fragments of a life

inspired by jars of clay and dionne brand

a couple of weeks ago, dionne brand was in winnipeg, reading from her latest work inventory. if only i could explain how this woman, her poetry and her voice, move me…

…until, it must be said, the moment when all women realize
the war they’re in, that the only possibility is falling
that the fragments of winter and music are only solemn
kisses to their half-life and only mercy and surrender move
their hand.

and jars of clay were in winnipeg today.
speaking with them and hearing them sing has reminded me of how the poetry of their song has woven its way into my life and my consciousness in a very powerful way. if i look through any of my journals i can find so many of their lines juxtaposed to mine, inspiring, upholding, and sustaining. i have listened to no one as much as i have listened to them and i have listened to them enough that their music could be the timeline of the last 10 years of my life.

Oh my God look around this place
fingers reach around the bone
You set the break and set the tone
flights of grace and future falls
in present pain
All fools say ‘Oh my God’

i wonder: do we interpret our lives in fragments?
as we write in our journals,
hearing songs, not symphonies,
and determining everything in a single moment
so unlike our creator
who knows everything without a single moment at all,
but all at once

“quebec”

who knew ‘but’s could be so sharp?
or the past tense?
the way you spoke me into history made me wonder if i was still breathing.

then my own poems
laughed at me.

i think fragmentation produces liminality.
and liminality demands patience.
yes, patience is the attribute that the liminal requires.

“How to be a Poet (to remind myself)”
Wendell Berry

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill – more of each
than you have – inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgement…

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

why winter biking is actually quite wimpy

one ordinary morning sometime last fall i got an idea. i’m not entirely sure what sparked it or how i came up with it, but once i had it in my head i was quite certain it was good. it was a kind of plan or a deal, if you will, that i wanted to propose to my mother. without giving it a second thought i called her and with glee made my proposition: in exchange for her going to university – something that she has wanted to do since before i can remember – and registering for a course of her choice in winter 2007, i would give her my car to provide the necessary transportation to and from the class.
my mom gave it a bit of thought but for her it really was a deal she couldn’t refuse. “so, Carmen, what you’re saying is I get your car and I get to go to university? Is that the whole deal? It seems like a win-win situation for me.” yep mom. that’s it. you go to school, i’ll give you my car. as an agreement, i admit it was a bit counter-intuitive…what was in it for me? well… in a word, liberation.

in the weeks that followed, my mother started the process of applying to university. after her official acceptance letter arrived, i bought a one-way plane ticket to get me back to winnipeg after christmas. it was official. i was leaving my car in saskatchewan. while i was home for christmas holidays i helped her pick out and register for an english course. finally, after abolishing any second thoughts, i boarded the plane and came back to winnie to start my new car-free life.

and i love it. biking is so invigorating! getting from point a to point b is no longer a chore, it is an adventure. and winter can’t touch me (thanks to a very cool facemask from MEC – which will also come in handy should i ever need to pull a heist). so i’m just basking in liminal space of transportation instead of feeling guilty about it like i used to when i would drive somewhere within biking distance (although i must admit i haven’t been entirely car-free since i came back, thanks to some generous non-car-free roomies).

but what’s more, my mother loves her class. we’ve already had some wonderful conversations about her readings. she often calls me with questions about this or that and i love being able to use some of my knowledge for the good of someone else. she’s enjoying herself and at the same time is learning more about me and what’s been occupying the majority of my time for the last six years of my life.

when i made the deal with my mother i did it, at least in part, because i thought that winter biking would be a serious challenge. i thought i needed to have a good cause (i.e. my mother’s education)to keep me from getting bitter about not having a car on those -50 winterpeg days. but i’ll let you in on a little secret: biking in the winter is actually pretty wimpy. once i put on all my gear, i don’t feel a bit of cold. no, not even in -50. (insert evil laughter here) it’s actually so easy it almost makes me feel guilty. well… (more villainous laughter) …almost.

