Oh, Canada

On this little page, I’ll just be posting some Canadian poems 1-3 times a week! So make sure you check back!

Al Purdy
Purdy’s life, since he dropped out of school at 16, has been independent and unscripted.  Purdy published books of poetry since 1944 and even sold a script to CBC in ’55. He had lived all over Canada and found his way Greece and England. As for his poetry, Purdy once said, “I have no one style. I have a dozen: have got to be virtuoso enough so I can shift my gears like a hot-rod kid–I doubt that my exact combo ever came along before.” Even through this opinion of himself, one can feel Purdy through most of his poetry as he developed a recognizable voice early on. One of his poetry’s main characteristics is “a peculiar mixing of chattiness and profundity, of homely observation and mythical or historical allusion.” Filling his poetry with wit and self-mockery, his open, unresolved poetry has been loved by all–whether academic or general readers.

“… the subject of the poem is the process itself, the process of trying to come to terms with a feeling or experience.”

Moonspell

I have forgotten English
in order to talk to pelicans
plunging into tomorrow
disturb the deep reverie
of herons standing
on yesterday’s shoreline
find the  iguana’s secret
name embroidered
on his ruby brain
it is milk
it is moonlight
milk pouring
over the islands
stand in a doorway
listen
I am drowning
in sky milk
and those soft murmurings
of moonlit vertebrae
these deciphered codewords
are spoken names
of island dwellers
they will not be repeated
pour on my bare shoulders
are small extensions
of themselves
as the manta ray bubbles
rising in water
gleams in moonlight
small fish tremble
I know I know
my speech is grunts
squeaks clicks stammers
let go let go
follow the sunken ships
and deep sea creatures
follow the protozoa
into that far darkness
another kind of light
leave off this flesh
this voice
these bones
sink down

Galapagos Islands

Leonard Cohen
Who hasn’t heard of this character? Whether you love him or hate him, dig his music or feel his poetry (or both), you have to give Cohen at least a little respect for his written word and all it ignites. With a voice like cigarettes and words that make the sleaze in you boil to the top, who can resist a little read up on one of Canada’s most successful stars.

Cohen doesn’t rely much on conventional poetic forms. Cohen was a student of Buddhism and lived a quiet, meditative life. Influenced by the Beat generation, his imagination and bohemian experiences are part of what shape Cohen’s topics.

Sex, spirituality, religion, power – he has relentlessly examined the largest issues in human lives, always with a full appreciation of how elusive answers can be to the vexing questions he raises.

Cohen manages to mix a rawness in his musical lyrics, creating a truly original style of and voice in poetry. Writing for over forty years, Cohen just keeps giving us more and more to taste, digest and, in the end, truly enjoy. Thank you Mr. Cohen, for warm spring days, throaty ballads, and sleepy, content stares.

I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater

and how I kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I’d
never been your lover

Song

Sharon Thesen
According to Thesen, and I agree, we are “the servants and not the masters of writing.” This quote from one of her essays nicely describes Thesen’s approach to poetry as well as her style. She give herself over to her words and allows the rhythm of the body to be seen in her poems. One can really see how reality make its way into the creative process from time to time. Thesen’s poetry is well known for its quirkiness and lyricism. Some of the issues Thesen focuses on are feminism, which she seems as more powerful through poems than texts, and imagination, something she strives for and encourages instead of fixed forms.

I thought this poem might be appropriate, as it will soon be Valentine’s Day.

Valentine

Once out of Yeats I can breather
and every tatter on its singing branch.

Snipping the shoulder pads
out of everything, a mount
of mute foam forms.

In the front row sites pale Lily
and even paler Grace.

At a certain age one is flattered
by earrings that look like teeth.

When we met we looked sideways.

I was happy to tell him
the story of my hair–a long
story involving an elevator.

What a tale! And what
wolfy eyes you have!

French was still in my tongue,
a slight pressure toward the lips,
a certain esprit in the scarf
at my throat–towers tipping in Pisa,
labyrinths and thick spirals.

It was a lot but I got it
thirty percent off.

I heated milk, bubbled
the espresso pot: life,
life, eternal life!

Until the time came I
wasn’t thinking anything except
to extend an acquaintance past dark.

Tequila I replied. But they didn’t have any.

There was snow on the ground, I saw
the orange plow go by like an ocean liner
with its head up.

The tremble. It reaches you.

Phyllis Webb
Webb focuses on two things in her poetry – content and rhythm/form. Her content is more often than not about death, suicide, and violence. Webb uses form in everything she writes to back up and bring out what she’s saying. “Webb is extremely conscious of even the smallest nuance of rhythm or sound,” (Geddes, 2001)*.

Poetics Against The Angle of Death

I am sorry to speak of death again
(some say I’ll have a long life)
but last night Wordsworth’s ‘Prelude’
suddenly made sense — I mean the measure,
the elevated tone, the attitude
of private Men speaking to public men.
Last night I thought I would not wake again
but now with this June morning I run ragged to elude
The Great Iambic Pentameter
who is the Hound of Heaven in our stress
because I want to die
writing Haiku
or, better,
long lines, clean and syllabic as knotted bamboo. Yes!

Sitting

The degree of nothingness
is important:
to sit emptily
in the sun
receiving fire
that is the way
to mend
an extraordinary world,
sitting perfectly
still
and only
remotely human.

*Geddes, G. 15 Canadian Poets X 3.Don Mills: Oxford University Press. 2001. (forgive my lack of ability to cite. Yes, I want to be an editor.)