Camille Martin, R

Light is not
inevitable. Overshot it
or not yet there.
Nothing, for that
matter. In any case,
not arrived. Anything
could have been
otherwise.

The latest from Toronto poet and collagist Camille Martin is the poetry title, R (Toronto ON: Rogue Embroyo Press, 2023), following a list of books and chapbooks over the years, including Plastic Heaven (New Orleans: single-author issue of Fell Swoop, 1996), Magnus Loop (Tucson, Arizona: Chax Press, 1999), Rogue Embryo (New Orleans: Lavender Ink, 1999), Sesame Kiosk (Elmwood CT: Potes and Poets, 2001), Codes of Public Sleep (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2007), Sonnets (Shearsman Books, 2010), If Leaf, Then Arpeggio (above/ground press, 2011), Looms (Shearsman Books, 2012), Sugar Beach (above/ground press, 2013) and Blueshift Road (Rogue Embryo Press, 2021) [see my review of such here]. It is interesting that, after a period of relative silence, she has quietly reemerged through self-publication, offering a first (Blueshift Road) and now this second full-length collection (R), since the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns. Still, with pieces that originally appeared in a handful of journals and anthologies, as well as in the chapbooks Magnus Loop and Sugar Beach, it suggests that this particular manuscript has been gestating for some time. The one hundred and fifty pages of this collection are predominantly articulated as a sequence of short, untitled, haiku-like bursts, each carved into the centre of the page. It is almost as though these meditative bursts are attempts to achieve and articulate balance, seeking a grounding effect through this sequence of carved sketchworks. Each poem is thoughtful, observational; settling into short-form thought and speech via playful scraps. “plastic raspberries linked with safety pins,” she writes, mid-way through the collection, “dull flavour of stewed rubies // stoplight blinking in a junkyard [.]” Each poem offers sketch and pause through an effect of collage, suggesting a construction similar to the images presented on the front and back cover: a suggestion of simultaneous image and idea, carved, clipped, collected and formed into poem-shapes that retain their collage-simultaneity through each tightly-packed singular effect. There is an enormous amount going on in these poems, clearly.

shadow concealing
colour, colour
shedding cells