Review - The sorrow and the fast of it by Nathalie Stephens

The sorrow and the fast of it
by Nathalie Stephens
Nightwood Books/Cold Spring, 2007

Reviewed by Joanna M. Weston

Poetry assumes a relationship, often intimate, between the poet and the reader. ‘Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a working of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance,’ says Keats.

In order for that remembrance to occur in the reader, the poet must desire to communicate, to want to create a link between her own heart and mind and that of the invisible other. To write to express one’s angst is laudable but if that anguish fails to connect with the reader, then communication fails and the poet speaks in an empty room.

Stephens’s prose poetry is staccato, lacking flow, each sentence demands individual attention, and merits it. The language of her poetry rings with the pain of humanity, though context and the experience that has caused her distress are unclear. The overall impression is one of separation and not being engaged with or by other human beings.

She longs to break free of heartache but remains held fast, struggling for release: “I was looking for something to soften living. The collapse of it. The reach of it.” (p.2) “The leaving is return. The wind changes. It is always against.” (p.4)

Again, Keats says, “Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle or amaze with itself, but with its subject.” And it is Stephens’ style, rather than her subject, which engages attention. She uses short, sharp-lensed sentences that vary little in make-up. The subject remains elusive and unclear, as is shown in this section:

A withholding.

The first difficulty is location. The second
removal. And the third, more cumbersome,
persistence. The persistence of the thing not
leaving. The thing pushed away that remains. The
incessance of the variance of the stumble and
fall touch splinter fail. (p.8)

Location, removal from that location, and persistent withholding? Or the persistent location? The difficulty is to grasp the subject, to take it into one’s soul and hear it resonate with one’s own experience.

I went to Hell.

It was the same city all over again. It was the
same scurveyed sun and the people milling. There
was talk of sacrifilege and a voice demanding.
The street map buckled. It was all in good fun.

I walked to where the road caved. The little
girl pulled her pants down. A goat died and we
drank its blood. The buildings were jewelled and
the signs read ‘Slaughter’.

I for one went missing.

We both died. We hadn’t foresight enough to
run. (p.45)

To be in this place might be hell, but ‘it was all in good fun’ says Stephens. There is always ambivalence for her, between hell and good fun, between drinking blood and jeweled buildings.

Like Robert Allen in "Standing wave" she engages dualities throughout her poetry but, unlike Allen, without conclusion or healing. She remains broken by city and country, winter and summer, leaving and return, unable to escape into a place of calm vision and acceptance. She will always be caught without ‘foresight enough to run’ (p.45); she will always ‘stand on the roof of a building that is condemned.’ (p.88)

Joanna M. Weston - A SUMMER FATHER - poetry - Frontenac House, 2006 and THOSE BLUE SHOES for ages 7-12