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Guesswork
Winner, City of Hamilton Arts Award, Established Artist, Writing Beginning with an autobiographical account of the mind, Jeffery Donaldson's marvellous new collection moves from personal history to national history, concluding with "Province House," where the ghost of Sir John A. Macdonald has the last word on metaphor. In his fourth collection, Donaldson moves deftly between the incisive short lyric and the extended meditation, oscillating between detachment and engagement. In "Torso," Donaldson considers the headless sculpture of Apollo, both chiselled rock and the changeling child of multiple observers. In a series of poems written from the vantage point of a hockey puck, the elements of a hockey game — the face-off, defensemen, play-by-play, referee, linesmen, clock, and net minder — twist in the fascinating funhouse mirror in the depths of Donaldson's personal Platonic cave. Donaldson's poems reveal a mind at once conversant with the literary deities and the subtleties of the everyday. Profoundly graceful in its recognition of the poetic heritage of others, Guesswork confirms that Donaldson is a poet whose craftsmanship, whose supple syntax and unerring sense of rhythm, are anything but guesswork.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 2011
5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 6, 2016
I really enjoyed this small book of poems by a Canadian author who teaches American Literature, poetry and creative writing at McMaster University. In this his fourth book of poetry, he offers us contemporary and lyrical poems, many with distinctive Canadian content. There is a mixture of both long and short poems, some quite playful and some more thoughtful and introspective. And there are some common themes: time and the journey from birth to death (of both people and books), and the notion that “guesswork” helps us get through life.
In the first poem ”Guillotine”, he talks of the difficult challenge of living with Tourette’s Syndrome especially in social situations when his body betrays him by unexpected, uncoordinated movements. He likens this torment to what we all feel in uncomfortable situations when our body and minds are locked in that difficult complicated internal exchange and you are trying to decide what to say or do. We all remember times when something just inadvertently came out and we didn’t realize it until it happened. And of course it was never the right thing.
In “Note to My Poem” he has a conversation with the poem itself as both poet and the poem try to influence just what the poem will be. In this interactive duet, the poet tells the poem something about itself and the poem tells the poet something about himself. There is a struggle as they wrestle to determine what the poem will eventually be, but the poem and poet eventually work it out together until they are both satisfied. The author believes this entire process helps the poet clarify his understanding of himself as he continues to write over the years -- “Listen. You and I have come a long way/since that first time we set out together/”.
There is also a wonderful idea in the last line, that the poem will find something to say long after the poet is gone that he did not think to say for himself. After all, poems are odd creatures. Unlike us they do not age over time and may well outlast us.
In “Enter PUCK” Donaldson does a wonderful portrayal of the game of hockey. You can almost hear the wild cadence in the voice of the TV commentator calling out the plays.
In "Books I-VI", he examines the mystique of books from the world’s first text to its eventual digital format.
There is a beautiful wistful selection titled “When You Are Old” with a striking phrase I really liked: “a book is at heart a mind stored where it cannot be lost”.
In “Fetal” the speaker tells a tragic story as the living fetus of the pair talks to his stillborn twin.
And to keep that Canadian theme he even has an encounter with the ghost of John A MacDonald.
What strikes me most about this volume of poetry is the wonderful rhythm of the poems. Donaldson seems to have an innate understanding of timing in the way he breaks a line and moves from one stanza to the next. I cannot claim to understand much at all of poetic theory or the complex architectural underpinnings of poetry. I am more interested in the wonderful pictures it creates with so few words on a page and the sounds and rhythms it creates when you read the poems aloud. Donaldson seems to have a good sense of how to do that. He enjoys rhyme, and it is there but never so blatantly that it is placed at the end of a line. It just seems to be wrapped in the entire envelope of the line itself.
An enjoyable read.
In the first poem ”Guillotine”, he talks of the difficult challenge of living with Tourette’s Syndrome especially in social situations when his body betrays him by unexpected, uncoordinated movements. He likens this torment to what we all feel in uncomfortable situations when our body and minds are locked in that difficult complicated internal exchange and you are trying to decide what to say or do. We all remember times when something just inadvertently came out and we didn’t realize it until it happened. And of course it was never the right thing.
In “Note to My Poem” he has a conversation with the poem itself as both poet and the poem try to influence just what the poem will be. In this interactive duet, the poet tells the poem something about itself and the poem tells the poet something about himself. There is a struggle as they wrestle to determine what the poem will eventually be, but the poem and poet eventually work it out together until they are both satisfied. The author believes this entire process helps the poet clarify his understanding of himself as he continues to write over the years -- “Listen. You and I have come a long way/since that first time we set out together/”.
There is also a wonderful idea in the last line, that the poem will find something to say long after the poet is gone that he did not think to say for himself. After all, poems are odd creatures. Unlike us they do not age over time and may well outlast us.
In “Enter PUCK” Donaldson does a wonderful portrayal of the game of hockey. You can almost hear the wild cadence in the voice of the TV commentator calling out the plays.
In "Books I-VI", he examines the mystique of books from the world’s first text to its eventual digital format.
There is a beautiful wistful selection titled “When You Are Old” with a striking phrase I really liked: “a book is at heart a mind stored where it cannot be lost”.
In “Fetal” the speaker tells a tragic story as the living fetus of the pair talks to his stillborn twin.
And to keep that Canadian theme he even has an encounter with the ghost of John A MacDonald.
What strikes me most about this volume of poetry is the wonderful rhythm of the poems. Donaldson seems to have an innate understanding of timing in the way he breaks a line and moves from one stanza to the next. I cannot claim to understand much at all of poetic theory or the complex architectural underpinnings of poetry. I am more interested in the wonderful pictures it creates with so few words on a page and the sounds and rhythms it creates when you read the poems aloud. Donaldson seems to have a good sense of how to do that. He enjoys rhyme, and it is there but never so blatantly that it is placed at the end of a line. It just seems to be wrapped in the entire envelope of the line itself.
An enjoyable read.
February 21, 2017
From "On Reading When You Are Old":
"... you look down to see
what it says and find that none
of it makes sense because there were
no words, or only words so long
as you didn't try to read them,
and the knowledge brings you back,
and you wake in the early light
and look about you and see a book
on the bedside table with a bookmark
set somewhere near the beginning,
and you realize, how you couldn't say,
that you are the solitary reader."
From "Book V":
"... A book
knows that to touch others
you must fill yourself out,
be all that you are.
Pull down a book anywhere
from the shelf, and the rest
will breathe a long sigh
into the space where it was.
Read in any direction you like,
a row of books has two ends."
"... you look down to see
what it says and find that none
of it makes sense because there were
no words, or only words so long
as you didn't try to read them,
and the knowledge brings you back,
and you wake in the early light
and look about you and see a book
on the bedside table with a bookmark
set somewhere near the beginning,
and you realize, how you couldn't say,
that you are the solitary reader."
From "Book V":
"... A book
knows that to touch others
you must fill yourself out,
be all that you are.
Pull down a book anywhere
from the shelf, and the rest
will breathe a long sigh
into the space where it was.
Read in any direction you like,
a row of books has two ends."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews