<\/p>\n
Teardrops on the Weser The slimness of a volume of poetry often belies the wealth to be found within, and Amatoritsero Ede\u2019s latest collection, Teardrops on the Weser<\/em>, is no exception. The main section of the book is a series of 26 poems using the letters of the alphabet as titles. The Weser River is described from the perspective of someone observing it from an apartment window. Now a professor at Mount Allison University, Canada, Ede was a 2016 writer-in-residence at the University of Bremen, and as the poems develop, his personal challenges morph into a cry against prejudice and injustice, focused in particular on his birthplace, Nigeria. Ede moves from the Weser in \u201cv\u201d to the Niger and says the river he sees is \u201csluggish with memories \/ of dead water \/ on the niger river delta.\u201d He moves into a denunciation of the pollution wrought by Shell and its collaborators like Sani Abacha, the Nigerian general responsible for the shocking 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist. And then Ede moves to slavery: \u201cthat trafficking of black souls \/ in rotten ship holds \/ across the cursed atlantic.\u201d It\u2019s not a surprise that poems \u201cx\u201d and \u201cy\u201d mention Nazis and Trump respectively, but in the case of \u201ctrump\u201d the word is used in Ede\u2019s typical wordplay fashion: \u201cone million strong \/ is the many-splendored love \/ that Trump hate.\u201d<\/p>\n Ede mentions great writers such as Rilke and Joyce, but again he takes the alphabet poems to Nigeria near the end of the sequence when he quotes from Chiedu Ezeanah\u2019s \u201cSong of the Musician of the Waters\u201d from The Twilight Trilogy<\/em>: \u201c\u2018go water \/ go rivering \/ <\/em>where the eyes that look \/ becomes a brook . . . . \u2019\u201d Ede uses \u201cgo watering go rivering\u201d as a kind of refrain in the final poem of the sequence, as a tribute to the necessity of water and all the aspects of life that rivers represent. It\u2019s a beautiful series of poems, somber and reflective and, at times, heart-breaking–hence, the teardrops, for both writer and reader.<\/p>\n After the sequence, Ede includes a handful of poems in sections titled \u201cdedication,\u201d \u201crequiem,\u201d and \u201cheartstrings.\u201d And water plays a role. In \u201cMother and Child,\u201d \u201ca foetus nestles in its watery hammock,\u201d and after being born the child \u201ckicks at the dry iodine air.\u201d In \u201cHarry Fell,\u201d death is envisioned as a fall \u201cto the bottom \/ of the dry \/ dark well.\u201d In \u201cOne Hundred Red Roses,\u201d blood replaces water in a love poem: may you \/ clot \/ in my veins \/ and dam \/ this \/bleeding.\u201d In the last poem, \u201cWaterfall\u201d Ede shifts again geographically with a brief reference to \u201cniagara falls,\u201d and perhaps that means there will be poems about Canada, where Ede has lived for several years.<\/p>\n Poetry can take work, but it\u2019s a pleasurable activity. The best poems offer room to think and feel. Amatoritsero Ede\u2019s Teardrops on the Weser <\/em>combines the personal and the political to demonstrate their inevitable connection in life\u2014and death. And they do so with subtle and harmonious imagery while displaying breakdowns in connections.<\/p>\n The Best Canadian Poetry 2019 Once again, the best fifty poems of the year have been published in one volume, complete with author biographies and commentaries, plus a list of original place of publication. Rob Taylor, guest editor for the series, wisely notes in his introduction that \u201cbest\u201d is variable, and in this case (as with any selection) it means that these fifty poems are those \u201cone dewy-browed editor happened to like a great deal and which you will hopefully enjoy as well, be it seventeen months or seventeen years from now.\u201d And while my brain skipped a beat at \u201chopefully,\u201d I think Taylor nails it\u2014any \u201cbest\u201d selection is essentially subjective. How can it not be?<\/p>\n Taylor\u2019s introduction is preceded by one from series editor Anita Lahey and another from advisory editor Amanda Jernigan. Lahey notes that this collection is the first in the series to be published by Biblioasis, after several years of fine work done by Tightrope Books. Jernigan, in a occasionally incoherent piece, comments on Taylor\u2019s work. The fifty poems are sandwiched between these three editors\u2019 comments and several pages of biography and commentary at the end of the book. The structure has remained the same throughout the series although Taylor has abandoned the alphabetical arrangement of the poems. If anything can change, I\u2019d suggest more poetry and less apparatus, as in this case, it\u2019s almost half and half, but I suppose some readers may enjoy reading about the poems and poets along with the poems.<\/p>\n Lahey writes of \u201cpoetry\u2019s fraught place in the world today\u201d and its importance, and this selection is yet another piece of evidence that wonderful poetry abounds. The range of poets is wide, from the well-known, such as Marilyn Bowering, A.F. Moritz, and Billy-Ray Belcourt, to those who likely will become better known. Poets of different backgrounds and interests jostle for attention. Taylor\u2019s choices adhere to his belief that the \u201cbest writing in our current moment (the twenty percent) is alive with acoustic energy, precise in its language, and deeply affective in its use of the personal to explore fraught political realities.\u201d Poetry is of a time and place, and certainly fraught political realities do dominate public discourse.<\/p>\n The first poem, \u201cAbove Picasso and his Musings\u201d by Kevin Spenst, is an audacious opener. Spenst\u2019s language dazzles while his ideas shimmer at the edge of comprehension: \u201cIneptitude\u2019s tidings \/ ashore me, I\u2019m sprawling stumble- \/ drunk in seawrack[.]\u201d The speaker links his romance with those of Picasso, who was a challenge for all the women in this life. The last poem, \u201cWitch hunt\u201d by Rebecca Salazar, also touches on male-female relationships without any of the positive aspects of the personal in Spenst\u2019s: \u201c . . . My warlock \/ gaslights me for breakfast. Poisons me, \/ then vomits on my lap and plays at victim.\u201d Victims come in two forms ion Colleen Baran\u2019s \u201cDIIIIIIIIID IIIIITTTT HAPPEN,\u201d a clever take on a TV game show in which family members reveal a secret and then vote whether or not it happened. And what has happened is never a good thing.<\/p>\n D.A. Lockhart\u2019s \u201cLetter to Atleo from the Old Shell Station near Buckhorn\u201d captures one of the most topical (and important) issues now in a prose poem letter: \u201cSure, everything is astronomically more expensive off reserve, but who needs family, friends, or culture when a bit of currency and big city fame can float between you and those making those James Bay sized cheques.\u201d Dallas Hunt\u2019s \u201cCree Dictionary\u201d ramps up the survival value of humour for First Nations: \u201cthe Cree word for white man is unpaid child support \/ the translation for conflicted in Cree \/ is your deep, steadfast love \/ for country superstar \/ Dwight Yoakam (or depending on \/ the regional dialect, \/ George Jones, Patsy Cline \/ or Blue Rodeo.\u201d I love this poem.