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With Arguments with Gravity, Michael Crummey makes an impressive debut. This is, in fact, one of the finest first books I've come across, and its most notable feature is its range. Crummey divides his poems into five sections; these deal with home and working people, family connections, politics, gender issues, and travel. Not all are successful, but all do reveal a young poet of true potential. The strongest and most vital poems deal with his home and his father. Crummey comes from Buchans, Newfoundland and also from the Labrador coast. This is a world of real work, of cod fishing and hard rock mining, and it is a world that is in the poet's blood. The pieces about his father, grandfather, and mother are especially understanding and moving. These are the best poems about Newfoundland I've ever read. If Alistair MacLeod wrote poetry instead of stories, he might have written these poems. Also moving are his frankly political poems. These are found in the section called Part of It and the focus is on Latin America. Here the reader may recall the work of Denise Levertov and Carolyn Forche, with whom Crummey shares both outrage and compassion. Less successful are his poetry scene poems -- although David Donnell's Schlong does make a point which needed to be made -- and his travel poems, mostly about China and parts of Ontario where he does not live. Crummey understands hard work, hardship, and oppression. He writes well when he writes about what his bones know. By comparison, the pieces set in China seem superficial. Still, the strong poems far outweigh the weaker pieces.
Crispin Elsted, Climate and the Affections, Poems: 1970-1995
Victoria, British Columbia: Sono Nis Press, 1996
96 pages. ISBN 1-55039-064-3
Despite its subtitle Poems 1970-1995, Climate and the Affections is much more a collection of philosophical texts to be studied than a book of poems to be read. Elsted's pieces demand the careful attention of the reader; they also demand several readings before they yield the full richness of their content. His pieces recall the works of Gerry Shikatani and Steve McCaffery in the way he challenges his readers to be as daring, and as well and widely read, as he is himself. This is difficult, and readers who expect easy accessibility will be unhappy. For those readers who are willing to work as hard at the reading as Elsted worked at the writing, the rewards can be great. Climate and the Affections has as much content as a dozen regular poetry collections. The language is bountiful, even opulent, in its use of the startling, though nonetheless satisfying, image. More importantly, the language is musical in much the same way as the Metaphysical Poets were musical. Indeed, one suspects Elsted would feel more at home in seventeenth-century England than in modern Canada. Elsted has been hiding out along the margins of CanLit, publishing a slim chapbook here and a broadside or two there, invisible to most readers. The present volume collects his best pieces from the past twenty-five years in a form that mainstream readers will encounter. That is good. These poems needed to be written and they need to be read. The question is whether or not his new readers will grant these texts the patience and dutiful reading they deserve.
Phil Hall, Hearthedral
London, Ontario: Brick Books, 1996
105 pages, $12.95 paper. ISBN 0-919626-87-4
The first thing one notices when reading Hearthedral is that its language is ugly and almost painful to read. This apparently is what Phil Hall had in mind. Hall believes that the world is ugly and painful, and so his book -- art imitating life -- must also display these qualities. Although Hall states that he is "a mess & a failure / at everything words refer to," he does claim to seek "exactitude of usage," so I think the outcome might be what he intended. Hearthedral is identified as a folk-Hermetic. That name suggests this text relates to Hermes Trismegistus and certain concerns: gnosticism, alchemy, and magic. If there is an occult content to Hall's book, it remained far too occult for this reader to uncover. What I did find, however, was an abundance of existential angst and pessimism. Angst actually has no place in a work of the Hermetic tradition since the gnosis is transcendent and, therefore, liberating. Hall is well versed in "the terrible punishments of humans inflicted upon humans" (to use Erin Moure's words) and his book is full of historical reminders of how brutish life can be. He sees no solution to this condition other than death. The religions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition are, in his opinion, bankrupt (an opinion many modern people might share). Post-Christian leaders attempted to replace religion with secular humanism and social activism, attempted to replace the classical God-centred universe with a human universe. But humanism and activism, Hall would argue, have also been shown to be spiritually bankrupt. Therefore, death is both an "opponent" that life fights against (the biological imperative) and the ultimate release from suffering. Whether readers will welcome Hall's vision or not -- despair might not be all that attractive in such a large dose -- Hearthedral does break new ground in the area of literature and English usage. Hall pushes language farther than is usual for a Canadian poet. His practice expands the ways content can be presented within the context of a book, and Canadian writers may benefit from this.