more from my commonplace book

I will probably return to say more about this poem later. Let it suffice for now to say that last summer was, for me, a liminal space of both the most pleasurable and probably the most difficult kind. At the end of it, when I was trying to relate to both myself and to some of my closest friends something of what had happened to me in those four transitional months and what I had learned in the midst of that time of neither here nor there, I found this poem so helpful. Love unknown by George Herbert:

Dear Friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad:
And in my faintings I presume your love
Will more comply then help. A Lord I had,
And have, of whom some grounds, which may improve,
I hold for two lives, and both lives in me.
To him I brought a dish of fruit one day,
And in the middle plac’d my heart, But he
(I sigh to say)
Lookt on a servant, who did know his eye
Better then you know me, or (which is one)
Then I my self. The servant instantly
Quitting the fruit, seiz’d on my heart alone,
And threw it in a font, wherein did fall
A stream of blood, which issu’d from the side
Of a great rock: I well remember all,
And have good cause: there it was dipt and dy’d,
And washt, and wrung: the very wringing yet
Enforceth tears. Your heart was foul, I fear.
Indeed ‘tis true. I did and do commit
Many a fault more then my lease will bear;
Yet still askt pardon, and was not deni’d.
But you shall hear. After my heart was well,
And clean and fair, as I one even-tide
(I sigh to tell)
Walkt by my self abroad, I saw a large
And spacious fornace flaming, and thereon
A boyling caldron, round about those verge
Was in great letters set A F F L I C T I O N.
The greatnesse shew’d the owner. So I went
To fetch a sacrifice out of my fold,
Thinking with that, which I did thus present,
To warm his love, which I did fear grew cold.
But as my heart did tender it, the man,
Who was to take it from me, slipt his hand,
And threw my heart into the scalding pan;
My heart, that brought it (do you understand?)
The offerer’s heart. Your heart was hard, I fear.
Indeed ’tis true. I found a callous matter
Began to spread and to expatiate there:
But with a richer drug then scalding water
I bath’d it often, ev’n with holy blood,
Which at a board, while many drunk bare wine,
A friend did steal into my cup for good,
Ev’n taken inwardly, and most divine
To supple hardnesses. But at the length
Out of the caldron getting, soon I fled
Unto my house, where to repair the strength
Which I had lost, I hasted to my bed.
But when I thought to sleep out all these faults
(I sigh to speak)
I found that some had stuff’d the bed with thoughts,
I would say thorns. Dear, could my heart not break,
When with my pleasures ev’n my rest was gone?
Full well I understood, who had been there:
For I had giv’n the key to none, but one:
It must be he. Your heart was dull, I fear.
Indeed a slack and sleepy state of mind
Did oft possess me, so that when I pray’d,
Though my lips went, my heart did stay behind.
But all my scores were by another paid,
Who took the debt upon him. Truly, Friend,
For ought I hear, our Master shows to you
More favour then you wot of. Mark the end.
The Font did only, what was old, renew:
The Caldron suppled, what was grown too hard:
The Thorns did quicken, what was grown too dull:
All did but strive to mend, what you had marr’d.
Wherefore be cheer’d, and praise him to the full
Each day, each hour, each moment of the week,
Who fain would have you be new, tender, quick.

The Haunted Palace

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace -
Radiant palace – reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion -
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow -
(This – all this – was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanders in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting,
Porphyrogene,
In state his glory well befitting
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! – for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old-time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the encrimsoned windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh – but smile no more.