<\/p>\n And there are many poems that I will enjoy rereading. That\u2019s the beauty of such a collection. There\u2019s something for everyone, and there\u2019s a gentle nudge to broaden interests. I\u2019m already looking forward to Best Canadian Poetry 2020<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Best Canadian Essays 2020 As editor Sarmishta Subramanian remarks in her introduction to Best Canadian Essays 2020<\/em>, the works included were written in 2019, before the pandemic hit and the world changed dramatically. As she says, \u201cIn the world we now inhabit, any unpredictable element carries risk. So we have learned to weigh and debate acts that were once routine and spontaneous, courting daily what psychologists have dubbed decision fatigue.\u201d And yet decision must still be made. The ones that led to this volume appear to be based on a desire for inclusivity and variety although many of the fifteen essays included have a basis in the personal, which is a common feature of essays these days.<\/p>\n While the more personal essays are engaging, the one I am most drawn to is Andy Lamey\u2019s \u201cIn the US Campus Speech Wars, Palestinian Advocacy Is a Blind Spot\u201d probably because I teach at a college and have spent my adult life in post-secondary education. Civil public discourse appears to have been hijacked by the outrage displayed on social media, and one outcome is to simply shut down opposition as in the case of support for Palestine. Lamey attempts to explain academic freedom and why it is critical to have: \u201c[R]obust academic freedom is a mortal threat to the culture of conformity that takes purest form under authoritarianism, but which can also occur in democracies, as during the McCarthy period.\u201d Lamey believes that of \u201call vocations, academics have the greatest obligation to pursue the truth.\u201d And he notes that the truth should be the concern of everyone. Ultimately not being able to discuss ideas (as in the case of Palestine) even when (or maybe even especially when) they may cause pain is harmful and prevents a search for truth. And solutions.<\/p>\n James Brooke-Smith\u2019s \u201cMeritocracy and Its Discontents\u201d is another strong look at what\u2019s happening at post-secondary institutions, and how meritocracy may not be \u201cthe natural way to organize things.\u201d As a college instructor, I see the value in rewarding in way before then. And as Brooke-Smith points out, \u201cIn the current climate, it\u2019s hard to imagine governments spending taxpayers\u2019 dollars on education for anything other than hard-nosed economic reasons. But this way of thinking can blind us to the social costs of elitism and the less easily quantifiable benefits of lifelong education.\u201d It\u2019s also a problem when the \u201chard-nosed economic reasons\u201d don\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n On the personal side of education is Jenny Ferguson\u2019s \u201cOff Balance,\u201d a creative non-fiction account of life after racking up huge debt for university. She moves home to rural Nova Scotia and signs up for online dating. She sees herself as \u201covereducated,\u201d a label that makes me twitchy as I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to be over-educated. Over-qualified for a job, yes. Ferguson struggles with the online world, the blatant racism of some of the men (one \u201crequires the women he dates to be white\u201d). Ferguson is Indigenous. She is trying to deal with a mother who is severely ill. And she contemplates her own identity as M\u00e9tis, and Michif, \u201ccomposed out of French nouns and Cree verbs.\u201d This piece is difficult and oh so eloquent in its exposure of how person feels in the midst of so many challenges.<\/p>\n Alexandra Kimball uses the personal in \u201cThe Loneliness of Infertility,\u201d and Like Ferguson does a stellar job of revealing feelings. Both essays address larger issues, and that is not to say that the persona is unimportant. In Kimball\u2019s case, it\u2019s how the infertile woman is viewed: \u201cHer emotional and existential experience erased, the infertile woman first enters the public imagination not as a woman, not even as a patient, but as a consumer of biotechnology.\u201d Kimball wishes for improved reproductive health care for all, not just the wealthy. She imagines a world in which surrogates and egg donors are protected and aligned with those they are aiding, even \u201corganizing as workers.\u201d She ends her essay with the powerful statement that motherhood is \u201cboth worked at and worked for.\u201d<\/p>\n All of the essays are worth reading. They provide a basis for further thought. Carl Wilson in \u201cIt\u2019s Too Late to Cancel Michael Jackson,\u201d addresses that age-old problem of the wonderful artist who is not a wonderful human being. He argues the current culture is geared to create stars more than valuable works, and in the case of children, that is tragic. Alexandra Molotkow in \u201cSelfish Intimacy\u201d details her desire to post photographs of the family home and her mother\u2019s desire not to have her privacy violated. The issue is identity and how people present themselves.<\/p>\n And with all the Best Canadian series, biographies and acknowledgements are included. A collection of the Best Canadian Essays (or stories or poetry) helps with decision fatigue. Someone else has done all the work. All I had to decide was tea or coffee as I was reading. <\/p>\n Five Little Indians The five little Indians\u2014Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie, and Maisie– of Michelle Good\u2019s first novel suffer at the hands of brutal nuns and priests in a remote BC mission school in the 1960s. And then they continue to suffer when they leave, whether it\u2019s by escaping or by being basically dumped out when they reach the age of sixteen. Good is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, and as she has worked with Indigenous groups for decades, she has doubtlessly seen the tragic effects of the residential school system. <\/p>\n The fourteen chapters are titled with the name of one of the five main characters, and each focusses on that character\u2019s life, often with the use of flashbacks. It\u2019s hard to believe that anyone thought children should be torn away from their parents and community, and yet that\u2019s what happened. Factor in authority figures who abused children in numerous ways, including verbal, physical, and sexual assault, plus starvation, and no wonder there\u2019s so much difficulty now. Good does an excellent job of showing how the system destroyed cultures and individuals. Or attempted to.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the beauty of this novel. Yes, it\u2019s almost a catalogue of loss, but it also has glimmers of hope as some individuals survive, and the political and social environment slowly changes. In a way, the novel is a testament to the power of friendship and the ability of some people to cope with and perhaps overcome incredible challenges.<\/p>\n In the Prologue, Kendra, the first \u201cIndian doctor in Canada\u201d is introduced. Then the first chapter goes back decades to the \u201860s and the school. Kenny wakes up, grateful that the priest hasn\u2019t visited him in the night, but then discovers the man has moved on to Howie and left him a unconscious bloody mess. Although punished already for trying to escape, Kenny knows he has to try again, even though it means leaving Lucy, whom he has a crush on. Kenny and Lucy have passed notes to each other, notes of admiration about each other\u2019s bravery. Both children have been publicly humiliated by having their hair viciously shorn and being made to wear signs about their actions (Kenny\u2019s escape attempt and Lucy\u2019s \u201clie\u201d about abuse).