
The dandelions in the lawn
sing like canaries
in their light green cages.
But toad,
I watch you cling to the lip
of my flowerpot,
and feel a little worried.
You are
trembling and
you look like a piece of my lung
torn out.
...
Nancy Holmes The Flicker Tree, Okanagan Poems is a tribute to the land and a beautiful offering for us.
This sort of poetic wit, intelligence and splendour is a rare combination. This book should be savoured.
www.ronsdalepress.com
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts - Suzannah Showler
Today's book of poetry: Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts. Suzannah Showler. Odourless Press. Toronto, Ontario. 2013.
Whoever said that good things come in small packages had it exactly right if they were thinking of this excellent little chapbook, Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts, by Suzannah Showler. This gem is from the new small press Odourless Press and the careful editing hand of Bardia Sinaee.
Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts has such wonderfully titled poems as I know you are, but what am I?, why don't you go home and cry about it?, do you have a staring problem?, stop hitting yourself, and the soon to be famous takes one to know one. The glib titles have the proper ring to them and these short poems are snap your fingers tight.
takes one to know one
just because you can't see the fingerling
moulds packed up my nostrils like espresso
grinds, or feel the dirt's mineral sweat haloed
around me like the cellular-thin buffer between
a vacuum seal and its charge, doesn't mean
I'm not dead. If you've failed to bury me, and
the ants single-filing through my ear canal are,
as you say, all in the mind, that's a testament
only to your clumsiness with ceremony and
gardening tools. Am I cramping your style?
Paper looks so floppily harmless until you
turn it sideways. You've used this against me.
Let this be a reminder that the dead bleed, too,
and at greater personal expense. I don't know
why you're kicking up this fuss. I've only ever
haunted you in a quiet, mossy sort of way.
...
Suzannah Showler edits poetry for Dragnet Magazine and won the 2012 Matrix LitPop Award for Poetry.
The design of this Odourless Press book is almost as stylish as the poems themselves. This all too brief collection (my only complaint) is witty and quicksilver true. Short and sweet. The bee's knees.
www.odourless.ca
Whoever said that good things come in small packages had it exactly right if they were thinking of this excellent little chapbook, Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts, by Suzannah Showler. This gem is from the new small press Odourless Press and the careful editing hand of Bardia Sinaee.
Sucks To Be You, and other true taunts has such wonderfully titled poems as I know you are, but what am I?, why don't you go home and cry about it?, do you have a staring problem?, stop hitting yourself, and the soon to be famous takes one to know one. The glib titles have the proper ring to them and these short poems are snap your fingers tight.
takes one to know one
just because you can't see the fingerling
moulds packed up my nostrils like espresso
grinds, or feel the dirt's mineral sweat haloed
around me like the cellular-thin buffer between
a vacuum seal and its charge, doesn't mean
I'm not dead. If you've failed to bury me, and
the ants single-filing through my ear canal are,
as you say, all in the mind, that's a testament
only to your clumsiness with ceremony and
gardening tools. Am I cramping your style?
Paper looks so floppily harmless until you
turn it sideways. You've used this against me.
Let this be a reminder that the dead bleed, too,
and at greater personal expense. I don't know
why you're kicking up this fuss. I've only ever
haunted you in a quiet, mossy sort of way.
...
Suzannah Showler edits poetry for Dragnet Magazine and won the 2012 Matrix LitPop Award for Poetry.
The design of this Odourless Press book is almost as stylish as the poems themselves. This all too brief collection (my only complaint) is witty and quicksilver true. Short and sweet. The bee's knees.
www.odourless.ca
Thursday, May 23, 2013
What Happened - Tom Walmsley
Today's book of poetry: What Happened. Tom Walmsley. Book Thug. Toronto, Ontario. 2007.
If there is a poet in Canada willing to put more on the table than Tom Walmsley I'd sure like to read them.
I don't love each and every Walmsley poem, no one is that good. But I do marvel when he tosses off a gem like this:
CONCERNED
i know you feel so deeply you
can barely exist in this terrible
world & i drive you crazy with
my head in the sand i won't trust
the news i don't need to know 6
people killed in arkansas from a
collision with a truck full of beets you
rhyme off the crimes of humanity &
you are right you are I
always say so you are right
but here's something
when the pizza is 5 minutes late
pay the guy anyway & tip the waitress
even if she doesn't grovel in the
way you require just try it
& really who gives anything like a
fuck when the garbage men took & what
they didn't stop weeping for 2
minutes a day you don't have to dig so
far up your ass to find your soul
leave your deep sorrows take a
breath & try being shallow.
