Review: The Grammar of Distance, by Ian Burgham

I had the great privilege of reading with Ian Burgham back in April at the Draft Reading Series, and was so impressed with his performance that I picked up his new poetry collection, The Grammar of Distance. Ian did a tremendous job reading from his text, providing just enough explanation between each poem and really imbuing his lines with energy and professionalism. He and I had a great chat afterwards and he seemed thoroughly impressed with the excerpt of my new novel that I had read. (Yes, I read from the new novel. If you missed it, you suck!)

And while I do admit that The Grammar of Distance worked better for me read aloud in miniature than it did as a whole volume, I think most readers should be able to find something to like in this collection of highly personal, sentimental, self-ensconced poems. Ian’s words traverse both an emotional and a physical landscape and speak to many of the concerns and preoccupations of his generation. Several of these poems jarred and challenged me in unexpected ways and made me reexamine the approaches I take to my own poetry.

I should as well send out a big kudos to Ian’s publisher, Tightrope Books, for putting his verse together into such a beautiful physical object. The cover has a gorgeous design and the selected typeface is simple and elegant, a perfect complement to Ian’s thoughtful words. It certainly makes reading a collection of poems a much better experience when such care gets put into the creation of the book itself.

Another Maisonneuve pick-up

I'm happy to report that Maisonneuve magazine has re-posted another blog entry of mine - specifically yesterday's review of Paul Vermeersch's new poetry collection. That's the second one in as many months. I could get used to this ...

Another review of Woodpecker

So another review for my Retro Reading Challenge has just been posted. Kerry Clare has reviewed Still Life with Woodpecker, which incidentally is the same book I chose, and our assessments of it are pretty much in the same ballpark. Good job, Kerry. This, I think, is the last of the reviews to come in from people who said they'd participate, but it's never too late. If you want to take your own Retro Reading Challenge, by all means go ahead and then send me a link to where you've posted your review.

Cheers,

MS

Review: The Reinvention of the Human Hand, by Paul Vermeersch

A lot of people talk about Paul Vermeersch behind his back. I’ve seen them do it. I’ll be hanging out in the clatter of some literary event here in Toronto and inevitably meet poets who have been edited by Paul in his capacity as the poetry editor at Insomniac Press. They’ll speak about him in almost hushed tones, as if they’re afraid he’ll overhear them from his place at the other side of the bar. I nearly have to lean in to catch the gossip they spread about him. The rumors are almost universally the same: that if you’re an up-and-coming poet, there is no better editor to have in your corner and to go to the mat for your work. There is no better editor to help you shape a group of seemingly disparate poems into a strong, cohesive collection of verse. Discussing such things, these poets seem almost embarrassed – not at how brilliant Paul is, but rather at how adept his skills are at helping others see the brilliance in themselves.

So I came to Paul’s freshly released collection, The Reinvention of the Human Hand, wondering if he can do for his own work what he has reportedly done for so many others’. I had heard him read a number of these poems at various events here in Toronto and knew they were strong as individual pieces. But it wasn’t until I had read the collection in full that I realized exactly what we’re dealing with here. The Reinvention of the Human is, quite simply, a powerhouse book of poetry, an astonishing feat for a poet who has not yet turned forty. The unifying vision is that of the animal in man and man in the animal. The book examines our human relationships with and interpretations of the rest of the animal world, and draws connections between our so-called rational actions and the more primordial impulses to which we are also subject.

There is a deep, abiding love for animals in this book, and Paul does a phenomenal job contemplating their inner worlds. In poems like “Ape,” “Sorrow for Frogsong” and “Dogstar,” he either speaks to or for the beasts he has imagined, often as an elegy for their embattled situations, a result of their subjugation to the human hand. He also explores the boundaries of what that human hand is capable of, the edges of man’s consciousness, reason and even physicality. Many of the poems are a reflection in both senses of the word: a contemplation on man’s place in the animal world and also a refraction back from the animals themselves.