<\/p>\n Parents suffer along with their children. The families are often not reunited for years and sometimes not at all. Parents may turn to alcohol to dull their pain, as do the children when they grow up. And that doesn\u2019t work, but it\u2019s clear why people try that when all other hope has been stripped away from them.<\/p>\n Lucy is kicked out the day she turns sixteen. She is given no preparation, just a day\u2019s notice to pack her things and to remake her bed. And then she is given a bus ticket to Vancouver, where she has no family. She\u2019s never been to Vancouver or on a bus. But Maisie, who left the mission the previous year, has written to Lucy, saying she should stay with her. Maisie tries to go back to her family but not seeing each other for ten years creates impassable chasms. As Maisie said, \u201cTo be little again, living without fear and brutality\u2014no one gets that back. All that\u2019s left is a craving, insatiable empty place.\u201d<\/p>\n Somewhat miraculously Lucy does find Maisie after a narrow escape from a pimp who pounces on young girls fresh to the city. The string of coincidences that unites the characters is forced, but this novel is about the reality of emotion and loss, not so much about consistent plotting. Good has a message to deliver about the destruction wrought by the residential school system and prejudice, and she nails that goal.<\/p>\n Stylistically, the novel is written in plain language with profanity scattered throughout. The pacing is varied, but tends to be quite fast, given the number of lives and years covered. And many topics are touched on, such as Indigenous beliefs (including healing), addictions, self-harm, suicide, lawsuit against federal government, police brutality, movement across the US-Canada border, AIM (American Indian Movement), and of course, love. Love between parent and child, between husband and wife, between human and dog, between humans\u2014all of these good things in life also make an appearance in this novel, so even though much of it is distressing, Five Little Indians <\/em>also celebrates what is worthwhile in life. Aubrey McKee, the narrator of Alex Pugsley\u2019s debut novel, is one of those smarty-pants guys you may want to smack one minute and then hug the next as he careens through life in this coming-of-age tour de force. And then you realize you want to do that with many of the characters who are gloriously and relentlessly human. They are flawed and fascinating.<\/p>\n Like his title character, Pugsley grew up in Halifax, and the novel is as much about the city as about a particular group of inhabitants, mostly the well-off. The McKees are not at the top of the social heap, but they are far from the bottom. Aubrey\u2019s father is a lawyer, and his mother is an actor, who unlike many actors seems to work steadily at the Neptune Theatre. The fourteen loosely connected stories that comprise the novel focus on characters, but as Aubrey says in a brief Prologue, \u201cI have decided to make good on a promise once made, to give expression to the lives I encountered, and to make sense of some of the mysteries that seemed to me the city\u2019s truths.\u201d Born in 1963, Aubrey takes readers through the first 22 years of his life by revealing the people and the city that affected him. The stories are not chronological, and occasionally Aubrey mentions in passing something that happens years later or includes flashbacks. It\u2019s a complex structure that works well to reveal complex lives. <\/p>\n Aubrey has two older sisters, Carolyn and Bonnie, and two younger ones, Faith and Katie. He feels he lives in a world of women although that experience doesn\u2019t help him figure them out. When the girls fight, a not infrequent occurrence, their mother tends to ignore them. Aubrey notes, \u201cWhen indifference was futile, she could commit to the scene with the full force of her personality and in these moments the female members of my family seemed united in a singleness of lunacy.\u201d With the exception of Caroline, who is poised and extremely mature for her age, all the family members have issues. And alcohol doesn\u2019t help, whether it\u2019s the parents\u2019 drinking or Aubrey\u2019s.<\/p>\n Intelligence and imagination are attractive to Aubrey, as is a facility with language. So it\u2019s no surprise that five-year-old Aubrey becomes captivated by another little boy named Cyrus Mair as Cyrus is truly remarkable. Aubrey says he is a \u201cwhiz kid, scamp, mutant, contrarian pipsqueak, philosopher prince, pretender fink, boy vertiginous,\u201d and part of the novel\u2019s purpose appears to be Aubrey\u2019s attempt to reveal, understand, and celebrate Cyrus. As teenagers, Cyrus and Aubrey form a group of boys and girls, their own \u201crebel alliance\u201d called The Common Room. They bond for a time over their mutual desire to be and do something, something that is not prescribed by others. And for Aubrey, this group is essential. He says, \u201cI gave my heart to them because they gave the possibilities of my life back to me.\u201d <\/p>\n Pugsley excels at putting life on the page, mainly because he uses a profusion of concrete details. He out-Dickens Dickens. And it works. Most of the characters, as seen by Aubrey, are trying to figure out their identities, whatever age they are. So the material of life, the stuff , provides a stabilizing respite from the essential questions of being underlying much of this immensely rich book. Through Aubrey, Pugsley delves into Halifax history, pop culture, literature, music, depression, education, divorce, infidelity, sex, social status, friendship, family, and love. Aubrey\u2019s early career as a drug dealer (he starts at twelve) is dealt with brilliantly. Pugsley shows how kids can fall easily fall into stupidity. And some survive.<\/p>\n Along with the detail and characterization, the language in this book is enthralling. It shifts between the vulgar (\u201cfuck\u201d is more frequent than commas in some parts), the everyday, and the elevated. Pugsley moves easily among the various registers just as he crafts comedy and tragedy. Haligonians are likely to recognize much more than I did as I\u2019ve only spent about a week in that city (and it was in the summer), but anyone will recognize much of the angst and the humour of life. I laughed when I read that the kids call the mixture of alcohol stolen from parents\u2019 liquor cabinets \u201cmoose piss.\u201d Kids in Edmonton, where I lived as a teenager, called it \u201cshit mix.\u201d Here in Victoria, where I live, it\u2019s probably called \u201cwhale piss.\u201d And anyone can appreciate the desire for friends, for a place to belong, for a sense of self.<\/p>\n Yes, this is an ambitious novel. It delivers. Pugsley plans to continue the auto-biographical excursion, and I look forward to taking the journey.<\/p>\n Householders Kate Cayley\u2019s second collection of short stories, Householders<\/em>, focusses on how place may help to shape character or perhaps reveal the already established elements of a character. The nine stories range in time, setting, and personal situation, but all are about the struggle to connect and the need to establish identity.<\/p>\n Four of the stories are directly linked by the characters\u2019 experience of living on a commune, and the first one in this group is called \u201cThe Other Kingdom.\u201d Two young women, Nancy and Carol, leave Toronto for a road trip in the US. It\u2019s the 1970s, and they are doing what many young people did, looking for adventure and themselves. Cayley explores how the different backgrounds of Nancy (only child of academics) and Carol (child of small store owners) lead to different desires: \u201cCarol was hoping to write an essay about protest movements and the Vietnam War. Naomi [originally Nancy] was hoping to find a new life.