That Singing You Hear at the Edges
by Sue MacLeod
Signature Editions, 2003
Reviewed by Joanna M. Weston
Sue MacLeod writes on the cusp between youth and middle age, noting with
a light nostalgia the waning physical energy while rejoicing in
perceptions gained.
She takes the ordinary routines of daily life and shines them to
iridescent splendour. Her gift in poetry is to record the details of her
life and bridge the gap between herself and all humanity. 'Thirteen ways
of looking at a clothesline' (shades of Wallace Stevens) gives not
simply a line of flapping clothes, but also a sense of time, distance
and space:
I have seen
clothes-
lines stretching window sill to window
sill across a cobbled
alley,
strung
from sycamore to
xxxxxxxxxsycamore
above rust-coloured chickens.
These few words portray, in imagist fashion, a timeless picture which
could be anywhere from Spain to Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, yet is
anchored with precision in reality. It is a poem that anyone can relate
to, in any part of the country.
Again, '. I wheeled home/ my wet & heavy laundry. Felt it shift/ like an
animal over the curbs.' ('The day Elizabeth Montgomery died') and the
reader knows the poet's heartache, is burdened with her and identifies
with the weight of grief.
The first poem, 'The God of Pockets', remembers the many objects
children secrete in pockets, from chestnuts to lucky pennies. But the
memories age, as we do, so that flattened smokes, a mickey of gin and
harmonicas are tucked into the poem, with a last admonition to children
to 'Take/ what you can.'
Watching a friend washing dishes with her daughter becomes a moment of
reflection on the process of aging:
something's draining out of us
and into them. Remember how *big *
we were once? We were
giants of women.
We were Olive Oyl.
We were Popeye, too.
MacLeod captures the importance of being 'Mother', and of being in
charge. The surprise use of comic-strip characters as the focusing image
takes the reader back to childhood, while the past tense reminds of
advancing years.
Memories she holds with gentle hands, turning and polishing them. In
'They buried the 40s in my grandmother's well' she enters the world of
the immigrant who has to forget the ways and behaviour of older
generations:
They dropped in their world
war one medals, & felt
the turning over
of their fathers, far
across the sea
They threw in the kerosene lantern.
The long black night.
The silence.
MacLeod records 'We won't be needing/ that no more.' She lets the past
go and moves on, gatherng youth and age into herself
Let me separate my two
sad hands, release
my expectations into the rumbling
world of this
xxxxxxxDay-nighter: Montreal
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxto Halifax.
Her hands maybe sad at letting go of youth, but she has expectations of
the future, brought together in writing and reading, as in the last
poem, 'like a girl' ('Especially for a woman, reading').
This is a volume of poetry to be savoured, treasured, and reflected upon
in the midst of everyday routines. MacLeod's poetry and memories become
an avenue of personal exploration.
JOANNA M. WESTON M.A., married, 3 sons, two cats. A chocaholic
writer. Has had poetry published in anthologies and journals, and a
middle-reader THE WILLOW-TREE GIRL online and in print, 2003.
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