One can’t help but notice a sad, almost pessimistic air to much of the collection, but Paul mitigates this lugubriousness with lines of pure eloquence. In “Boys who Envy Werewolves”, we get a glimpse into the minds of young men prone to violence, an unblinking assessment of their inner consciousness:

The boys who envy werewolves do not

want to change. They only want the freedom

to be the monsters they know they are,

harbingers of the justice that seethes

inside them, the storm of bile unleashed…

Of course, not all of the poems are so dark. My favourite was the more lighthearted “Three Anthropomorphic Studies,” in which Paul provides a poetic rendering of three characters from Looney Tunes – Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny. I was impressed not only with how well these pieces fit into the overall vision for the book but also at the sheer craft shown in creating them. Paul resists the urge to give in to camp or cheap humour in these poems. I did chuckle reading them, but it was more at how skillfully he lays a seriousness atop these absurd cartoon worlds. From “2. Call Me Coyote”:

I’ll come for you again today refreshed,

with birdseed loaded with buckshot

and a magnet that could rip the very iron

from your blood. I’ll grease my heels

and slide like light toward my prize,

unencumbered and missile-swift,

with dead-eye aim and avarice.

The Reinvention of the Human Hand does what every good collection of poetry should: it gives you a new, enriching perspective on what it means to be human. Paul has taken his profound love of animals and used it to teach us something fundamental about ourselves. I’ll definitely be chatting this collection up with other bookish types that I see around Toronto’s literary events. And I may not even wait until Paul’s gone to the bar and out of earshot before I do it.

Review: My Animal Life, by Maggie Gee

I picked up this memoir by British author Maggie Gee after reading a thoroughly engaging review of it in the UK Guardian back in March. For those of you who don't know, Maggie Gee is one of the writers who was included in the original Granta list of Best Young British Authors (along with Martin Amis, Ian MacEwan, and others) back in the early `80s. She has published about a dozen books and has been up for the Orange Prize and other awards. While on the surface it seems she has had a flawlessly successful career as a novelist, the reality of her situation is a much different story. The review above described My Animal Life as a tale of a woman lost in the literary world's mid-list, mid-career shuffle. Despite her early successes, few around London's literary elite had actually read Gee, and she at one point had a manuscript out-and-out rejected - not only by her publisher HarperCollins but by virtually every other mainstream publisher in Britain.

Gee's memoir does describe this ego-shattering experience in riveting detail, but it takes its sweet time getting there. Instead of limiting itself to this most compelling aspect of Gee's story, My Animal Life takes a more pedestrian and well-worn road - that of the "long view" memoir. Gee can't help but inundate the reader with ponderous background on her parents and grandparents (right down to the kinds of hats they wore), cliched observations about breast feeding her daughter, and other random domestic minutiae.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all in favour of the quotidian when it serves a higher function in a story. But one has to wonder what Gee was trying to accomplish in the first third of this book. If there was a greater structural function in describing the petty squabbles of her parents and the wardrobe norms of her grandparents, it was lost on me. Gee writes in a voice that captures the very worst stereotypes one might conjure about the Baby Boomer generation: self-absorbed, solipsistic, sanctimonious, and convinced that any typical life event, no matter how shopworn, is worth describing for the simple reason that it happened to them.

The biggest issue with My Animal Life, before it finally arrives at its gripping section on Gee’s struggles in the literary jungle, is that it lacks any cohesive organization. She hops around from topic to topic – childhood, parenthood, ancestry, her writing life – with no discernible pattern to the choices she’s made as the narrator. Indeed, I often felt there was a lack of continuity from one paragraph to the next. Even at the level of the sentence, Gee can’t seem to settle into a style. Her sentences are at one point fluid and complete, then veer suddenly into fragmentation and ellipsis.

Still, there is a lot to admire about this memoir. Gee writes a harrowing scene where she is almost raped while on family vacation in France by an army conscript home on leave. And her description of her mother’s death is as heartbreaking as it is memorable. Gee can write a compelling scene when she has to; she just can’t seem to tell the difference between what constitutes a gripping anecdote and what doesn’t. Again, she’s clearly a product of her generation.