\u201d Nancy\u2019s transformation to Naomi comes when she becomes entranced by a preacher named John and stays to join his group. Eventually a commune is formed in the wilds of Maine. And yes, it could be considered a cult.<\/p>\n Carol and Naomi reappear in \u201cHouseholders,\u201d and it\u2019s ten years later. Carol has become an academic (Women\u2019s Studies), lives with her partner Laura, and owns a house. Naomi is still searching for her life. Through the linked stories, Cayley paints the lives of these two women and some of the others over time. Carol certainly has the most conventional life of all the characters (or am I thinking that as I teach at a college?). What Cayley has a gift for is getting into the minds and, more importantly, the hearts of characters far from the usual and revealing their humanity with a gentle incisiveness.<\/p>\n Religion takes another form in \u201cDoc,\u201d which features a gifted musician, who is also aging and self-destructive. A young writer, nicknamed \u201cSmudge,\u201d is sent by his brother Graham, a music producer, to Doc\u2019s filthy and decrepit house in Texas to care for the man. It\u2019s not an easy task, but Cayley has wisely revealed early in the story that the task will not last forever. Smudge describes his brother: \u201cI thought of him . . . trying to look like a man who worked in a music store that sold porn under the counter, not like a music producer with a wife and children and a secret boyfriend only I knew about. I loved my brother even though he was full of shit. He\u2019s dead now, too.\u201d Smudge understands his brother, a man who eschews the trappings of the music business for a total focus on the music, saying, \u201cAll he wanted was to keep the music coming. He tried to impress on me how important this was, with the single-mindedness of a missionary planning the distribution of bibles.\u201d What Smudge does for Doc is remarkable.<\/p>\n Helping others is also the center of \u201cPilgrims,\u201d in which a woman is dedicated to caring for Stevie, the newly quadriplegic son of her partner Nickel, who unable to cope with the situation, has run off. Nickel also lived on a commune as child, and it sounds like it could be the one John ran. Stevie calls the woman Lady, and Lady creates an onscreen persona of a Franciscan nun, Sister Bernadette, in her blog, a blog to foster connection in the Christian community. The blog is complete fiction apart from the care for Stevie.<\/p>\n In a departure from the realism of the other stories, Cayley offers \u201cA Beautiful Bare Room,\u201d a grim excursion in to a world riven by a mysterious disease and the escape of the ultra-wealthy to underground bunkers. Okay maybe not that unrealistic so far. But then the story becomes one of attempted body snatching. However, the underlying issue is still very much one of identity, so the story fits thematically into the collection.<\/p>\n I have the sense that there are many more stories stemming from the commune, and I hope Cayley delves further into this material. After all, isn\u2019t a commune a kind of ultimate community? And so many of the characters are searching for a place of belonging, whether it\u2019s a grungy apartment in Berlin or a house in Toronto or even a car to sleep in. Cayley is grappling with big issues: love, family, friendship, belief, commitment, illness, death. And she does it well. Immigration is a fraught topic, and while much is said about immigrants, most of the fourteen stories in How to Pronounce Knife<\/em> give voice to the people who have left their homeland for what they hope will be a better life elsewhere. Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in a Lao refugee camp in Thailand. She grew up in Toronto and lives there now.<\/p>\n The title story sets up the collection as it shows the immense difficulties facing newcomers. Saying a word such as knife<\/em> reveals the essential weirdness of English spelling and pronunciation when a person learns a word through reading. As a child I thought the name Penelope<\/em> rhymed with antelope. <\/em>I\u2019d heard the latter said. I\u2019d only read the first. Such an error is common among young readers, but Thammavongsa takes the situation much further. A Lao child asks her father how to pronounce knife<\/em> and then uses his incorrect answer when reading aloud in class. She has a melt-down when criticised by a fellow student. The heart-breaking essence of the story is the child\u2019s realization that her father isn\u2019t going to be able to help her: \u201cAs she watches her father eat his dinner, she thinks of what else he doesn\u2019t know. What else she would have to find out for herself.\u201d All people have to find out things for themselves, but it\u2019s much more difficult without a guide through a culture.<\/p>\n “Chick-A-Chee\u201d is another story dealing directly with language. Two young children are left alone while their parents work and are told never to call the police if there is trouble. The appearance of pumpkins on front steps mystifies the family as they wonder why anyone would waste food, but they figure out that going to a wealthy neighbourhood on Hallowe\u2019en will garner the children safer treats. Again at school the mispronunciation is made clear.<\/p>\n Many of the immigrants in these stories find themselves in low-paying jobs. In \u201cMani-Pedi,\u201d Raymond wants to be a boxer, but he isn\u2019t good enough to win, so he works at his sister\u2019s nail salon. He is interested in one of the customers, but his sister says to forget it, that his dreams are foolish. He tells her, \u201cDon\u2019t you go reminding me what dreams a man like me out to have. That I can dream at all means something to me.\u201d In \u201cThe School Bus Driver,\u201d Jai and his wife leave Laos, and in Canada, she takes up with her boss, saying that such a \u201cfriendship\u201d is common in Canada. What is also common is the changing of Jai to Jay. The anglicising of names is seen as a form of erasure. In \u201cThe Universe Would Be So Cruel,\u201d Mr. Vong, a printer of Lao wedding invitations, wonders why people allow name changes. He says, \u201cYou just can\u2019t have Lao wedding without Lao letters on the invitation. And you have to have your real given name there. . . . Why would you want to be Sue when your name is really Savongnavathakad?\u201d And that\u2019s another issue for immigrants. Not only do they have to mold themselves into the new culture, but also they may wish to retain some of their old culture as that helps to create who their identity.<\/p>\n Another kind of cultural difference is explored in \u201cSlingshot.\u201d The story opens with the identification of difference: \u201cI was seventy when I met Richard. He was thirty-two.\u201d The narrator lives with her granddaughter, who falls in love regularly. Richard says there\u2019s no such thing as love, that it\u2019s \u201ca construct.\u201d So is age, in a way, as the narrator thinks after Rose calls her old. \u201cWe don\u2019t know we have wrinkles until we see them. Old is a thing that happens on the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n Thammavongsa dispenses wisdom in all these stories in a clear and thoughtful manner by positioning her characters in a real world, one that more people need to be familiar with\u2014the world where people are struggling to survive in meaningful ways. They want to be accepted and understood, but it always seems a bit out of reach, so many remain as loners, reliant on themselves and their perceptions of themselves. These are deeply moving stories.