J.R. Carpenter, Measures of Weather

 

the coast establishes a sort of islet
within common human relation

the months leave their notches on me
the island has no need of me

you want something to happen
and nothing does

what happens to the coast
does not happen to the discourse

like a cork on the waves
I remain motionless

boredom is not far from bliss:
it is bliss seen from the shores of pleasure (“Of Coast”)

United Kingdom-based Canadian poet J.R. Carpenter’s latest is Measures of Weather (Swindon UK: Shearsman Books, 2025), a book that self-describes as a collection “about more than just weather. What isn’t weather? Weather here is a stand-in, for the elemental, the transitional, the ungovernable. And what does it mean to measure?” The collection offers a suite of sharp lyrics, each holding titles that echo off each other: “Of Fire,” “Of the Moon,” “Of Time,” “Of Witches,” “Of Dew,” “Of Nothing.” There is something of the title-thread reminiscent of what California poet Elizabeth Robinson has been working on for a while now, such as in her Excursive (New York NY: Roof Books, 2023) [see my review of such here] and On Ghosts (Solid Objects, 2013) [see my review of such here], to Anne Carson’s infamous collection Short Talks (London ON: Brick Books, 1992), with each Carson prose poem in the collection titled “Short talk on _____.” The title-structure allows for a kind of ongoingness, an umbrella under which anything might happen or occur, including threads that might relate to the specifics of each title. For Carpenter, she offers a measurement beyond immediate measurement, composing a sequence of lyric meditations on physical, intellectual and even outer space and celestial bodies. “2 August 1786 // I want to trouble you / in absence,” the sequence “Of a New Comet” begins, “with the following / imperfect account [.]”

What is it about the weather? Lisa Robertson composed The Weather (Vancouver BC: New Star Books, 2001) while living in England, another Canadian poet in the UK writing her own book-length lyric examination (a book Carpenter quotes at the opening of this collection, also). “of magnifying and multiplying glasses,” Carpenter writes, to open the sequence “Of Glass,” “I have neither studied /nor practiced [.]” There is almost a way through which Carpenter utilizes Robertson’s The Weather as a jumping-off point, providing a work that responds, in part, to that classic title, but stretching that measure much further. Referencing time, weather and space, this collection is a measure of measurement itself, seeing how expansive one can explore through the smallest examination, the smallest measure. “what is the real temperature / of bodies of a different nature / in similar circumstances,” she writes, as part of the extended “Of Dew,” “of bodies a little elevated / and similar bodies / lying on the ground // sometimes bodies / having smooth surfaces / become colder in air [.]” In pinpoint lyric, Carpenter offers a remarkable scaffolding that displays the whole shape, showcasing the ease in which she can articulate her finely-tuned lines, a movement of moments across conceptual space, time and motion. Or, as the sequence “Of Time” begins:

One hand holds the exhaustion.
Working. Away. In a suburb of Rome.
Between two televisions, blaring.
Three languages. Four deadlines.
A long waiting. No trains.
Will this flight cancel?
Feathers ruffle.
The arm aches to wing.