Invisible Dogs
\n<\/i>by Barry Dempster,
\nLondon, ON: Brick Books, 2013
\n96 pp, $20<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Barry Dempster\u2019s fourteenth collection of poetry, Invisible Dogs, is a sensual look at love and aging in clear language that addresses the complexities of the topics beautifully. Dempster has the ability to be gentle, thoughtful, and completely solid as so much of his perspective is grounded in the natural world whether it\u2019s the human body or other animals or the landscape.<\/p>\n
This collection comprises five sections: \u201cThere\u2019s a Hole in the World,\u201d \u201cShe Said\/He Said,\u201d \u201cRocky Variations,\u201d \u201cGoing Under,\u201d and \u201cWalking Away.\u201d Perhaps the most effective section is the final one, which is a series of nine linked poems. \u201cWalking Away\u201d has the depth of a long poem, and in a way it is one. The first poem raises the question of purpose: \u201cDo I still need a destination?\u201d Then it gives an answer: \u201cI walk for no good reason\u201d but the purpose is in life, in putting one foot in front of the other and moving on, or more specifically\u00a0 in this case, moving away.<\/p>\n
Anyone who has ever spent time in Banff will recognize the settings of \u201cRocky Variations,\u201d in which Dempster pay homage to the beauty of the landscape and its animals without a molecule of sentimentality. In \u201cBear Story, for example, Dempster describes a number of encounters with bears. The bears win. The poem opens with a taste of what\u2019s to come: \u201cOn Tunnel Mountain, a bear sideswipes a cyclist, \/ black claws a sudden red, drool \/ the stuff of victory not hunger.\u201d And in every meeting between hikers and bears, the bears get to decide the outcome. That\u2019s just the way it is. Respect for the wilderness and its animals infuses several of the poems in this section. In \u201cSkunk Hour,\u201d Dempster plays with the idea of the human need to control, and in this case, that control is evidenced by turning a skunk into a pet. But skunks are not pets, and it is foolish and egotistical to think that human beings are dominant. The poem ends with the skunk\u2019s desire to be rid of the person. And then Dempster twists hubris: \u201cNow tell a story where you don\u2019t even exist.\u201d This admonition to erase the self is beyond Dempster\u2019s speaker\u2019s usual self-deprecation.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe Said\/He Said\u201d is another sequence in which each poem works more effectively for being together.\u00a0 In nineteen poems, the poet describes a relationship unravelling. And in the disintegration, the power of the union is ironically made evident. In \u201cDaily,\u201d the man attempts to go on with his ordinary life while the woman sends postcards from far away. As the speaker announces at the outset, \u201cThe day goes by whether it\u2019s lived or not.\u201d It\u2019s an obvious truth, but it packs a punch.<\/p>\n
Overall Dempster\u2019s language is direct and engaging. The lyricism is heightened because of the lack of verbal clutter. Emotions rule the page, but they are irrevocably linked to the concrete world. Line length is precise and elegant. The occasional reference to popular culture sometimes jars, but that\u2019s the intent, I suspect. I suppose I could natter on about finely-honed craft and all that (which most definitely exists), but the truly arresting aspect of these poems is their intensity of feeling and the poet\u2019s respect for feeling.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bite Down Little Whisper
\n<\/i>by Don Domanski,
\nLondon, ON: Brick Books,
\n98 pp. $20<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the surface, Don Domanski writes nature poetry, but really, his work strikes me more as secular prayer than anything else. He grapples with the big issues in a highly serious and highly abstract way even though much of his imagery is of flora and fauna. Whatever the concrete content, the poems move towards the ineffable. And that contradiction between the elements of nature and the metaphysical inquiry, implicit or explicit, sets up a constant and engaging tension.<\/p>\n
Bite Down Little Whisper<\/i>, Domanski\u2019s ninth book of poetry, is dense and literary. It\u2019s not in the Billy Collins\u2019 let me entertain you school of poetry. Nope, not at all. And that\u2019s good. Domanski appears committed to the idea that poetry means something, even if the meaning is hard to parse. In fact, given the level of diction and allusion, the poems appear designed to demand time and attention. And they reward the effort.<\/p>\n
Stylistically, Domanski is consistent. Capitals are rarely employed, and periods are used at the end of stanzas or poems. No other punctuation makes an appearance. Line length and spaces provide the plan for reading. So while the poems can be more than a page long, because of their construction, they retain elements of imagism. Pieces of poems make pictures. Repetition creates rhythm and emphasis, even a mild incantatory effect. And all the pictures add up to an elaborate consideration of the meaning of life.<\/p>\n
The book has three parts: \u201cForesight by Earth,\u201d \u201cA Feral Trance,\u201d and \u201cThe Light of Unoccupied Memory.\u201d Those titles are also titles for individual poems. The book\u2019s title poem is in the second section, and its six parts are a calm and plaintive consideration of the position of human beings in the world:<\/p>\n
so bite down little whisper\u00a0\u00a0 right there
\nwhere we live layered between form
\nand formlessness<\/p>\n
Life is a process, an existential becoming perhaps. As Domanski writes in the collection\u2019s first poem, \u201cUrsa Immaculate\u201d:<\/p>\n
solitude is our nourishment and redemption
\nin a world that is sensed rather than understood
\nquietude our reprieve form the skin-trade
\nof language<\/p>\n
Just as the line of poetry moves forward, so does life. Until it ends.<\/p>\n
The poem that has taken up residence in my head, in large part because I love the title is \u201cThe Light of Unoccupied Memory.\u201d I can only feel what that means. But Domanski gives us much to work with in this six-part poem:<\/p>\n
yet we get on with our lives\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 having no choice
\neverything explained and unexplained\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the future already
\na memory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 collecting in the folds of things.<\/p>\n
Long or short, the poems are intricate and precise, full of allusion and literary and scientific diction. It helps to have a dictionary handy. It helps to just be immersed in the mental world of Don Domanski. It\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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