<\/p>\n Looking Back, Moving Forward: Fiction Poetry Essays Looking Back, Moving Forward <\/em>is a selection of works from writers in the Borderlines Writers Circle, a program of the Writers\u2019 Guild of Alberta. The included writers are from various places, but they have one thing in common: they are all immigrants to Canada and so must cope with vast changes in their lives. As Julie C. Robinson notes in her short Introduction, \u201cwriting our human stories preserves diversity, preventing a single hegemonic narrative.\u201d That preservation, indeed celebration, seems more and more important each day.<\/p>\n The book is organized by genre: fiction, drama, poetry, journalism, and memoir. Each work offers something of value, whether the writer is directly addressing the topic of crossing borders or is doing so in a more metaphorical way. All the works are concerned with identity as its inevitable that immigrants have connections to their former home and their new one, and their new lives straddle cultures in varying degrees. Writing is away to explore where one fits in the world, or even what that world is. And this book gives readers a wide choice of genre and experience.<\/p>\n The first story, \u201cLittle Blue Angels,\u201d by Alma Mancilla was originally published in Spanish in Mexico and has been translated by the author. It deals with two of the most significant borders that exist: the one between sanity and madness and that between life and death. Trauma such as the death of a child can push a person into madness, and Mancilla describes her character\u2019s journey gently and with great compassion. In an Author\u2019s Note, Mancilla elaborates on the difficulty of crossing the borders of language: \u201cTrying to write in a language that is not your first (whether form scratch or in translation) is something of a masochistic task, one that seeks accomplishment amidst the constant reminder of one\u2019s limitations.\u201d I believe her, but please note that there\u2019s no sense of any linguistic limitation in this story. Mancilla goes on to refer to Borges\u2019 difficulty in translating his own work as he believed that \u201cSpanish and English have \u2018two quite different ways of looking at the world.\u2019\u201d As language exists in reference to culture, this idea makes perfect sense. <\/p>\n The second story, \u201cChest Pain,\u201d by Anamol Mani is an O. Henry about love and loss. Like Mancilla\u2019s story, it is general in its sense of borders, but the pain of heartache is familiar to most people. Mohamed Abdi\u2019s \u201cBlinded by Love\u201d features a love story that just may work out. It starts as a version of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (in Mogadishu), but at least for a while, clan differences are set aside against the violence overrunning Somalia. Janine Muster\u2019s \u201cNovemeber Days\u201d is another love story with a character who leaves her home and partner in East Germany and finds a potential love in Edmonton. But it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n The one drama, \u201cHagar,\u201d by Aksam Alyousef, deals with the catastrophe that is Aleppo and how the main character, Hagar, is trying desperately to get out with her small son. The only other voice is that of Nazreen, a friend of Hagar\u2019s ex-husband, who she hopes can help her. The characters are thinly drawn, but Alyousef makes it clear how awful the situation is and how utterly alone Hagar is.<\/p>\n The poetry selections are as diverse as the fiction. Susana Chalut\u2019s \u201cThe Song of the Lark: Sixteen Poems\u201d uses English and Spanish effectively, and in her Author\u2019s Note, she says, \u201cThe search for my English voice is an ongoing process and, like life, it requires hard work and lots of editing.\u201d In \u201c13 Sounds,\u201d the last poem in the group, she starts by saying, \u201ceverything written is a step closer \/ to immortality.\u201d The border of life and death can be altered, it seems. Luciana Erregue-Sacchi\u2019s \u201cTwelve Poems\u201d also use English and Spanish, and the poems reflect her education in art history. Nermeen Youssef\u2019s \u201cExtinct\u201d is full of imagery of ice and snow, not surprising for someone who lives in Edmonton.<\/p>\n The non-fiction pieces range from a review of the film The Namesake<\/em> and a critical piece, \u201cFighting Stereotypes in Popular Media,\u201d both by Tazeen Hasan to a first person account by Shimelis Gebremichael of moving to Edmonton from Ethiopia. Leilei Chen\u2019s \u201cLife Begins at Forty\u201d details the struggles of moving from China to Edmonton, and changes start with her move inside China from Anhui to Guangzhou, a prosperous city where she felt like an immigrant: \u201cLocal people spoke Cantonese: I spoke Mandarin. It was funny to think that I could understand English from the Voice of America or BBC but not Cantonese from my own city.\u201d So she learns Cantonese. Kate Rittner-Werkman in \u201cLiebe Mutti, I Don\u2019t Mind Being German,\u201d reveals the challenges she and her mother had in coming to Canada (as the title suggests). Canada has given her a way to be German and accept both her past and her present identities. \u201cHawa: The Madwoman in the Market,\u201d by Asma Sayed, shows the effect that an experience in childhood of seeing a woman living on the street in Upleta, India, still haunts the author.<\/p>\n The most moving piece in the book (and they all are) for me is \u201cRunning in Munich,\u201d by Mila Philipzig. She explains how running helps to situate herself in a new place. In 1988, she moved to Munich to study and ran, a pleasure that cost no money and which allowed her to explore. Philipzig brilliantly shifts to poetry to mark an enormous change in her life when she is out running one day. Both the prose and poetry sections are direct and connect emphatically with readers. The final lines are powerful in their simplicity: My life now \/ clearly cleaved \/ into a before and after.\u201d<\/p>\n Mawenzi House is doing a wonderful service by publishing writers who may have more difficulty being published by bigger or better known companies. But I expect that will change as readers not only deserve to know the works of these writers, but they need to. People\u2019s experiences, whether real or imagined, give readers insight into others\u2019 lives. And insight can foster understanding and compassion.<\/p>\n The Youth of God What happens when you are a seventeen-year-old Somali-Canadian boy growing up in Toronto? You are smart and religious. You are being bullied, and your family is falling apart. And what happens to your caring and middle-aged Somali-Canadian teacher with a pregnant and traditional wife? In The Youth of God<\/em>, his second novel, Hassan Ghedi Santur deftly constructs the worlds of student Nuur and teacher Mr. Ilmi, where they intersect and where they bump up against other cultural worlds. Both Nuur and Mr. Ilmi are Muslim, but Nuur\u2019s dedication to his religion is visibly demonstrated by his clothing, a kufi (small white cap) and qamiis (long brown robe). And that apparel makes him a target.<\/p>\n The novel opens in springtime with Mr. Ilmi\u2019s thoughts about Nuur and what has happened to him. He doesn\u2019t know. It then jumps back to winter when Nuur is attempting to cleanse himself in the boys\u2019 washroom, so he can pray. But some other boys try to force his head into a dirty toilet. Nuur knows his appearance is an issue: it \u201cgave him an air of piety and screamed weakness when all the other boys at the school looked like extras on the set of a Kanye West video.