Edgar Allan Poe, 1845

a confession and a poem for a sunday

Often when people find out that I’m an English major they will ask me whether I have a favourite author or period. I almost never answer the same way. Sometimes I will just respond by citing whichever poet it is that I pulled off my bookshelf the night before and have sitting on my bedside table. Other times, because I so often get swept away by poets, I will simply cite whoever, of the many authors I am studying at any given time, has my greatest affections at that moment. I like this game because it keeps me from getting bored with the question or my response to it and it keeps me from focussing too much on any one author or period. But the truth is, there is one poet who I think I could call my favourite. He is the poet who first made me love poetry and he is also the one who I always find myself turning back to whenever I feel wearied by my studies. And, it never fails, everytime I return to his work I still love it as much as ever. He is Gerard Manley Hopkins.
I think, more than anything else, it is the form of his poetry that has captivated me all these years. His experimental metre, his manufactured words… ah yes. Hopkins. The reason I bring him up is that I have decided to post a poem which I think appears at first glance, and I think you will agree, somewhat lacking in content. But it is a poem whose metre I have thought much about. When I wrote it, it was meant to be a kind of experiment and I think there may still be some merit in that.
Although I have not marked in accented syllables and feet as Hopkins so often did, I would like to make one comment on the rhythm of the piece. I think the metre will probably reveal itself quickly as you read and, as such, you will probably be inclined to hear the word ‘Memory’ (line 3) as a two-syllable word because that will make the third line, like the ones before and after it, iambic tetrametre (weak-strong, w-s, w-s, w-s). But please remember that ‘Memory’ can be read two ways, and if you read it as three syllables – mem – or – y – the line changes quite a bit, and i think the poem does also. First, the variable quality of the word itself and the interruption that it may or may not bring to the metre gives a little more depth to the surface reading of the poem (ie. the poem is centred around a night interrupted by memories [or personified, Memory] and the word may or may not be an interruption in the form of the poem – perhaps the word itself and the possibilities of reading it in two ways [one of which resolves a problem of metre] gives the reader hope that perhaps the speaker, like the reader, may find a way to stop Memory’s interruption). But also – and this is my more sincere hope (although I fear I was not quite successful) – I wanted the poem to invite a second, more philological reading (and maybe this will be more apparent to those of you who have been kept up at night wrestling with some linguistic composition that will simply not resolve itself). In this second reading, the word Memory may not only be capitalized to personify it, but also to draw attention to its identity as a word. In this sense, the poem becomes a meditation on some of the difficulties that one faces in the composition process, on a distinction that i began to draw out in my last posting between mere reflection and art. I guess, as it regards this distinction, I probably should tease out some of the implications of the dreaming that I represent here where dreaming is illustrated as ignorant but also not entirely futile. But I will leave that for another day, and conclude by saying, simply, that I wanted to capture, through my experiments with form in this juvenile little poem, a glimpse of the frustrating liminal space that I often find myself in when I try write poetry or when I find myself inspired by poetic thoughts or images but utterly defied in my attempts to capture them on the page in something like a poem. So…

Memory

The night has come
but as of yet I do not sleep
for Memory saw me lie alone
and came and wrapped his arms around
He filled with kisses full my mind,
but not my mouth.
His touch – elusive as the wind!

O, fly Man fly,
and let me least have dreams tonight,
(You do not know how longingly I look upon them)
when I forget no one is here
and relish in my ignorance,
cherish an hour of innocence
so sweet – without an empty mouth,
a captive tongue, a lost embrace…

and when I wake,
the sun shall be my comfort, for
daylight is poison to Your veins.

But sadly now You torment me,
and I just lie indignantly.

writing bannatyne

people who have visited the bannatyne house where i live will know how wonderfully atypical it is. the tangible details of this place are only the beginning: six young women, five guitars, four-years of tenancy, three lived floors, two separate staircases leading to the second floor, one bathroom, a million shoes. but as we have layered year upon year of experience in this place something else has been steadily growing in each of us: a sensation of something unquantifiable about our experience here, of something terribly profound that has been moving each of us. but that “something” consistently eludes our best efforts at articulation or understanding.
i wonder sometimes, if we had known at the beginning what this experience would become for each of us, would we have lived differently or made better efforts to record this time spent at the crossroads of bannatyne and juno? perhaps we would have been more deliberate about self-consciously trying to understand what this experience was meaning to us over the course of our time here.

but these thoughts have only really begun to emerge as we consciously and deliberately approach the end of our time here, as we approach the moment when bannatyne will crossover completely into history and cease to be quotidien, when we will no longer experience it as present.

