WINTER STORM
the falling snow is
beautiful but
we’re only inches from
doom
the car ahead can’t stop
and neither can the one
behind us
we need a miracle
and that shop is closed
for the night
Susan and Tony saw time expand
as though the car had
always
been following them
in the blink of four eyes
their lives sped past
they remembered many of
the same things
but not in the same order
impact was musical then
catastrophic
both of their memories
stopped at the same time
Susan remembered an old
boyfriend and smiled
Tony wondered where his bicycle
was
they didn’t go to heaven
even though they were
both kind
they went to the Holy
Rosary Hill Cemetery
laid out side by side
although at home
Susan was always on the
left
Ottawa poet Michael Dennis’ latest is the poetry title Low Centre of Gravity
(Vancouver BC: Anvil Press, 2020), a collection of first person lyric
narratives following on the heels of his Bad Engine: New & Selected Poems (Anvil Press, 2017) [see my review of such here], both of which were edited
by writer and editor Stuart Ross. There’s something about the way Dennis
stretches out the moment in the opening poem, “WINTER STORM,” that is quite
intriguing. This is a poem reminiscent of British Columbia poet Susan Musgrave’s
“VERN AND JOANNE: DEAD” (a poem that might be my favourite by her), from her
tenth poetry collection Cocktails at the Masuoleum (Toronto ON:
McClelland & Stewart, 1985) [a poem that I wrote about briefly here]. In these
poems, both poets hold to that single experience of the human tragedy of such
an accident; both poets work the narrative elegy, presumably writing out the
news as they heard it of an accident that killed friends, although one can’t
know for certain if either story actually occurred, or fall instead into
fiction. Given the interests of both Dennis and Musgrave, one might suspect
these poems are reportages of real events and real people, but one should never
presume with certainty.
“I
only ever climbed one mountain in my life,” he writes, to open the poem “THE
BLUE BLUE SKY,” “and I never wanted to do anything like it again [.]” There has
always been a journal entry element to Dennis’ poems, whether sketching out
poems of his reading, his day, or his marriage, but always seeking out the
small moments, whether of wisdom, clarification, beauty or simple surprise, that
emerge from his unique combination of experience and attention. And yet, his
poems don’t aim for that “aha” moment at the end, but attempt to close in a way
that addresses the importance of arriving at the ending; allowing the journey
to be more important than any destination.
In an October 2013 interview that Stuart Ross conduced with Dennis, speaking of Dennis’ extensive reviewing the past few years (his “today’s book of poetry” blog) and engaging with more experimental poetries, Dennis acknowledges his wider
interest, but clarifies his leanings: “I’m still partial to narrative poetry, I
like a good story and a little dirt under the fingernails.” More recently, in September 2018, over at poetry mini interviews, Dennis responds: “Charles
Bukowski, more than any one other writer, influenced how I think about the world
of poetry, but he wasn’t a very nice cat.
As much as I love Bukowski I don’t share his ethos that poetry is more
important than people. Sometimes it is
hard to reconcile a poet and their life against their body of work. And then there’s Raymond Carver. First time I read his work my heart stopped.”
Michael Dennis writes plainly on subjects such as hockey, sharing Chinese food
with Stuart Ross, ping pong and aging, and his straithgforwardness is never as
straightforward as it might first appear, allowing for the revelations of experience
and the moment. As his “THE BLUE BLUE SKY” poem ends:
I couldn’t quit and could
barely go on
but we eventually reached
the summit
we hadn’t said much for
hours
I asked him to forgive my
earlier moment of fear
he was smiling when he
took my hand
“nothing to forgive now”
he said
gesturing to the blue blue
sky
above us
and below
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