\u201d But he is resolute in his faith. That and the desire to do well at school so that he can become a doctor are what hold him together.<\/p>\n Nuur\u2019s faith is a solace to him, but it is also isolating. His older brother is not religious, his father has left his wife and taken another, and his mother cries all day. The mosque is a refuge. Things do not improve when Nuur\u2019s father comes back. Nuur\u2019s only ally is Mr. Ilmi, who can see Nuur\u2019s intelligence and sensitivity. And as Mr. Ilmi once wanted to be a doctor, and now teaches high school science, he is drawn to the young man and tries to encourage him as he does with all his students when he can.<\/p>\n Mr. Ilmi is dealing with his own issues. His marriage was arranged, and his wife Khadija has been in Canada for two years. She is slow to learn English, and Mr. Ilmi had hoped that she would progress quickly and then go to university and be \u201cwhatever she wanted.\u201d What she wants, it seems, is to be a wife and mother in the most traditional sense. And he hates her cooking. His mind often drifts back to a girlfriend he once had and their passion, something absent in his marriage. He\u2019s also concerned about his students. Mr. Ilmi is a respected teacher, and while the bullies are badly behaved, they do recognize his authority and sincerity. Santur makes it clear that these boys are wrong, but not evil. <\/p>\n And that\u2019s another question the novel raise. What is evil? In his religious zeal and lack of community, Nuur ends up as the pawn of men with strong beliefs but little apparent regard for the well-being of a young man, while pretending otherwise. This novel can break your heart. It shows the mistakes that people make, and let\u2019s face it, everyone makes mistakes, but some can\u2019t be walked back from, even when a kind teacher is trying to help or when people realize the enormity of their error and try to fix it. <\/p>\n Anyone with an interest in how immigrants negotiate a new culture while trying to maintain their identity through connections with the culture they have left should read this novel. And that should be everyone. Santur writes eloquently of the basic human need to belong to a group, whether it\u2019s family or something larger. And lack of belonging leads to tragedy. Perhaps some of the wisest words come from Ayuub, Nurr\u2019s older brother, who chastises Nurr for criticising their mother for taking their father back. Ayuub (who is mostly invested in having as much sex as is possible) says, \u201cSo don\u2019t judge, bro. You have this whole black-and-white thing about life. You gotta allow some room for messy shit. We all make choices. Some good ones and some really shitty ones. That\u2019s life. So don\u2019t fucking judge.\u201d<\/p>\n The gift of this novel is that Santur shows why some people make bad choices. Almost always there\u2019s something else at play that isn\u2019t immediately apparent. Life is complex, and a seventeen-year-old boy is only beginning to understand that.<\/p>\n How a Poem Moves: A Field Guide for Readers of Poetry<\/em> Adam Sol kicks off his field guide to poetry with a terrific assumption: poetry matters. He then goes on to explain that his interest is in what poetry \u201ccan do<\/em>\u201d not so much what it is. He wants his guide to be like a friendly park ranger who can point out a goldfinch to someone who can see identify the bird the next time without the ranger. As one of the jurors for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, Sol read over 630 books. He is also a poet. To spread the word about poets whose work did not make it to the shortlist, Sol started a blog and posted essays on how poems move. This book contains many of those essays and is a welcome addition to anyone\u2019s bookshelves.<\/p>\n How a Poem Moves<\/em> has a lovely organizational strategy. Each of the 35 essays has a title beginning with \u201cHow a Poem\u201d and then shifts to a verb. So we have such delights as \u201cHow a Poem Wrestles with Its Inheritance\u201d on Rahat Kurd\u2019s \u201cGhazal: In the Persian\u201d; \u201cHow a Poem Pushes Us Away and Beckons Us Closer\u201d on Marilyn Dumont\u2019s \u201cHow to Make Pemmican\u201d; and \u201cHow a Poem Clarifies Its Blur\u201d on Jeff Latosik\u2019s \u201cAubade Photoshop.\u201d The titles of the essays are alluring, and so is their content. In regard to Kurd\u2019s poem, Sol briefly explain what a ghazal is, how Kurd has mastered the form, and how Kurd copes with a tradition she may not fully understand but must use, especially language. Sol points out what the poem seems to do: it suggests that studying the tradition is valuable; it acknowledges the difference between a person immersed in the culture and one who isn\u2019t; and it suggest that honouring one\u2019s tradition is valuable\u2014and all that in an eighteen line poem.<\/p>\n The beauty of Sol\u2019s commentary is that he is open-minded and clearly believes that the mental play of reading poetry is worthwhile. He\u2019s also extremely knowledgeable about poetry and can supply history. In \u201cHow a Poem Doesn\u2019t Dish\u201d he examines Damian Rogers\u2019 \u201cOde to a Rolling Blackout,\u201d in the context of confessional poetry at a time when personal information is splashed all over social media, and so the concept of confession is profoundly altered. Sol notes, \u201cThe speaker\u2019s position between<\/em> confession and restraint, identification and distance, seems to me the central subject of the poem.\u201d Sol never insists.<\/p>\n In \u201cHow a Poem Mourns\u201d Don Patterson\u2019s sonnet \u201cMercies\u201d is discussed. The poem is a straight-forward narrative of a sick dog\u2019s last visit to the vet for a final injection. It\u2019s heart-breaking. Sol touches on the Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnet forms, and where the volta may be in this sonnet. And he explains \u201cthe effortlessness with which Paterson shapes his sentences so that the rhymes and rhythms move fluidly, without calling too much attention to themselves, but also varying the meter enough so it doesn\u2019t go flat.\u201d Sol scans the first few lines, so unsure readers can see how it\u2019s done. The commentaries are accessible to any reader with an interest in poetry as Sol explains what is necessary and then moves on to thoughtful considerations.<\/p>\n This book is a gem. It includes thirty-five poems and rich commentary on them and poetry in general, but that\u2019s always through the lens of a specific poem. The breadth of poetry here is wide as is Sol\u2019s knowledge. It\u2019s one of those books that you can leave lying around and pick up to read a poem and the accompanying essay randomly. Or even just the poem, because after all, that\u2019s what the focus is. Poetry. Like Marilyn Dumont I often find myself exploring \u201cBest\u201d collections, not because I think the best is in the book but to see what an editor considers worthy of inclusion. Dumont\u2019s own poetry could belong in any \u201cbest\u201d anthology, and her selection in the latest of the acclaimed series is thoughtful and wide-ranging. In her introduction, Dumont notes that making the choices revealed her \u201cown penchant for sarcasm.\u201d Overall, she looked \u201cfor poems that use language to expose attitudes inherent in the English language itself, the conceptions of civilized\/savage; human\/nature; sanctioned\/forbidden and colloquial\/academic.