Well crafted but depressing, sometimes verging on sinister … but when you hear Wright read his work aloud (which I’m glad I had the opportunity to do), the poems come across as wry and almost self-effacing.

I am loving Kleinzahler’s jaunty juxtaposition of high-falutin’ references with down-to-earth commentary. Having heard him read and give speeches, it’s great to hear his voice in my head as I’m reading his words. I go back to this wonderful, funny, moving speech of his all the time:

http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/speeches/august-kleinzahler-2005-awards/

One of my favourite poems from “Rapid City” is thematically similar to Kleinzahler’s “The Strange Hours Travellers Keep”, about the disorientation that travellers feel in places like indistinguishable hotel rooms:

On waking in a room and not knowing where one is

There is a bureau and there is a wall
and no one is beside you.
Beyond the curtains only silence,
broken now and again by a car or truck.
And if you are very still
an occasional drip from the faucet.
Such are the room’s acoustics
it is difficult to place exactly where from.
Also, the tick of the clock.
It is very dark.
There exist all manner of blacks,
lampblack, for instance,
much favored by the ancients,
so deep and so dense
and free of any shade of gray
or brown. But this,
this dark is of another order,
compounded of innumerable shadows,
a weave of them.
One is able to make out shapes.
It is not restful, to be like this, here,
nor is it a fearful place.
In a moment or two you will know
exactly where you are,
on which side of the door,
your wallet, your shoes,
and what today you’ll have to do.

Cities each have a kind of light,
a color even,
or set of undertones
determined by the river or hills
as well as by the stone
or their countless buildings.
I cannot yet recall what city this is I’m in.
It must be close to dawn.

Shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize (www.griffinpoetryprize.com), “Short Haul Engine” was Karen Solie’s first poetry collection. The voice in many of the poems is that of someone who is tough, self reliant but also lonely and wistful. (Phrases like “heart wagging its little tail” are surprising and touching.) The fresh attention to the mundane details of life – driving and engaging in other activities in a car, watching an in-flight movie, drinking shots – is at times almost startling.

From the poem Sturgeon:

On an afternoon mean as a hook we hauled him
up to his nightmare of us and laughed
at his ugliness, soft sucker mouth opening,
closing on air that must have felt like ground glass,
left him to die with disdain
for what we could not consume.
And when he began to heave and thrash over yards of rock
to the water’s edge and, unbelievably, in,
we couldn’t hold him though we were teenaged
and bigger than everything. Could not contain
the old current he had for a mind, its pull,
and his body a muscle called river, called spawn.

I always loved this poignant snippet from “Compatibilist”:

I chose to phone my brother,
over whom I worried, and say so.
He whispered, lacked affect. He’d lost
my record collection to looming debt. I
forgave him – through weak connections,
through buzz and oceanic crackle –
immediately, without choosing to,
because it was him I hadn’t lost; and
later cried myself to sleep.

Immersed in natural imagery, Borson’s poems are delicate and sensitive in the sense that they are very attuned, but not fragile. At the same time, the collection as a whole is emotionally sound and never obscure.

At first, the range of different voices and styles that Connolly takes on from poem to poem in “Revolver” dazzles and charms … and then it starts to exhaust the reader just a little bit. You just want him to settle down and really work any of those voices. They’re all good – all of them underpinned with a crisp, sardonic tone – but they start to verge on cacophonous. And then, by the fifth section or zone of the book (which does not, of course, correspond to the cheeky table of contents), it feels like Connolly hits a flat, smooth straightaway, right to the heart of the matter and the heart of the reader, culminating in the direct and disarming “Plenty.”

“Given the words in advance, it
might all be easier. Interpretation –
that’s where the problems start.
Take counterpane, for an example.
Sounds like a magician’s con,
a glass counter you’d bounce coins
off, but really it means something
comforting – a blanket to keep you warm.”

C.D. Wright movingly juxtaposes the personal and the political, in a voice that is sharp, precise, lively, articulate and immensely caring. She obsesses about body counts in Iraq and at home in the U.S. She follows enumerations of depersonalized numbers with very personalized worries for the safety and wellbeing of beloved sons in particular. She is deeply aware of how we all must account for ourselves, as countries, citizens, family members, partners and individuals.

Reading Dean Young’s poetry is a rush – sugar, adrenaline, pick your intoxicant. With an energetic presenter (is Young a good reader of his own work, I wonder?) the dazzling wordplay and startling juxtapositions of the dramatic and the mundane would be stunning to listen to. Somehow, though, just like a sugar or adrenaline rush, when it’s over, you’re left drained and a bit bewildered, retaining little or nothing. I’m not sure why Young’s words don’t stick, but at the same time I know I’ll be happy to revisit them.

I do love this, from the poem “Self Search”:

Self, I’m stuck with you
but the notion of becoming unglued is too much
and brings tears that come, of course,
because you’re such a schmuck. Some days
you crash about raving how ignored you are
then why the hell don’t people let you alone
but I’ve seen you too perform small
nobilities, selfless generosities.
One way or the other, we’ll part I’m sure
and you’ll take me with you?

This attentively crafted collection of poetry straddles a fine line between self-awareness and self-absorption, but more than once tips into navel gazing that excludes or repels rather than welcomes the reader. This recent winner of the Canadian portion of the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize is forgiven its ponderous lapses, however, when it redeems itself with the wry humour and crisp observations of poems such as “Busman’s Honeymoon”. Who can’t help but feel included in the universal experience of waiting for, being frustratingly passed by and joining in the communal experience of riding a bus?

“it streaks through storm, now flashing Not In Service
from its radiant forehead, polluted and obscured
by splattered mud, till it can reach its station

and help to ease the overflow of us
waiting in anger. Then we all barge in
and improbably improve the poetry of the bus.”

This is warm, down-to-earth, approachable poetry. The voice is plain-spoken, at times wistful, at times feisty, always charming. Thanks to Leslie Greentree for making us love the supposedly non-beautiful sister so much more.