Linda Waybrant, The Colour of Flight
Don Mills, Ontario: Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, 1996
96 pages. ISBN 0-919897-50-9
Linda Waybrant's first collection of poems presents an extremely dark view of life and of human relationships. The strongest sections in the book are Father and Beginning From the Middle of Darkness which closes the collection. In Father she deals with her home life, with growing up in a family defined by anger, booze, and cruelty, and with daily humiliation. It deals with a father she can never escape. Even his death in 1991 did not release her;she was trapped mourning a man she "didn't want to know." Beginning From the Middle of Darkness is a long narrative ending with a woman being stabbed in the presence of her young son and with her attacker's suicide. As with the other pieces in her book, she sets out the story in vivid images the reader can't forget. The rest of the book details how romantic relationships tend to degrade, disappoint, and ultimately betray the women involved. A bleak view indeed. The Colour of Fligh has one great strength and one great weakness. Its strong point is that Linda Waybrant can really write. Although making her debut here, she at once establishes herself as a very fine confessional poet. She has a firm grasp of narrative poetics, and there is hardly a bad line in her book. Her weakness is the personal nature of her discourse, something common to confessional poets, but more noticeable here than is usual. The intensely private way Waybrant writes excluded this reader, and all through The Colour of Flight I had the feeling that I was an eavesdropper on a conversation I was not supposed to hear.
Timothy J. Anderson, Neurotic Erotica
Edmonton, Alberta: Slipstream (an imprint of The Books Collective) 1996
111 pages. ISBN 1-895836-18-2
The author would like his readers to think they are reading a volume of erotica. Indeed, the book starts with a ten-page foreword by psychologist Robyn Mott and ends with eleven pages by its author that attempt to establish these poems as works of erotic art rather than mere pornography. Few readers, however, will be convinced. Unlike the genuinely erotic poems of Canadians Ian Young, Lala Heine-Koehn, and Robert Hilles, Anderson manages to make sexually explicit material boring. According to Dr. Mott, pornography (her term) dehumanizes and destroys the integrity of human experience. Erotic art, on the other hand, can activate new life in the imagination (a concept advanced by M. Phillips and C. Frederick, presumably fellow psychologists). Anderson says much the same thing in his post-poetry musings, Why my Mother Won't Like this Book. His actual poems, unfortunately, fail to activate new life; nor do they have much to do with the imagination. Instead of celebrating human sexuality, Neurotic Erotica makes sexual interactions mechanical, unimaginative, and lifeless. Almost entirely missing is the idea that sex is fun. Anderson's attempts at humour seldom rise above the level of the bad pun. While this book may not be pornographic, readers who believe sexual experience should be liberating and exciting will be disappointed with these poems.
Robert Hilles -- Nothing Vanishes
Don Mills, Ontario: Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, 1996
95 pages, ISBN 0-919897-52-5
Nothing Vanishes is both disturbing and uplifting. It is disturbing in that poem after poem reveals how alone we are, how we cannot truly know another person, and how we are separated from those we love most by the great gulf of our individual consciousness. The book is uplifting in that the power of love is invoked to help get us through our days. In fact, the main topic of this volume is the difficulty of living. These poems deal with the poet's relationship with his wife, son, daughter, mother, and father. They also deal with his relationship with himself. In all cases, language is called upon to connect the personalities of these family members in much the same way that genetics already connects their physical bodies. It is a complicated operation and Hilles uses the run-on sentence to explore the ways we think about each other and, hopefully, come to understand each other. This decision yields a discursive poetry that narrates the day-by-day life of the poet. Hilles is a master of free verse, but as good as these poems are -- and many are quite fine -- the real gold in this collection lies in its prose poems. This has two reasons. First, prose paragraphs are better suited to his discursive narratives. And second, Hilles goes far deeper into the ambiguities of day-to-day experience in his prose pieces. The Snow is on Fire, Church Bells, and Apples are not only among the best poems in this book, they are among the best prose poems of our time. Another strong feature is the tenderness and sweetness of Hilles' writing. In a culture that regards tenderness and sweetness as sentimental in the worst sense of the word, it is a joyous occasion to come across a poet who can raise those very human feelings into the realm of art. In terms of both content and poetics, Hilles has gone beyond what he achieved in his 1994 Governor General's Award winning Cantos from a Small Room. He may not offer solutions to our loneliness and our fundamental alienation from each other, but he valourizes the family and human relationships without slipping into cliche and meaningless sentimentality. In many ways, Nothing Vanishes is a breakthrough book for this important author.