\u201d It\u2019s no wonder that she was drawn to the satiric\u2014and also the whimsical, as she also mentions.<\/p>\n The variety of forms in this collection is wide, from the precision of closed form in \u201cFig Sestina\u201d by Dell Catherall (a husband offers his wife of 45 years a fig) to prose poetry in Billy-Ray Belcourt\u2019s \u201cCree Girl Explodes the Necropolis of Ottawa\u201d (the poem lives up to tits title) to Samantha Nock\u2019s free verse \u201cpahpowin\u201d (the necessary laughter of Cree aunties). And there\u2019s so much more. In any anthology some poems will speak more to a reader than others, but all of these poems deserve a place in the book. Perhaps the poem that had the greatest effect on me is \u201cSalutations from the Storm\u201d by John Elizabeth Stintzi, in part because I shared it with my students and they were awed. Stintzi describes being in the wrong body with a direct and powerful simplicity: \u201cI\u2019d like to see my body \/ with someone else in it.\u201d<\/p>\n But many other poems besides the four mentioned stopped me cold, a sign that I had to recover and reflect, not plunge on to the next word gift. Jason Purcell\u2019s ekphrastic poem \u201cKris Knight, The Flying Monkey, 2014. \/ Oil on Canvas, 24 x 18 inches\u201d is a heart-breaker. (The painting is available on the Internet.) A boy is betrayed by another: \u201cBut then he let the story go \/ through the school like a flood \/ wetting the hems of my pants with shame.\u201d The result is despair:<\/p>\n . . . Since then wanting Again the simplicity of the poem increases the anguish of the speaker.<\/p>\n The longest poem is \u201cWeight\u201d by Erin Soros. The lines are long, generally over ten syllables, and the four parts span fifteen pages. In her commentary on her poem, Soros says, \u201cThis poem cycles through the weight of grief, the weight of trauma, the weight of addiction, the weight of language, the weight of madness\u2014and the opposite, how these things can seem unbearably light.\u201d The poem begins with actual weight-lifting:<\/p>\n Gyms are play rooms and torture chambers and Literal weight-lifting holds the poem\u2019s figurative weight-lifting together as Soros delivers a kind of autobiography. The bulk and density of the poem match the motif of weight-lifting with force and elegance.<\/p>\n The first poem sets the tone for the rest by both personalizing and universalizing the writing of poetry. Robyn Sarah\u2019s \u201cArtist\u2019s Statement\u201d announces that she does \u201cnot speak \/ for the voiceless masses, no\u201d nor other groups; she says, \u201cI do not presume \/ to speak for anyone but me, \/ yet hope that speaks for Us.\u201d Poetry is both individual and common. All the voices Marilyn Dumont has collected in this volume, the poems and the commentaries by these poets, can unite readers against indifference or injustice or idiocy. And that can only be good.<\/p>\n Best Canadian Stories 2020<\/em>, The seventeen stories in the latest collection of the \u201cBest\u201d series are typical of the overall endeavour: they are a combination of known and should-be-more-known writers working in a variety of styles and interests. Perhaps what is different about this volume is the level of violence, both emotional and physical.<\/p>\n Two stories are deeply disturbing. Naben Ruthnum\u2019s \u201cCommon Whipping\u201d features two young men surviving as rent-boys in Rome. Renga is a composer entranced by the work of Ennio Morricone, and he hopes to become like his idol and write music for movies. His friend Enzo works in a much darker level of the sex trade by satisfying the needs of men attracted to violence, and he sacrifices himself for Renga\u2019s benefit. Kristyn Dunnion\u2019s \u201cDaughter of Cups\u201d (winner of the Metcalf-Rooke Award 2020) details in present tense how a fourteen-year-old girl is taken advantage of by a much older biker who pays her for hand jobs. Both stories are haunting.<\/p>\n In some way, all of the stories stick in the mind. Omar El Akkad\u2019s \u201cGovernment Slots\u201d plays with the idea of the afterlife and what people can take with them. A scientist creates a box, a \u201cconduit of passage\u201d that collapses at the owner\u2019s death. Whatever is inside vanishes. So-called \u201cafterboxes\u201d are amassed, with billionaires having, you guessed it, boxes the size of neighbourhoods, and other citizens boxes the size of a fist. The narrator is a janitor who works in the warehouse where the small boxes are stored. What people put in the boxes, depending on the rules where they reside, is fascinating. And no one knows what it all means.<\/p>\n Lynn Coady\u2019s \u201cThe Drain\u201d examines a TV show and the hold a character has on the showrunner, Liz. The audience hates the character and expresses fury via Twitter and other social media. The plan is to kill her off, but Liz won\u2019t let go, to the extent that she starts \u201cexuding\u201d massive quantities of liquid as she forces her team to deal with increasingly ludicrous amounts of time on the character. Everyone except Liz knows she is circling the drain. Victoria, her right-hand and the narrator meets with executives who have, as she says, \u201cQuestions and insinuations\u2014of the cold-blooded, show business variety, when everyone turns their minds from the glorious nobility of the story-telling impulse to exactly how much money is at stake.\u201d Coady manages, as always, to use the comic to make lacerating social commentary.<\/p>\n The stories were written before the pandemic, but Alex Leslie\u2019s \u201cPhoenix\u201d appears prescient in its depiction of another kind of disease afflicting human beings. People sleep. The narrator works in a hotel where sleepers are housed, an underfunded public facility. He describes it: \u201cIn the summertime, the hotel stifles, a grimy hand pressed to my mouth. . . . The inside of this place is the colour of exhaustion, the plate at the bottom of the sink left there for years.\u201d No one knows why it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n And maybe that\u2019s a linking feature of these stories\u2014that things happen and no one knows why. People behave violently, causing harm in untold ways. Stuff happens and no one knows why. Some people cope by running away, some by not accepting reality, some by lashing out, some by being kind even to their own detriment. The stories in this collection are compelling in their exploration of the variability of human beings.<\/p>\n The Strangers<\/em> Katherena Vermette\u2019s second novel, The Strangers<\/em>, returns to the familiar territory of her first, The Break<\/em>, in both setting, character, and tone. The place is Winnipeg, the characters are mainly First Nations and M\u00e9tis, and the tone is despair. Like The Break<\/em>, this novel makes for hard reading because of its emotional toll, but the reality of deeply troubled lives needs to be revealed and understood.<\/p>\n Vermette focusses on the lives of four women. It opens with a consideration of Phoenix, who appears in The Break<\/em>. Seventeen-year-old Phoenix is incarcerated as a result of what happens in the first novel, and she\u2019s about to give birth. While the perspective is third person, it\u2019s clearly through the mind of Phoenix, given the language. The word \u201cfucking\u201d is employed, perhaps wearily over-employed, to indicate Phoenix\u2019s fury with the world. Phoenix\u2019s situation is bad: \u201cHer due date was almost two fucking weeks ago. Any fucking time, was all the bitch-ass nurse said when she checked on her every morning. Any fucking time, like that was fucking helpful.