Forge

by Jan Zwicky

This new collection from Jan Zwicky is a set of variations that employs a restricted, echoic vocabulary to explore themes of spiritual catastrophe, transformation and erotic love. Zwicky is a philosopher, musician and award-winning poet who lives on Quadra Island, British Columbia. Her most recent collection of poetry is Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences. Her critically acclaimed books of philosophy, Lyric Philosophy and Wisdom & Metaphor, have recently been reissued in hardcover by Gaspereau Press.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

80 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2011

About the author

Jan Zwicky’s books of poetry include Songs for Relinquishing the Earth, which won the Governor General’s Award, Robinson’s Crossing, which won the Dorothy Livesay Prize, and, most recently Forge, which was short-listed for the Griffin Prize. Her books of philosophy include Wisdom & Metaphor, Lyric Philosophy, and Alkibiades’ Love (forthcoming 2015).

Reviews

[Sienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a gentleness to Zwicky's poetry that could easily give the wrong impression: that her lyrics are merely an exercise in lyricism, that the pastoral is only vision translated into language, and not thought, idea, emotion. Nothing happens in isolation. When we talk about dawn breaking, we say something about ourselves. To forge is an act of creation, of work, of life; it's hard work, as it should be, particularly given what we're forging — the self. This is what I was made for. I would be the silver twist of fishes, the cloud-mind of birds. It's no wonder that the notion of breaking recurs throughout, reminders of the death, love, luck, loss and, yes, gentleness that have shaped us.

Though a number of these poems have been previously published elsewhere, this collection is more cohesive than her last. Zwicky's snapshots of place, of time, that I've grown to love are rendered more immediate through the unexpected sensuality of these small songs and cycles, the musicality of silence — I tend to read aloud only in my mind. It's the kind of language found in the Song of Songs and writings by Christian mystics, when bodily experiences become revelations not merely on a physical level. (Nothing happens in isolation.) My favorite is "Practising Bach":

Prelude

There is, said Pythagoras, a sound
the planet makes: a kind of music
just outside our hearing, the proportion
and the resonance of things — not
the clang of theory or the wuthering
of human speech, not even
the bright song of sex or hunger, but
the unrung ringing that
supports them all.

The wife, no warning, dead
when you come home. Ducats
in the fishheads that you salvage
from the rubbish heap. Is the cosmos
laughing at us? No. It's saying
improvise. Everywhere you look
there's beauty, and it's rimed
with death. If you find injustice
you'll find humans, and this means
that if you listen, you'll find love.
The substance of the world is light,
is water: here, clear
even when it's dying; even when the dying
seems unbearable, it runs.

...

And, a bit later on in the Bach sequence:

Gavotte

E major: June wind
in the buttercups, wild
and bright and tough.
Like luck — a truth
that's on the surface of a thing,
not because it's shallow, but because
it's open: overtoned.
Because it rings.
     Fate, too,
is character. But it's
the shape — the cadence
and the counterpoint. Luck
lives in the moment, and it
looks at you: the clear eye,
gold, when being sings.

Perfection.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The photo of Jan Zwicky on my copy of Forge shows a woman who could be expressing joy, or maybe ecstasy. Her poetry is about making those things. She has a lyric gift and can take an idea or an emotion and hammer it into a verbal shape that's both sturdy and elegant. The ecstasy could be erotic or divine. The book contains some breathtaking love poetry. She also spends time showing us the possibility of the divine in everyday household objects just as she makes us wish it can be in the unfolding of a leaf. Through an endorsement of the erotic and an embrace of music, she's described moments of beauty we've all experienced before but perhaps not taken the time to savor. Zwicky's hammer has a delicate touch, but her poetry is made to last.

[Arun Budhathoki · Rating 4 out of 5]

a deep metaphorical book...full of physical imagery...and forging love.

[Madison Deppe]

Poetry is hard to rate. This was nearly objectively beautiful, but a lot less of it landed or spoke to me than the Dan McKay I just read. So, to each their own! A couple of lines in here touched me to my very core, but everything else touched/moved me almost not at all.

[~danica~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first poetry read. I don't think I'm a poetry person so three stars is quite good!

[Freddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

like swimming in a pool with your eyes open

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book of poetry was short listed for the 2012 Griffin Prize.

Zwicky, a native of Alberta now living on Quadra Island off the coast of B.C. is a philosopher, musician, and poet. This collection pays attention to music. There are themes of spiritual catastrophe, transformation and erotic love.

She chooses minimalistic imagery from nature describing the motion of air and light and their effect on trees, grass and the sea.

I really liked the beginning of most of the poems but found some of the endings unsatisfying.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fabulous poems here...

[Natalie Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still think on the first poem sequence. It lit something inside me that has never gone out.

[Chelsea M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah! Sustenance 🥰