You know how with a really great, involving, engaging work of fiction, you can feel like you don’t want the book to end because you’ll miss the stories, the characters, that narrator’s voice in your head? I’m not sure that is often said of poetry collections … but I know I didn’t want this poetry collection to end. Davies’ voice throughout is warm, accessible, wise, observant and whimsical in a charmingly earnest way. Whether a poem’s subject matter is grounded in the real world or takes off in otherworldly flights (or just hops) of fancy, you trust completely where Davies is going to take you.

Her often economical expression by no means suggest she skimps on resonance, either.

“Might be grief in a puddle
and the puddle dries up.”
(from “On Mercy”)

“licks the shadows of trees off her paws.”
(from “Senility”)

“a river braiding light
as it rounds the bend.”
(from “Trout Lilies”)

“To be clear
as a crocus
among last
year’s shoe-
leather leaves.”
(from “Arrival”)

“I leave books open
in every room
of our house.”
(from “Alone”)

“I love you like crates of potatoes
and abandoned roads.”
(from “The Great Escape”)

These simple, elemental words and phrases … and many more … will vibrate in your mind, in your cells, long after you reluctantly turn over the last page.

Thank you to Goose Lane Editions for providing a review copy of how the gods pour tea, by Lynn Davies.

See also:

Lynn Davies – how the gods pour tea (an interview)
(The Toronto Quarterly)