\u201d Life has been brutal for Phoenix, and it\u2019s not getting any better any time soon.<\/p>\n The second main character is Cedar, Phoenix\u2019s younger sister. The girls have different fathers, and Shawn, Cedar\u2019s father reappears in his daughter\u2019s life about time Sparrow, Phoenix\u2019s son, is born. Cedar narrates her own story, and again Vermette matches the language to her character: \u201cI wish I was excited about being an aunty, but really, what\u2019s there to be excited about? Phoenix had a baby and it got taken away. Phoenix is in jail now. Phoenix did a horrible thing and is in jail for a long time.\u201d Cedar doesn\u2019t have all the issues that her sister does, especially mental illness, but she has also had to cope with social services controlling much of her life.<\/p>\n Elsie, the girls\u2019 mother, is the third main character, and the dysfunctional relationships of mothers and daughters are key elements of the novel. But the family problems are exacerbated, even created, by the discrimination faced by indigenous people. Vermette includes a trigger warning at the beginning of the novel, noting \u201cThis book is about coping within the systems that have been imposed upon us (Vermette is M\u00e9tis), so there are plenty of triggers for those whose lives have been traumatically affected by them.\u201d Elsie becomes a mother at a young age and is utterly unprepared for the responsibility. The fathers are also young and irresponsible, and Elsie attempts to find comfort in all the wrong ways. She falls victim to addiction, and guilt for her perceived failures haunts her. Elsie is truly a tragic figure.<\/p>\n The abysmal relationship of mothers and daughters in this novel start in detail with Margaret, Elsie\u2019s mother, but the problems likely go back much further. Margaret makes it to university, but becomes pregnant. All her plans for her life fall apart. This character\u2019s defining characteristic is anger. She is constantly and explosively angry. She is incensed with all the men in her life and with her own mother for favouring her sons and not her. Margaret is an exhausted and exhausting character. Her mother, Ang\u00e9lique, is more of a mother to Elsie.<\/p>\n The novel is organized in five main sections, reflecting five years. In each year, the four main characters have a chapter. Several flashbacks are included. The final year is roughly the present time, so Vermette includes the pandemic. It\u2019s one more disaster loaded onto the lives of characters already facing more than people should have to bear. But it\u2019s reality. The heart of the novel is family, and it is the source of pleasure and pain. It helps create identity. It also has the ability to reduce people to stereotypes. The title refers to the last name of Margaret and her daughter and grand-daughter. But it also refers to the kind of relationships they have. They are strangers. Vermette attempts to provide some hope. First of all, it\u2019s unmistakable that people live by stories. The stories people tell each other and themselves can help or hinder. Education is also seen as a remedy, and of course stories can provide education. But the addition of an extra chapter at the end to emphasize the positive effects of formal education strikes me as synthetic and forced. As a college instructor, I want, even need, to believe that education helps people, but so much has gone wrong in the lives of Vermette\u2019s characters that a less prescriptive ending would be more believable. Let the reader hope, but don\u2019t tell the reader to hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poetry, Fiction and Essay Reviews Teardrops on the Weser by Amatoritsero Ede Winnipeg, MN: Griots Lounge, 2021 64 pp. $20.99 The slimness of a volume of poetry often belies the wealth to be found within, and Amatoritsero Ede\u2019s latest collection, Teardrops on the Weser, is no exception. The main section of the book is a series of 26 poems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4751,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/4751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>by Amatoritsero Ede
\nWinnipeg, MN: Griots Lounge, 2021
\n64 pp. $20.99<\/p>\n
\n
\nRivers are powerful symbols. Time, life, death, nature\u2014a river captures them all. The Weser runs through Bremen on its way to the North Sea, and as Ede watches the river and the city through the window of his apartment, his life in the city and apart from it is made clear: \u201cmy picture window is camera lens \/ bi-cameral \/ to my pupil.\u201d The lines of the poems are arranged into stanzas of one to three lines, in a meandering formation that mirrors that of a river in its natural state, seeking the lowest ground: \u201ca solid brown vein \/ snaking \/ through lower saxony.\u201d Ede\u2019s concrete language becomes reflective as it draws pictures of the riverscape and city, drawing attention to nature and colour, both of which will gain in importance.
\n
\nThe apartment is on the Teerhof, a peninsula on the Weser, and Ede can see over the water to various landmarks. One is St. Martin\u2019s Church, on the Bremen side of the embankment, where Ede can see the promenade with its cafes and crowds, \u201csun-laved lovers and loiterers \/ on first of April\u201d who are \u201cthrowing away the woolen weight of winter.\u201d But Ede is never part of the gathering, even though the day is still \u201cbig with poem \/ impregnated with \/ joy.\u201d And eventually St Martin\u2019s and the train and other human-made structures are used to show the destruction that is happening.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>edited by Rob Taylor,
\nWindsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2019
\n160 pp, $22.95<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>edited by Sarmishta Subramanian|
\nWindsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2020
\n186 pp, $22.95<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Michelle Good,
\nToronto, ON: Harper Perennial, 2020
\n296 pp, $22.99<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\nAubrey McKee
\n<\/em>by Alex Pugsley,
\nWindsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2020
\n392 pp, $22.95<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Kate Cayley
\nWindsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021
\n238 pages, $22.95<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\nHow to Pronounce Knife
\n<\/em>by Souvankham Thammavongsa,
\nToronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart, 2020
\n184 pages, $24.95<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>edited by Julie C. Robinson
\nToronto, ON: Mawenzi House, 2018
\n210 pages, $24.95<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Hassan Ghedi Santur,
\nToronto, ON: Mawenzi House, 2019
\n206 pages, $20.95<\/p>\n
\nby Adam Sol
\nToronto, ON: ECW Press, 2019
\n208 pp, $19.95<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\nBest Canadian Poetry 2020<\/em>
\nedited by Marilyn Dumont
\n Windsor: ON: Biblioasis, 176 pages, $22.95<\/p>\n
\nturned into not
\nwanting to want but wanting
\nthen wanting to want then
\nrefusing to want now . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nchurches; they smell of rank sweat and Ban and chalk;
\nthey are solitude and intimacy; they are where we go
\nto think and not to think, to feel and not to feel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nedited by Paige Cooper
\nWindsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2020
\n254 pp, $22.95<\/p>\n
\nby Katherena Vermette
\nToronto, ON: Penguin Random House, 2021
\n336 pp, $29.95<\/p>\n