Kenneth Radu, Romanian Suite
London, Ontario: Brick Books, 1996
69 pages, $12.95 paper. ISBN 0-919626-89-0
While Kenneth Radu has a Romanian background, he seems to have never visited that country. Instead, Radu bases his book-length suite on history and his son's visit to Bucharest. He starts at the beginning: the quarrel between God and the devil. (The devil, it turns out, has had a lot to do with the violent history of Romania.) Radu then moves on to Vlad the Impaler -- who saves Europe from the Turks -- and Count Dracula, whose interest in sex and death has sparked many films. Admittedly, the devil, Prince Vlad, and Dracula are vivid figures, but Radu does little with them beyond poetic play with their more renowned characteristics. He does somewhat better with the evil Romanian of our time, Ceausescu; but, with the exception of The Nurse's Lullaby, most of the contemporary passages read like poeticized newspaper accounts. There is little doubt that this is because the poems actually come from newspaper accounts, not from the living experience of the poet. Radu's poems about music have more direct impact. The high point of this entire suite is the contrast between, on the one hand, pianists Lipatti and Lupu and the mazurkas of Chopin, and, on the other hand, the brutal dictatorship. In terms of poetics, Radu makes use of three forms: free verse, the prose poem, and formalist structures. One wishes he had opted exclusively for prose poetry as this form avoids the odd stanza breaks and jolting enjambments that sometimes mar his other pieces. The book ends with hope for the future. But given the nature of Romania as outlined by Radu, can this be more than wishful thinking?
Douglas Beardsey, Wrestling with Angels: New and Selected Poems 1960-1995
Montreal, Quebec: Signal Editions, 1995
174 pages. ISBN 1-55065-063-7
Written over a thirty-five year period, these poems deal with a number of themes. The collection opens with several uncollected poems. This is unfortunate because, although one or two foreshadow the brilliance to come, most of these early poems clearly show the flaws that kept them out of Beardsley's previous books. They make for a weak start. Next come poems, drawn from his first book, that deal with travel -- England, the Swiss Alps, and Greece -- and history. These pieces show Beardsley's sharp eye for detail. The most successful poems, however, come in the following section. They deal with Canada, its geography, early exploration, history, and its French Catholic religious foundations. These poems are spare, tightly focused, and display a fine understanding of the roots of our country. Poems such as The Final Offering capture the essence of Canada, both its pain and its harsh spiritual beauty. Beardsley shifts gears again with a series of pieces from his most recent book. These poems capture the agony and loss that comes from the death of a marriage. Here the language is simple and unadorned, but goes straight to the heart. It is a rare poet who can write well about topics that are intensely personal as well as topics as objective as the exploration of western Canada. Beardsley pulls it off. Far less successful are his poems sparked by classical music -- Mahler, Strauss, Vivaldi, and Bruckner. Here the language becomes overly wordy and stiff, proving, perhaps, that good music does not always make good poetry. The volume closes with a selection of new, uncollected pieces, most of them on the theme of the Holocaust. It is not easy to write about Auschwitz, Baden-Baden, and the six million murdered Jews. Before such evil what can the poet say? Again Beardsley comes through with sensitive poems well worth reading. This is a strong selected poems, indeed.
Ian Iqbal Rashid, The Heat Yesterday
Toronto, Ontario: Coach House Press, 1995
69 pages, $12.95 paper. ISBN 0-88910-483-2
If you are interested in post-colonial, postmodern verse, The Heat Yesterday is for you. Rashid's poetry deals with disorientation and rootlessness in a social world where only the physical body seems to have retained meaning. His writing is at once erotic and cool. A member of the East-Indian, East-African diaspora, Rashid seems cut off from his geographical home, his religion, and his family; the reader finds him drifting between Canada and England immersed in, but not connected to, a white European world he can never really feel at home in. The book is also based on the confusion many people feel about gender and sexual orientation. These uncertainties -- and the collection as a whole is about uncertainty -- are focused when an East-Indian woman tells Rashid, "If you are Muslim, you can not be what you are." The poet counters this statement by directing his readers to "Remember who you are." He also advises "You are what you were." But exactly who are you and what were you? These are the issues Rashid struggles with, but cannot resolve. What makes a book with such intense alienation bearable is the beauty of the poetry, the grace and lightness of the lines. These poems and prose-poems live within the tension created by the need to belong and the reality of having nothing to belong to. They are highly personal poems that gain strength by dealing with matters of public interest. It is hard to feel comfortable after reading this book, but it is both well written and important as a post-colonial text. It is certainly a book that would have been hard to write in an earlier, less alienated era.