...
This may be my new favourite poem, my new mantra for life.
With the poem Kid Stuff, Walmsley pulls off a very interesting trick.
KID STUFF
danny tucker wore a
leather jacket & motorcycle
boots & carried a
stolen shotgun walking
across the trestle on
a saturday afternoon
we heard the train saw
the smoke & danny kept
walking & the train rolled
around the bend blowing
a high shriek & charged
the trestle they were
face to face danny &
the engine & he walked no
faster & the train kept
rolling & just when
we were ready to
scream
he reached the end &
stepped to one side
& the train seized the spot
a second later
danny tucker raised his
shotgun & blasted a boxcar point
blank & walked into
the trees never looking back
it was oshawa in 1958 &
i was standing in
the creek next to
jimmy catching crayfish &
suddenly everything in my
life was kid stuff.
...
The trick is that there is a movie inside that short poem. Plain language, no big words - but an entire panoramic, a movie where the narrator comes of age, there is action, tension, drama, mystery, crayfish.
In the long poem Little Honey Walmsley gives us a treatise on sexuality, gender, desire and power. Once again, Walmsley is braver than most. His candid voice is unadorned and fearless.
Tom Walmsley is another much overlooked poet. When he is in the mood his language is a crisp and clear as a laser and baptized water. Perhaps it is the dark undercurrent that runs through much of what Walmsley writes, for me, it is the light he shines onto the rest of the world that I find so invigorating.
"we want to act with love &
we don't want to get caught"
From the poem SIN
Walmsley tells us all about it.
www.bookthug.ca
If there is a poet in Canada willing to put more on the table than Tom Walmsley I'd sure like to read them.
I don't love each and every Walmsley poem, no one is that good. But I do marvel when he tosses off a gem like this:
CONCERNED
i know you feel so deeply you
can barely exist in this terrible
world & i drive you crazy with
my head in the sand i won't trust
the news i don't need to know 6
people killed in arkansas from a
collision with a truck full of beets you
rhyme off the crimes of humanity &
you are right you are I
always say so you are right
but here's something
when the pizza is 5 minutes late
pay the guy anyway & tip the waitress
even if she doesn't grovel in the
way you require just try it
& really who gives anything like a
fuck when the garbage men took & what
they didn't stop weeping for 2
minutes a day you don't have to dig so
far up your ass to find your soul
leave your deep sorrows take a
breath & try being shallow.
...
This may be my new favourite poem, my new mantra for life.
With the poem Kid Stuff, Walmsley pulls off a very interesting trick.
KID STUFF
danny tucker wore a
leather jacket & motorcycle
boots & carried a
stolen shotgun walking
across the trestle on
a saturday afternoon
we heard the train saw
the smoke & danny kept
walking & the train rolled
around the bend blowing
a high shriek & charged
the trestle they were
face to face danny &
the engine & he walked no
faster & the train kept
rolling & just when
we were ready to
scream
he reached the end &
stepped to one side
& the train seized the spot
a second later
danny tucker raised his
shotgun & blasted a boxcar point
blank & walked into
the trees never looking back
it was oshawa in 1958 &
i was standing in
the creek next to
jimmy catching crayfish &
suddenly everything in my
life was kid stuff.
...
The trick is that there is a movie inside that short poem. Plain language, no big words - but an entire panoramic, a movie where the narrator comes of age, there is action, tension, drama, mystery, crayfish.
In the long poem Little Honey Walmsley gives us a treatise on sexuality, gender, desire and power. Once again, Walmsley is braver than most. His candid voice is unadorned and fearless.
Tom Walmsley is another much overlooked poet. When he is in the mood his language is a crisp and clear as a laser and baptized water. Perhaps it is the dark undercurrent that runs through much of what Walmsley writes, for me, it is the light he shines onto the rest of the world that I find so invigorating.
"we want to act with love &
we don't want to get caught"
From the poem SIN
Walmsley tells us all about it.
www.bookthug.ca
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
day moon rising - Terry Ann Carter
Today's book of poetry: day moon rising. Terry Ann Carter. Black Moss Press, Windsor, Ontario, 2012.
