Calm Things: Essays by Shawna Lemay

by Shawna Lemay

The term still life did not come into being until 1650. The French adopted the term nature morte, dead nature, around 1750. The painter de Chirico was said to have preferred the Italian term vita silente. The Japanese, however, call still life, calm things. Calm Things is the title essay of this collection of meditations on what it is like to live with still life, and to live poetically. Both an insider's glimpse into the precarious world of artist and poet, and a long gaze at objects and the calm and silence they hold, these essays prize the ordinary, radiant gift of common things.

Genres: Essays

Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

"A lamp and a flower pot in the center. The flower can always be changing." –Virginia Woolf.

The Flower Can Always Be Changing:

From the bestselling author of Rumi and the Red Handbag comes a new collection of brief essays about the intersection of poetry, painting, photography and beauty. Inspired by the words of Virginia Woolf, Lemay welcomes you into her home, her art and her life as a poet and photographer of the every day. Lemay shares visits to the museum with her daughter, the beauty in an average workday at the library, and encourages writers and readers to make an appointment with flowers, with life.

Rumi and the Red Handbag was shortlisted for the Alberta Readers Choice Award. All the God-Sized Fruit, her first book, won the Stephan G. Stephansson Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Calm Things: Essays was shortlisted for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction. She has an M.A. in English from the University of Alberta.

Reviews

[Bléu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book reminded me of so many things I have failed to see before. The simpleness in life, like the items on still life. I just found this book especially amazing as the places mentioned were familiar to me as I have been on them and it is local! We support local! HEHE. Anyhow, really great book, gotta read it for yourself to find out how great it is. Although, there were slow moments but reading it made me peaceful. :

~*~

"It is a state we are nearly comfortable with, precariousness, and also one that we truly know very little about."

"And all the objects that we, too, use will at some point in the future belong once again to the dead."

"We are yet afloat, aswim, miraculously it seems to me, and yes, mysteriously as well. How do we measure where we are, I wonder? By what we have carried? forged on our backs? By what lies ahead and what has gone before?"

"Even so, we've felt what it is to live with flowers. And we do, we do live with flowers - it is something to be able to say that in this world. A clear privilege. To live flowers."

"I'm the sort of person that possesses an utterly childish faith in these small strips of paper, and that one particular fortune keeps cropping up. Writing, creating art, one finds oneself in a constant state of giving and receiving."

"The objects live on in paintings beyond their normal shelf life. These damaged paintings of ours brought home the fact that paintings, too, are merely objects. They too are subject to ruin, decay, damage, negligence."

"So, now, days later, I ought to be filled with relief, but no I can't allow myself. I do want to but maybe it will always be impossible now. And maybe this is better than the infernal highs and lows. I'm in that state - what? - feeling anything might happen at any moment. "

[Alyisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every time I read Shawna LeMay, I think “give me less.” I tried her novel and thought, “Maybe I’ll like her book of essays better.” I tried her book of essays. Now I’m thinking, “Maybe I’ll like her poetry better.” At no point have I said to myself, “Perhaps “less” means “none.” Stop reading Shawna LeMay!” 😅 There was enough in that first novel that caught me, that still catches me when I look back, that I want the “enough” she gave me distilled.

My reception of this collection is probably my own fault. I didn’t realize Calm Things was about living with the *literal* “still life” paintings that her husband makes until I’d already bought the book. Unfortunately, it’s a topic I’m far less interested in than just the quiet and mundane.

The biggest problem, I think, is that LeMay seems to take herself *very* seriously as an artist. And I’m sure that can be a gift, too. However, when given space to wax on about her particular sensibilities, this weighty stargazing grates. She tends to come off as pretentious and self-aggrandizing. But I think she’s interested in interesting topics! I think she can think, and I think she can write.

As an object, this book is a beautiful piece of art: the texture of the paper is lush and the nautilus painted by her husband; which graces its front and back covers, is exquisite. Unfortunately, I wanted to read about the shell without taking in the whole salty sea (of art history). The focus was too wide and too narrow for me, in all the wrong ways.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

i shall be reading this book again. i think it's a great companion book for those of us who write poetry; the attention to objects & the references to other literature & the way of seeing inspire new poems

[Caterina Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both beautiful and profound. I go back to it over and over again.