Allan Serafino, Troubled Dreams
Victoria, British Columbia: Ekstasis Editions Canada, 1995
96 pages. ISBN 0-921215-91-6
Allan Serafino's first full-size book is a mixture of confessional poems, often dealing with his relationship with his father, and pieces treating the tragic events of history -- the Holocaust, the Franklin Expedition, the last flight of the Challenger. As with many first books, the writing is quite uneven. Were all the poetry on a level with the section called a bastard hand, the collection would be strong indeed. These poems deal with the poet's failure to follow in his father's footsteps and become a carpenter. Both father and son are frustrated and disappointed. The poem My Father's Body is a very fine treatment of aging. Also of note are poems on married love. Anniversary and Song are magical pieces. In his role of confessional poet, Serafino tends to avoid the superficial and trite. Such, however, is not the case with his historical poems. Like many poets of the personal world, Serafino seems to need to make the larger statement. The trouble is that his poems in memory of John Torrington and Christa McAuliffe do not go beyond the surface drama of the described events. His Holocaust poems, while not bad, do not add to our understanding of that great evil. About half of these poems are free verse and half are more formally structured. Almost all of the better pieces are to be found among the more formal poems. The language tends to be sloppy and inexact without the discipline of a set structure. Still, as a debut collection, Troubled Dreams is better than most.
Raymond Souster, No Sad Songs Wanted Here
Ottawa, Ontario: Oberon Press, 1995
80 pages. ISBN 0-7780-1001-5
This is (by my count) Ray Souster's 37th book, yet it is as fresh and exciting as anything he has published over the past fifty years. As the title suggests, Souster refuses to allow sad songs to dominate his work. Nor does he fill his pages with stale material by rewriting and rewriting the same old poems. This collection is built on two extended poetic sequences: A Local History of Chocolate and No Sad Songs Wanted Here: The Life & Death of the Colonial Bar & Grill. Around these are hung shorter poems dealing with nature, the urban landscape of Toronto, World War II, and politics, both domestic and international. All offer new looks at these classic Souster themes, and all shine with his love of people. But I won't go on about his short poems here. Instead I feel the reader's attention should be drawn to the longer sequences. In No Sad Songs Wanted Here, the title sequence is made up of eleven jazz poems that focus on the Colonial Bar & Grill. Readers who have listened to music at the Colonial will be amazed at how well Souster captures the ambiance of the place. And jazz fans will, of course, love his poems about the music of Duke Ellington, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims, and Stan Getz or his wry piece on the arrogance of the King of Swing. The Colonial was an important piece of Toronto culture and it has been preserved in these sweet words. Not quite as well written, but still a delight to read, is his sequence on Toronto's chocolate factories. These poems may mean more to Torontonians, but I think they will also appeal to Souster's other readers. The shorter sections -- Patterson's and William Neilson's -- read better that the longer passages about Laura Secord and Jenny Lind. Souster does tend to turn poetry into prose at times, especially when a poetic unit runs longer than a page; his shorter poems keep the flow of his language lively and pure. Although devoted to chocolate, these poems celebrate Toronto. How much richer his city is because of them!
Bill Gaston, Inviting Blindness
Oolichan Books P.O. Box 10, Lantzville, B.C., V0R 2H0
80 pages, $11.95
Inviting Blindness is Bill Gaston's first book of poems. Until now, Gaston has been known as a prose writer with three novels and two short story collections to his credit. Narrative is important in prose fiction, and Gaston's poetry is not lacking in narrative elements. These are particularly well displayed in the middle section of the book, Sex by Numbers. In this section, twenty-four related poems tell the story of an erotic relationship and some of his best poetry is found here. This fascination with what Robert Lowell called "plot" can be seen in the short, individual lyrics, too. Gaston has learned much from the confessional poets while avoiding most of the pitfalls of that type of writing. Most confessional poetry is bloated and overburdened by trivial details. The poems in Inviting Blindness, by contrast, tend to be spare and focused. They seek to be more than mere biography in verse. It was Gary Snyder who observed that in our spiritually impoverished, consumer society sex takes on an importance far beyond reproduction and erotic pleasure. Sexual orgasm provides the only epiphany available to people who can believe in nothing beyond the body. Gaston tries to reverse this process; he wants to move from the frankly erotic to larger issues of psychology and spirituality. Upon occasion he makes this leap and his poems open out to approach the realm of the dimensionless. Usually, however, they fall short and circle back into a relationship that cannot seem to move beyond self-justification. Almost all of the poems presented here are brief, personal, free-verse lyrics. They read well despite Gaston's rather pedestrian imagery. The book also offers three prose poems and an extended ghazal. These more formally constrained pieces are less successful and show, perhaps, how difficult is it to rise above the mundane in our too-material culture.
James Deahl is Canadian Editor of The Pittsburgh Quarterly. E-mail him at meklerdeahl@mail.globalserve.net.