there is a line in the first poem of dionne brand’s thirsty (i included it in the first post on this blog) that captures something about the way i feel about this:

how come, how come
I anticipate nothing as intimate as history

we have often said that one of us should write a book about this place, about what we’ve experienced here. i think i have often felt this imperative stronger than my roommates, perhaps for the same reason that this question of brand’s resonates so strongly with me.
i am anticipating the experience of this place as history. often i forget that we always have and always will exist in the space where history is created. but i also often forget that the intimacy we experience with history is not our life. i fear that the recognition of that distinction is at times what distinguishes art from mere reflection.

a couple of weeks ago, on a pleasant friday afternoon, i went to a performance at the university of winnipeg entitled “A Taste of Montreal”. it was here that i was introduced to the poet robyn sarah. the poetry she read was written in a deliberate attempt to reflect on and artistically reconstruct an experience that she had had in her youth, an experience that was grounded in both a particular space and a particular time, not unlike my experience here at bannatyne. the kind of dialectic that i observed in her poetry between representation and creativity was made possible, i think, only by the distance that had been gained between the moment of performance and the moment of the youthful experience. she suggested at the beginning that the artistic endeavour she was about to engage in would look something like “dragging the past kicking and screaming into the present to make something new.” i guess she meant for there to be a kind of synergy between the representation of the past and its re-creation in the present, although whether it was intentional or unavoidable or both i’m not entirely certain. nonetheless, the representation of the past in the creative work of the present necessarily interacted to produce something greater than either would have been on its own.

i spoke to her briefly afterwards about some of her poetry and some of my own ideas and she was as inspirational to me as her poetry had been. what follows is one of the poems that she read at u of w – a poem which, when i heard it, i thought could almost have been written about our house. i guess i’m posting it now in place of the poems that i will not be writing about this place for quite some time.

Into the Nineties

Thin is the veneer
of newness on this renovated house
built early in the century. The floors
are sanded to the quick.
They will not take
another sanding. Now that the
glossy finish, rolled on slick,
has flaked away in spots,
and winter dryness cracks the weaker boards
so that they catch the foot and splinter off,
we see: it is an old floor.
No help for it.

And in the night
the banging in the pipes,
and the slow seep
of dust, out from between
the mortared bricks
of one old wall laid bare
for elegance…

So snows the old,
spreading its sediment
on all our furnishings, a
fine grime.

for we who still twilight in this west

i often refer to myself as an occasional poet. this is because i only occasionally write poetry and when i do it is generally to commemorate emergent occasions. what follows is one of these occasional poems.

reflections on east & west: to a goodly lady
(for my brother who always was and probably still is “the best in the west”)

oh lordy child, she said, you don’t need more.
what do you think a second scoop is for?
but that boy could never figure out why
he had to take those scoops one at a time.

I
listen,
the crashing of the bowl on the floor,
the scrambling to clean it up, the child’s
muffled tears for the loss.

the aunt
stares in wonder at this little child
who cannot seem to understand this simple
imperative
to patience.
the child just cries on the floor
still caught in the moment and now even more
for what it no longer has to offer.
the mother gently sighs, ambivalent, because this child
cannot understand proportion
but she, small soul, is hungry too,
yet bursting with short love
in a long, dark universe
she cannot fathom.

oh mother,
he could not know how differently
he could have done what he did not do.
but there are human possibilities
in stories of this hue
when heard in silent places,
in unrefractive darkness.

II
crystal in the window.
i came here to see the light change
colour. first red
then blue
then difference cease
it is no longer light transformed
no longer i pursue
i cannot see, but myself am seen,
kaleidescope of light, my eye.
the evidence of sun
explored in seeing
as vibrant crystal finds its home,
by light,
in me.

III
dull, flat february
without a taste of light.
we starve without the sun.
but simple thought is food
and we learn patience here
static with the memory of that goodly lady, who sparkled
in simplicity.
and who better to teach?
if there be one more qualified,
chasing the sun by night,
she’s landed in the east.
far from we who twilight in this west
and beg the moon for silent secrets
on how the sun will rise,
unknowing that a twinkle here
has made these quiet
eyes
wise.