minotaurs
& other alphabets
by Nichole Markotic
Wolsak & Wynn, 1998
Flat Side
by Monty Reid
Writing West, Red Deer College Press, 1998
Four Red
Crescent Moons
by Julie McNeill
Wolsak & Wynn, 1998
reviewed
by rob mclennan
For her second
poetry collection, minotaurs & other alphabets, Calgary
writer Nicole Markotic moves away from writing directly and peripherally
on fmily to turn on more abstract points, of mythological beasts,
female sexuality and writing itself - the telling of the story,
or the non-story. Very much a whole comprised of sectionalized
parts, much of what I enjoyed about this book was in the way she
employs triggers, taking a line of someone else's, whether Aretha
van Herk, Mary Shelley or Bronwen Wallace, and leaps off into
her own directions.
As she explains
later on, "a modern poet lives inside the name of someone else"
(p 76, "no Troy"), not keeping her influence hidden or denied.
"it isn't every day you get to visit the one day that didn't happen"
(p 38), she begins, in the piece "Invention does not consist of
creating out of void, but out of chaos", the title taken from
a line of Mary Shelley, from her introduction to Frankenstein.
Markotic has always had a miraculous and staggered turn of the
phrase, getting down to both the bare bones and multi-layered
doubletalk, twirling familiarity and unfamiliarity to the point
that even the most obscure piecces still eave an opening.
At the beginning
of the collection, she writes, "becomes an accident of ice crystals
and orgasm. the / unwinding of a single spool of thread." (p 11,
"I love you more than myeyes"), or further on, saying that "mythology
contradicts what our eyes reveal." (p 76, "no Troy"). A strong
collection by a superb writer, the only part that didn't grab
me were the female sexuality pieces.
I've never
been a fan of genatalia poems, whether male or female, which may
be more of a personal bias than anything else, but they seemed
to be the weakest pieces of the book, giving little away. "what
your hand doesn't remember my vulva does. slowed down and singular.
/ gulp, not part of a pattern, but there inside." (p 45, "Using
the future as an angle."). "There is no way to distinguish what
one has chosen to remember / from what one has chosen to forget."
(p 7, "Burning the Back Issues").
I must say
that I haven't cared for some of what Monty Reid has done (his
Dog Sleeps, for example), but I've loved most of his collections,
specifically the lyrical rhythms of These Lawns, my favorite
of the Writing West series from Red Deer College Press. It's good
to see this series out in the world again, as some fine, fine
books have gone through it, including those by Dennis Cooley and
Barry McKinnon. It's especially interesting to see the series
edited by Nicole Markotic.
And now, Alberta
badlands poet (since moved to the Quebec badlands - Aylmer, just
over the side from Ottawa) has returned to Red Deer with Flat
Side, a collection of longer and longer lined poems wrapped
around the physicality of the world. Reid's poems are wonderfully
vivid and fresh. I enjoyed the first poem most of all, "Burning
the Back Issues" (p 7-8), on getting rid of American Poetry
Review, mulling over what should be saved, and what no longer
needs to - "It is not the first time / I have tried to give up
some words." (p 7).
Reid can write
a personal poem or story heard without being overbearing or sentimental,
such as in the longer piece, "Previous Owners" (p 15-18) on the
narrator's current house - "Those unfinished / walls in the basement,
where they had pencilled in / the small additions of their love,
/ had been papered over." (p 15). He writes the way things work,
but oh so beautifully, and filled with good humour, as even further
on in the same poem, as the house was then bought by "the Anglican
Church for use as a mance / and the church covered it with a miraculous
lime green / paint that made the neighbors reexamine their faith."
(p 16).
An early member
of the Bohemian Embassy Poets' Workshop in Toronto, Julie McNeill's
poems read like soft gestures made with slow, smooth and confident
hands through the air, poems of domestic love and surreal realities,
history and children, marriage and sex, flea markets and the urban
sprawl. "Every morning / it's the same two cups / leaving small
wet circles on the tablecloth. / A routine so timely / they might
be gears in a large machine." (p 41, untitled).
McNeill's
poems are pieces you have to let yourself be absorbed by, paused
over, like a water drop disappearing into a sheet of paper. "No
one can push / my frantic heart into my throat / faster, / if
that's love. // Oh, others have. / Briefly." (p 34, untitled).
One can only hope that after this collection has worked its way
through the readers skin and bones, there won't be such a wait
for possible seconds.
This
is the information at the bottom of rob mclennan's email messages:
"poet/editor/publisher... ed. STANZAS mag & Shadowy Technicians:
New Ottawa Poets (Broken Jaw)... pub., above/ground press...coord.,
ottawa small press fair & Small Press Action Network - Ottawa
...snail c/o rob mclennan, rr#1 maxville on k0c 1t0 * 4th coll'n,
The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh (Talon)."
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