I think there’s a valuable lesson that any would-be writer can take away from My Animal Life, but it isn’t the one promised in that UK Guardian review. The lesson here is that a memoir need not be – in fact, should not be – a life told in total. Rather, the best of this kind of literary personal nonfiction is the kind that identifies the truly interesting, the truly fascinating aspects of the author’s life, and focuses on those and those alone. Leave out your long rambles about grandparents and the kinds of hats they wore. If you're Maggie Gee, your story is told better by leaving them out.

Retro Reading Challenge Update

I'm pleased to report that I've had another participant in my Retro Reading Challenge from earlier this year. As promised, Amy Jones has written, or at least has attempted to write, a review of The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley on her Listophelia blog. Amy is tough on herself for not finishing this tome, but her caustic assessment of the experience (written in the form of a list, natch) is well worth a read.

Amy posted this a few days ago but I missed it because I've only just now gotten back from my vacation on the East Coast and have spent the last two days in a car. Actually, I'm not complaining - the trek from Toronto to Charlottetown and back again is long but invigorating, and I really did appreciate two weeks home with access to my own vehicle. So, in honour of Amy Jones, I offer up my Top 12 list of things I learned on my summer break:

1. Leaving Toronto on the morning of the first day of the G20 summit is a BRILLIANT idea. Somewhat ruined, however, by turning on CBC News in our hotel room in Riviere du Loup that night and seeing a burning cop car.

2. The sunset in Riviere du Loup is spectacular.

3. My GPS completely craps out between Edmunston and Fredericton, NB. I mean, that poor machine had no idea where the fuck we were!

4. Crossing the Confederation Bridge to PEI is even more fun when your passenger has never done it before.

5. Visiting Anne of Green Gables House in Cavendish is surprisingly entertaining, despite being subjected to L.M. Montgomery's sugary affirmations in pull-quote form on plaques scattered throughout the Balsam Walking Trail.

6. Halifax is STILL THE FUCKING COOLEST CITY IN THE WORLD. Hats off to RR for enduring what essentially turned into a walking tour of Off Book.

7. Peggy's Cove looks somewhat ominous when viewed through a GPS. Getting out of car and walking along the rocks is strongly encouraged.

8. Poet Art Moore throws just as awesome a party at his Moncton, NB home in summer as he does at Christmas time. But from this experience, we have learned:

8a. RR and I suck at backyard croquet.

8b. Moonshine goes surprisingly well in a Jell-O shooter.

8c. Certain people, when they've had a few too many moonshine Jell-O shooters, will accuse both RR and me of being "postmodern writers". Umm - what?

9. Jumping off the bridge at Basin Head beach on PEI never gets boring, no matter how old you are.

10. Perth-Andover, NB is red-neck central. See camouflage decal on pick-up trucks at the Tim Hortons.

11. Rolaids now come in a chewable candy form, and is a delightful balm to soothe road trip-related heartburn.

12. It's nice to see one's own kitchen back in Toronto again, and even nicer to see one hasn't accidentally left any food out on the counter to rot while one's been away for two weeks.

Vacation mania

If you're all wondering why things are so quiet here on FRR, it's because I am currently on vacation back home on the East Coast. RR and I drove down from Toronto last weekend, spent a chilly but fun few days on PEI, and are now in Halifax. In fact, as I type this we are relaxing at the Garden Inn, just a couple blocks from my beloved Spring Garden Road, recovering from an invigorating hike around McNab's Island. We're here in Halifax until tomorrow morning, and then we jaunt off to Moncton to spend some time with poet Art Moore. Then back to PEI for a few more days before driving back to Toronto.

But you'll be happy to know that I've continued reading like mad (after all, what else are breaks for?) and am a couple books behind on my reviewing. Stay tuned - I may try to find some time to write while we're still on break; otherwise, expect a flurry of reviews when I get back.

Ta,

MS