You might have noticed by now: I have very few non-baby photos these days. Here is another.
Toronto ON: One of the
most exciting poets in Toronto without a trade book has to be Fenn Stewart.
Originally from Vancouver, VEGETABLE INVENTORY (Toronto ON: Ferno House, 2013) is Stewart’s second poetry
chapbook, after the bpNichol Chapbook Award-shortlisted An OK Organ Man from above/ground press. The poems in VEGETABLE INVENTORY stitch together from
a variety of sources, as the acknowledgments write that “These poems owe much
of themselves in (in no particular order) the Stanley Park Forest Management Plan (2009), the sonnets of John
Donne (esp. “Annunciation” & “Nativity”), Wikipedia (esp. “Highland
Clearances”), Major Matthew’s Early
Vancouver, the Chicago Manual of Style, a variety of CBT worksheets, the
extended title of Charles Varlo’s 1796 The
Floating Ideas of Nature, the Oxford English Dictionary, promotional spam,
the Royal Proclamation of 1763, early colonial legal decisions, the pleasing
and fortunate failings of Google translate, and an Avaaz petition about fish.”
Meanwhile,
back at the Highlands
consternation and
confusion. little or no time, persons or property. the people striving. get on
the ground sooner. the fire should reach them. next, struggling to save the
most valuable. the cries the roaring hunted at the same time by the yelling
dogs. the lack of capacity. it baffles description. a dense cloud of smoke. the
whole country day by day. far out to sea. awfully grand but also terrific. all the
houses. an extensive district. flames at once. a height of eleven o’clock. two hundred
and fifty blazing houses. many of the owners. in or out of the flames. I could
not tell. the conflagration lasted. the whole of the dwellings. during one of
these days. a boat was lost.
in the dense smoke of
the shore, the lurid light of the flames,
the Duchess of
Sutherland turned her attention,
with the greatest of
energy—
There
is a sharp and thoughtful quality to her lines, and something quite lively
there as well, whether she’s articulating around and through a philosophical
point, writing out directions, or speaking (quite literally) of the devil. Stewart’s poems exist as collage-works, stitching straight lines and assorted phrases
together into a series of unusual texts; unusual for their deceptively
descriptive straightforwardness, when in fact the effect they achieve far more
subtle and subversive, less straightforward than accumulative. As the poem “Maps
and Directions” begins:
I know it is normal to
think of the devil from time to time
but the subsequent
threat of insects
has forced the board to
spend considerable money
(THE SPELLING IS
FAULTY)
there will always remain
the potential for infestation,
the widespread setback
of the forest canopy
Philadelphia PA: Anyone who
follows these posts knows that I’ve long been a fan of Philadelphia poet Pattie McCarthy, so couldn’t help but get excited to hear about the publication of the
chapbook scenes from the lives of my parents (New Jersey: Bloof Books, 2014). The poems in this small collection
each begin with a small asterisk and opening line, as though the entire work a
sequence of footnotes, broadening the scope of information presented within an
unseen source. Perhaps the footnotes exist as the real story, the important
moments, between the mundane pieces of living. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
*scenes from the lives
of my parents:
my father shaved his
head in order to write
a letter upon his scalp
& waited
(for his hair to
regrow)—whereupon
he set off for my
mother & there shaved
his head again to
reveal the message.
this was a period of
history that tolerated
a certain lack of
urgency.
Many
of McCarthy’s poems over the years have been composed in part from her apparent
love of research into medieval subjects, topics and sources, blended with
contemporary, personal and familial references, including her children, all of
which come through with an incredible, staccato ease. Her poems bounce and leap
and have such a wonderful sense of sound and play that I don’t see in that many
other writers (Sylvia Legris, perhaps, or Emily Carr, among others). Apparently
another chapbook, Nulls, is forthcoming this year from Horse Less Press, as is fifteen genre scenes from the newly-established eth press. I look
forward to all.
*scenes from the lives
of my parents:
my mother asked the
midwife to place
a special stone under
her head & give
her a potion—in part of
the finger,
toe, & knee-joints
of corpses—to ease
her birth pangs
(perhaps an alteration of prong).
a piece of flexible
material forming the
hinge. she was ordered
burned alive. the
midwife was also executed.
[I doubt the authorship
of this book.]
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