Furious

by Erín Moure

The poetry in Furious is charged with Mouré's characteristic energy and wit as she explores the limits of "pure" reason and the language of power. There is, too, a fresh and often celebratory look at love, and, in an unusual finale, The Acts, Mouré challenges us to explore a feminist aesthetic: of thinking, of the page, of working life and the possibility of poetry.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Erín Moure is a transborder poet and translator of poetry and poetics. In Canada, the USA, and the UK (variously), she has published seventeen books of poetry, and several books of prose including a memoir and a book of short takes on translation. Her most recent book is Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erín Moure (ed. Shannon Maguire, Wesleyan 2017). She is the translator or co-translator of seventeen books of poetry and three books of non-fiction (biopoetics) from French, Spanish, Galician, and Portuguese into English. Her translation of Wilson Bueno’s Paraguayan Sea (Nightboat, 2017) was a finalist for a 2018 Best Translated Book Award. She holds two honorary doctorates for her contributions to poetry and translation, from Brandon University in Canada and the Universidade de Vigo in Spain. She lives in Montreal.

Reviews

[Steph Percival · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the range and rambling and play on language in this collection. Ahead of its time when it was written in the 80s, Furious still resonates with relevance and pointed wittiness.

[Patch · Rating 5 out of 5]

this felt made for me! the visceral body imagery, the nature metaphors, the exploration of the inadequacy of language. there was one part in the acts that made me finally understand something about myself I was never able to put into words. oh, also how serendipitous that I should read this at the same time as pure reason? I had no clue there was whole section relating to it. gave me some new ideas for my little art-language, especially in referance to how we hierarchicalize grammatical relations. I think my favorite poem was salt: condition, though there were a lot that I really liked so hard to choose. sorry this isn't really much of a review lol

[Ivanna Berrios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im now on goodreads bc i deleted all my social media apps on my phone and need to yell into some sort of void. Anyway i loved these poems. Moures grasp on language is so precise it cuts n i love it. She does interesting things with citational politics/norms that could be radical were it not for her big reliance on citational authority for the philosophical n theoretical force behind her poems. Gurl ur poems r doing the work already, no need! Still v cool

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culture has been chattering and chattering but to no purpose. When a sentence becomes distinct, it makes no more sense or connection. Wherefore, the watcher says again "Unintelligible", nods his head, and smiles gloomily. He puts a few coins on the table, grabs a cap, gropes his way down the broken stairs, mumbles good-morning to some rat-ridden super sitting in an old plastic chair under the stairs, and passes out.

- Kathy Acker, Great Expectations

The irrational deafness of our heads, that's
all.
Where our elegant coiffure comes from,
our own fingers, hey: squirrel-
hunting in the Rocky Mountains under the smell of spruce
forest I said I never would forget
& haven't.
Damn it.
Where our research will get us,
home free, sliding fat
past the hard throw from second baseman.
Looking for just one more homer.

We are listening to too much music, & our tastes
are lousy.

The squirrel my brother shot down with the .22 so the dog could play.
The dog just sniffed the dead fur
& looked up the tree again, eye
cocked for the squirrel.
It is always in our damn heads.

Or my head.

Or anyone's.

When we got together, what we talked of,
the moose my uncle shot & cut up into frozen pieces,
& sent it down, in 1964, on the Greyhound.

What I forgot to say, was:
What we saw that box of moose hefted out of the bus bay in
the din of yelling navvies,
we knew it was goodbye to beef
till springtime.

& I haven't talked to my aunt since.

I go deaf thinking of it. Or anything.

- Goodbye to Beef, pg. 16-17

* * *

I am in a daydream of my uncle,
his shirt out at his daughter's wedding,
white scoop of the shirt-tail bobbing
on the dance floor & him in it, no,
his drunk friend pawing me, it was his shirt dangling,
I forgot this,
my youngest cousin in his dress pants downing straight whisky,
& me too, tying tin cans to his sister's car.
The sour taste of it. Drink this, he said.

I am wondering how we live at all
of it we do.
The puppy we grew up with came from the same uncle's farm.
His shirt-tail beneath his suit jacket, dancing.
The friend of the family touching my new chest.
They told me not to say so.
I'll drive you to the motel, he said, his breath close.
No. Be nice to him, they said, & waved me off from the table.
I was so scared.
Everyone has been drinking. Including me. Thirteen years old.
Who the hell did my cousin marry.
I tell you.