This is Carter's fifth book of poems and Terry Ann Carter puts her money where her mouth is and her heart on her sleeve in this touching book of poems.
Constructed in equal measure from both haiku and free verse poems that compliment each other. Carter never lets style or structure dictate content but clearly has an agenda in mind as she gives voice to a part of the world she has come to love.
Carter is closely associated with the Tabitha Foundation for humanitarian work and these poems reflect those concerns. But the poetry is never a forced polemic, there is no proselytizing here.
Where Does What Matters, Begin:
Part One
Three blocks from the Golden Gate Hotel.
No. 239, Street 51. Headquarters of Janne
Ritskes. Founder of Tabitha. Leader. Mother.
In her second story outdoor office we are
points of a mandala. Intent in our listening
the sun sears our eyes. A canvas cloth
raises and lowers according to the hour.
Janne's orientation speech: the KR bloody takeover,
Vong' story, a girl at the time of invasion
if only I could have kept the babies alive, Janne,
I am bad, I am bad.
She knows this talk by heart. It is her heart.
I look past Janne's shoulder, past the shoulders
of women seated on the cement floor, AIDS
patients from the city, quilting blocks of yellow,
blue, bits of cotton from the exchange bin.
Khmer chatter flies in all directions.
I'm aware of my adult children here,
seated in the circle, the cloudless Cambodian sky
hovering over us, aware of the shy teenaged girl
I used to be, listening to Bob Dylan, believing in karma,
never knowing where it would take me.
Where does what matters, begin?
I see my life come shining
from the west down to the east.
I close my eyes, holding it all in.
My children. The circle. The talk. The sky.
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released. On my deathbed
it will be the last moment I see.
...
Terry Ann Carter sees Cambodia as both home to transcendent beauty and with a recent history of unbearably inhuman conduct. Her poems are a celebration of the best intentions of those who struggle to rebuild decency along with a nation.
The particulars of evil as they apply to Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge haunt that part of the world and these pages. That Terry Ann Carter finds beauty...
"the falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
was a butterfly"
...is no surprise, Carter is looking for it. These poems are about building something better in the world, somewhere better, a place called hope.
www.blackmosspress.com
This is Carter's fifth book of poems and Terry Ann Carter puts her money where her mouth is and her heart on her sleeve in this touching book of poems.
Constructed in equal measure from both haiku and free verse poems that compliment each other. Carter never lets style or structure dictate content but clearly has an agenda in mind as she gives voice to a part of the world she has come to love.
Carter is closely associated with the Tabitha Foundation for humanitarian work and these poems reflect those concerns. But the poetry is never a forced polemic, there is no proselytizing here.
Where Does What Matters, Begin:
Part One
Three blocks from the Golden Gate Hotel.
No. 239, Street 51. Headquarters of Janne
Ritskes. Founder of Tabitha. Leader. Mother.
In her second story outdoor office we are
points of a mandala. Intent in our listening
the sun sears our eyes. A canvas cloth
raises and lowers according to the hour.
Janne's orientation speech: the KR bloody takeover,
Vong' story, a girl at the time of invasion
if only I could have kept the babies alive, Janne,
I am bad, I am bad.
She knows this talk by heart. It is her heart.
I look past Janne's shoulder, past the shoulders
of women seated on the cement floor, AIDS
patients from the city, quilting blocks of yellow,
blue, bits of cotton from the exchange bin.
Khmer chatter flies in all directions.
I'm aware of my adult children here,
seated in the circle, the cloudless Cambodian sky
hovering over us, aware of the shy teenaged girl
I used to be, listening to Bob Dylan, believing in karma,
never knowing where it would take me.
Where does what matters, begin?
I see my life come shining
from the west down to the east.
I close my eyes, holding it all in.
My children. The circle. The talk. The sky.
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released. On my deathbed
it will be the last moment I see.
...
Terry Ann Carter sees Cambodia as both home to transcendent beauty and with a recent history of unbearably inhuman conduct. Her poems are a celebration of the best intentions of those who struggle to rebuild decency along with a nation.
The particulars of evil as they apply to Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge haunt that part of the world and these pages. That Terry Ann Carter finds beauty...
"the falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
was a butterfly"
...is no surprise, Carter is looking for it. These poems are about building something better in the world, somewhere better, a place called hope.
www.blackmosspress.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)