Review - I cut my finger - poems by Stuart Ross

I cut my finger - Poems
by Stuart Ross
Anvil Press, 2007

Reviewed by Joanna M. Weston

Poetry for an evening by the fireside with a bottle of wine. Poetry to be savoured, relished, enjoyed. Ross writes of hamburgers and history, of oceans and orphans, of sonnets and self-portraits with what appears at first glance to be humour, but underlying the piled on images is a realistic, often optimistic, view of the world. The prince will always kiss Sleeping Beauty into wakefulness, will always bring the glass slipper to Cinderella.

Ross links images in a dance of kaleidoscopic colour and shape while maintaining rhythm and the cohesion of underlying emotion with serious impact. He gives a sense of adventure and wonder to each page; the reader can never be sure what might happen next:

….. I pulled back
my lips and ran a fingernail
between two teeth, and there
it was, that thing that had been
bugging me: it was a horseshoe.

(p.12)

It can be interpreted as craziness but a horseshoe, the right way up, implies good luck to the watchful. In ‘The church has a church beside it’ (p.13) Ross circles back upon the first image while changing its import and impact:

Jungle comrade,
drive me to the cows,
the sheep,
into the hills …..

Jungle comrade,
leave me on the banks
of the murmuring fjord.
Introduce me
to your friends in the ice.

The first four lines are rural, with a sense of companionship. The last four lines, beside the ocean, imply isolation and abandonment. But, even in the ice, there are friends, so all is not lost. The intervening lines depict a cemetery, two churches, and crowds of people, which make the conclusion of added importance and fun.

An underlying violence erupts periodically into Ross’ poetry, much as it does in real life, as in ‘How I became exquisite’ (p.18/19)

I let Misery have one
right in the stomach. …
He crumpled and fell
to the peanut-shell-strewn floor, and I,
…. draped me in a robe of magneta.

With deliberate understatement, Ross rejoices at having beaten up depression and despair. Then in ‘New hope for the disenfranchised’ (p.53/4)

A guy got shot
and hubbub ensued.
…
I knew now that after I croaked,
a guy would get shot
and all would be better.

Here again, a violent end is a happy ending. Even when the gun appears again in ‘Across the border’ (p.83/4)

a bundle of crossed-out love poems,
an empty glove clutching a gun.
…
My hand spat fire. …
Dark eyes wet beneath dark hair,
a face that said tragedy,
so I kissed it.

This time calamity is undone by the reviving kiss of fairy-tale and ‘My life of crime/ is a distant memory.’

The reader may be bemused by the combinations of images,

The frog leaped into the pond.
The soldier has a four-day leave.
Professor Smythe is a learned man.
Who is the leader of this group?

(p.50)

but must be prepared to suspend expectation and belief in order to be beguiled and surprised. With time and patience, the pleasure of reading this book is deep and lasting. Drink the wine of Ross’ poetry, let the prince meet Cinderella and enjoy the last waltz in peace.

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