- Thirteen Years, pg. 26

* * *

Your face in my neck &
arms dwelling upward face
in my soft leg open
lifted upward airborne soft
face into under into rolling
over every upward motion
rolling open over your
Face in my neck again over
turning risen touch billows
my mouth open enter
dwelling upward face
in your soft leg open
lifted upward airborne soft
face into under into motion
over every upward open
rolling open over your
Face in my neck again
& arms

- Rolling Motion, pg. 35

* * *

I am the one who lies, slowly, closer
to your arm.
I insinuate.
The trip trip of the rain into wet earth &
the traffic noise.
This kind of a hush, she said.
Lifting her arms over her head so gently
in a gesture of, longing.
We are all innocent beings with our bathtubs & literary
pure enforcement.
I don't know if there's any difference between men & women
is just a lie.
The word human being has stood for men
until now.

Until now.

When she puts her arm down, in innocence,
I'll show her.

- Ocean Poem, pg. 48

* * *

Frontally speaking
I am facing up to my harbingers
I am wearing a small beam to stop from
measuring the sky
I am approaching my debits
with a voice left from the Elections
A yelp
The start of a cry

Frontally speaking I am leaning on the hugest boulder
by the wayside
in order to imprint the mountain on my ass
In order to jump into the abyss with my shoes named Kafka
In order to complete the fire escape of my marriage

Frontally speaking I am no more important
than the construction of a stadium
in the place where they refuse to build
housing for the poor
I have inside me
no less sky than the sky

Frontally speaking my sadness wears another seven
beside your opportunity
It is unfurled & dressy
It is your voice which I am speaking over & over
because I like to hear you
inside my mouth
where I can touch our futures with my tongue
& throw down my names & embrace you
& forget which one of us I am
Frontally speaking
Frontally speaking

- Unfurled & Dressy, pg. 51

* * *

Well well he said his hands
up on his face push the slow skin dissolve frame over sunlight
the window over his shoulder where cold air blast is
stopped & he is speaking, well well he said
you are well hired & working here
to do this work so calmly
& learn the hierarchy as you will
need us he said well well he speak & push his face & grin
the office tower over airless
the office tower in which we discuss over airless
the air unbreak between us over every
well he said
to do this so calmly
I will not, she said
I will / not

- Patron, pg. 63

* * *

(1)

Sometimes you can't tell
if the bird's wings have been beaten shut
or just bitten off or its chest
eaten, sicked in, or
if the stone has fallen from
the wet sky into its mouth,
or if the shell had torn the skin at birth, leaking the air in,
or if the poet has written with
or without discipline.


(2)

Sometimes you can't tell
if the bird's wings have been beaten shut
or just bitten off & it won't fly, or its chest
eaten, sucked in, or
if the stone has fallen from
the wet sky into its mouth,
making the song a bit of a surprise finally,
sometimes you can't tel where the bird's lungs
end & the sky begins,
or of the shell had torn the skin at birth, leaking the air in,
or if the poet has written with
or without discipline.


(3)

Sometimes you can't tell
if the bird's wings have been beaten shut
or garbaged,
or just bitten off & it won't fly, or its chest burned
with white stove matches, or
eaten, sucked in, or
if the stone has fallen from
the wet sky into its mouth,
making the song a bit of a surprise finally,
a song with a rock in it,
a small marble,
sometimes you can't tell where the bird's lungs
end & the sky begins, its wings dash too quickly,
or if the shell had torn the skin at birth, leaking the air in,
or if the script of flight is a membrane in the head, or
just shut into the long bones,
or what it feels like exactly to have a beak, where
the mouth is, impossible to tell you this,
or if the poet has written with
or without discipline.

- Three Versions, pg. 75-77

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. I love Mouré's tight, intricate poety with a feminist perspective and aesthetic. Poems that talk to themselves and with each other, that disrupt grammar.

Mouré says that the key to desire is having one's existence affirmed by others, and this used to mean being affirmed by men.

She suggests a disruption of language wherein "The poet...defies "real"-ity by writing it hard into that surface (content), as a form wherein she makes her defiance visible."

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The poem doesn’t have to defer.”

[era · Rating 4 out of 5]

words that demand to be eaten , sitting full in my belly like bread

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great work of poetry and winner of the Governor General’s award. In this book, Moure experiments with language, and particularly grammar, in pursuit of a particularly feminist poetics. Alternate versions of the same poems reflect Moure’s emphasis on the creative process.

Acquired Fall 1995
Double Hook Bookstore, Montreal, Quebec

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have this one for over 20 years. Finally attempted, and finished it. A difficult read for me. Some lines I like, a lot of theory I could have done without.

[A.E. Armstrong · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely an important work in Canadian post-structuralism, though should not be attempted frivolously.

[Zack]

I loved it! I want to read more Erin Mouré!