Reviewed here: Origami Dove, by Susan Musgrave; Small Mechanics, by Lorna Crozier; Oyama Pink Shale, by Sharon Thesen
It takes near perfect poetic craftsmanship and the employment of irony, humour, sex, primal metaphoric brilliance and, oh, say tonal precision, to get me to read poems that frequently employ imagery of the natural world. Susan Musgrave, Lorna Crozier and Sharon Thesen, three vital. important Canadian poets, manage to do this. All three have been publishing for at least 20 years, reside in British Columbia (in fact, all have poems that take place on or refer to Haida Gwaii) and it is fair to say that they are all at the top of their games. In terms of tone and poetic style, that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Their new books are simply stunning.
All three collections touch on grief – the death of friends, fellow poets and parents – solitude and aging, often through images and metaphors of the natural world. Musgrave offers a raucous fist-pump laugh in the face of age with her trademark poetic storyteller’s wit and incisive candour; Crozier gracefully contemplates the meaning with hopeful lyrical precision and heart-stopping imagery; Thesen snips and snaps around in tight fragments, gazing as though from a distance, and then swooping inside a moment with aplomb.
Origami Dove, Musgrave’s first collection in 10 years, was more than worth the wait. It’s trademark Musgrave, gutsy and dexterous, trading off the emotionally raw for the comedic in lyrical snapshots. Her tone is casual and direct, with a deft poetic narrative that pulls you along an emotional plotline. A natural storyteller, Musgave is frequently heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time. Or sometimes just hilarious: “If the United States is like the guy at the party who gives everyone cocaine and still can’t get anyone to like him, north of the 49th parallel where all our Christmases are white, Canadians are the life of the party.” The final of four segments, Heroines, is a masterful series based on the life stories of six women in Vancouver’s downtown East Side; smart and not one bit sentimental, it ensures that even the most hardened heart will shed tears.
Serious discussion of Musgrave’s poetic accomplishments are often overshadowed by her life and marriage to convicted bank-robber Stephen Reid. The poet uses these experiences to unearth rich observations about life, solitude and yearning, and imbue the heartbreak of these personal experiences into each skillful line. The rest of my praise sounds too much like an obsessed fan letter, so I will digress. But I will add that 32 Uses for Al Purdy’s Ashes is an hilarious send-off to an iconic poet, (“Award them the Nobel Prize/ for humility”) and a good friend.
If Musgrave fans have been longing for a new book, Lorna Crozier fans have had their shelves well-stocked; Small Mechanics is her fifth book of poems since 2000. It’s a tight, thoughtful lyrical exploration of grief, aging and grace:
as one searches for purpose. (Is it a curse to love the world too much / to praise its paws and hooves / its thick-furred creatures, each life a fear in me? / the wind saves nothing on this earth.)
As always, Crozier employs a comedic tone that lightens the burden of the over-arching theme of loss: One poem is titled Finding Four Ways to Celebrate the Huge Moths That Keep Me Awake By Banging Between the Blind and Window and Falling on My Pillow. In the poem Obsession, she writes: “I’ve done my best to see/ this moth’s large extended family/ as things of use or beauty.”
Throughout the book is a kind of resigned hope, that through the sorrow and confusion and devastation of losing a mother, and good friends, and facing older age there is always reason to celebrate life. It’s possible to say that Small Mechanics is an optimistic book about death by an intelligent poet who is a consummate image-maker. I will add that P.K. is a beautiful elegy for the late poet P.K. Page.
A 2011 Griffin Prize nominee, Sharon Thesen’s Oyama Pink Shale is dedicated to the memory of deceased poet Robin Blaser. It’s a very slim volume, but packs quite a punch. Thesen’s careful, delicate use of language and deft handle on metaphor can shine brilliantly in lines like: “Long light falls across long grasses/ tresses of marmots combed out like a hold-up artist’s wildeyed wig” or “It’s as quiet as the skin on a custard.” Thesen keeps the personal or poetic at more of a distance than Musgrave and Crozier, with less storytelling, and more fragmentary images that hold their own. Still, Oyama Pink Shale is both skilled and moving. Throughout the collection are images of the rock in the title, the best one being “crushed pieces of peach-pink shale like tablets of blush/ in brass hinged compacts.”
Zoe Whittall is a Toronto poet and novelist. Her most recent book is Holding Still for as Long as Possible.
