What the Small Day Cannot Hold

by Susan Musgrave

Finally a collected Musgrave for those old enough to have been there in the 1970s and those young enough to want to reexperience the generation's wry optimism and ironic fervour. This seven-title canon reissues Musgrave's early must-have literary opus and includes: Songs of the Sea-Witch, Entrance of the Celebrant, Grave-Dirt and Selected Strawberries, The Impstone, Becky Swan's Book, A Man to Marry, a Man to Bury, and Cocktails at the Mausoleum. Originally published by Sono Nis, Macmillan, McClelland & Stewart and Porcupine's Quill, the poems in What the Small Day Cannot Hold reconstitute the lost canon of one of the country's most vibrant and orgiinal national voices. Called the "foremost poet of her generation", Musgrave epitomizes the people's poet, bringing to audiences starved for a new language of wide breadth of material startling in its intensity and originality, legendary in its myth-making and monumental in its primal power. From witchcraft to wilderness, from First Nations to the urban nation, from the erotic to the exotic, these poems explode typical expectations and haunt the reader with unprecedented dramatic appeal.

Genres: Poetry, Womens

406 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2000

About the author

Susan Musgrave is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California to Canadian parents, and currently lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and Haida Gwaii.

Musgrave was married to Stephen Reid, a writer, convicted bank robber and former member of the infamous band of thieves known as the Stopwatch Gang. Their relationship was chronicled in 1999 in the CBC series Life and Times.

She currently teaches creative writing in the University of British Columbia's Optional Residency Master of Fine Arts Program.

Recognizing a life in writing, the Writers' Trust presented Susan Musgrave with the 2014 Matt Cohen Award for her lifetime of work.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the Small Day Cannot Hold collects Susan Musgrave's first books of poetry, including: Songs of the Sea-Witch , Entrance of the Celebrant , Grave Dirt And Selected Strawberries , Impstone , Becky Swan's Book , A Man To Marry, A Man To Bury , and Cocktails at the Mausoleum ...

From Songs of the Sea-Witch ...

After the rain
the field gates open,
the slanting sun
trims our tired wet bones;

we scream the vowels
of freedom,
the wheel tracks freshen
as hell falls through -

by the road
grandpa finds us
unreal mushrooms,
red, brown
and orange -
an unreal grandpa
who knows the calls of all the birds,

who sings and sighs
a snail of the vain and ugliest

while our lips mould the smoke of fallen starlight
and our hearts toll like clappers
in the bell of dark.

- After the Rain, pg. 3

* * *

I walked into your mirror
not remembering that I was blind
On the other side
I found all the people
who had ever looked at themselves,
people with one side silvered
who not only could see each other
but also the reflection
of everything else.
Having me at last
a tear slid between your eye
and the glass
and I slipped out
where all water goes -
a usual way.

- Mirror, pg. 35-36

From Entrance of the Celebrant ...

I do not remember
the night; that night
I had no way with him.

I was the dog child
follower of stars.
I was the dark one's
brindle stray.

That night the night
entered him -
I left him there.
Uphill where the hawk lives
I carried his bones to earth.

Dog child he whispered,
he was nearest to me then.
I came and the wind
covered us - we lay alone
in sleep.

But rising out of that
dark hill, the shadow
of our last flight fell,
not caring
how the stars shone or
knowing the dust of that
final light.

This was the first night
dream I remember:
two wreaths of the
old gods
were fire and blood.
That was the last time
I followed him again.

Dog child he called me,
I turned to leave.
Stars hung
like chains on my sleep,
moonlight
barred the way.

- Dog Star, for W.S. Merwin, pg. 57-58

* * *

For less of what I am
I could deny him more -
things that are not my own
but other, only to themselves.

And the new moon -
did we not dream her, the first night
from a cold strained bed,
and trace her final circle down the sky
to sleep for all the worn month's care?

I believe in this dreading, finally
there were signs. Death held his
dark call unanswered -
for this love we made
in madness we were cast.

- For What We Were, pg. 68

From Grave Dirt And Selected Strawberries ...

Someone said
it was an evil shape,
this fat, red
heart that grew
out of the ground,
that slept on a straw mattress
in July sawdust.

Some thought him
Cowardly, never
an exact colour.
Some thought him
Harmful, crooked
as elm blight.

Some thought him
Carefree, a stale fume
in the sun's light.

But he was not
any of
those things.

The mass of strawberries
lead lives of quiet desperation.

- What Being a Strawberry Means, pg. 139-140

* * *

Saying goodbye
to his sandbox and his
red bucket

feeling sick
and tired
and dejected

saying goodbye
to the old bone he buried
a week or so earlier,
to the frog face
in the knotted tree

feeling lost
and sad
and generally deserted

he unbuttons his coat
in the old tradition,
and enters his destiny
as bombs begin to fall.

- Brave New Strawberry, pg. 157-158

From Impstone ...

You smell of
the woods
you smell of
lonely places.

You smell of
death
of dreams I am
afraid of.

I reach out
to touch you
but you
aren't there.

You have gone
into the only darkness
animals come from.

- Anima, pg. 165

* * *

Write about all the
horrors, an American
tells me
on an unmapped
street corner
in Mexico City
handing out invitations
to a flowing
existential experience.
I lie about
who I am. I don't
want to write anything
about Mexico.

And turn away.
Hey, Canada, come back
and talk.

I think of
All and Eurithe at
a party in
Progreso. Al got
drunk and left his
bathing suit behind.
Could have happened
to anyone.
The cook passed out
on the floor (broken dishes,
delusions, etc.). It couldn't
have happened
anywhere.

The American wants
statistics. He wants
to meet later - to
communicate openly.
I agree and
lie about my address.

And take a direct flight
to Vancouver
in the morning,
sitting next to a
doctor who tell me
women bleed longer
in Mexico.

- A Private Joke, for Al Purdy, pg. 204-205

From Becky Swan's Book ...

Currant bread, simnel cake and
coloured eggs were eaten on the
picnic. Oh, it was a good
picnic, an elegant one.

We spread the ground with food
for the beautiful women.
Elisa and Mary were joined together
at the hip and shoulder - they were
born that way - joined - bu we decided
to let them come on our picnic.

I would not want to be born joined

promise me I will not be born joined to anyone.

- Elisa and Mary, pg. 251

* * *

Grand Albert,
fat mad dog,
made love to a witch,
made love to a carrion crow.

He did not know; he did not recognize her
for she was an old artist.

She stuck three thorns in his fat
dog's heart, infested his neighbours.

Sometimes their thumbs ought to be
torn off - witches who do such things as
killing people and infesting neighbours.

- Or Worse, pg. 253

From A Man To Marry, A Man To Bury ...

You were planting a garden.
The earth was too wet, too
rich, you said

and took a photograph of me
instead

digging last year's borders.

The moon was coming up over my
right shoulder as if you had
planted her there. That explained
my working long into the late evening.

- Growth of the Soil, pg. 262

* * *

is poetry. Of a kind, mind you,
and not to suit everybody's taste.

But this is not a poem for just
anybody. No, in fact, it is meant
for my family.

It is a poem to strangers, then,
on the occasion of Christmas. We sit
sipping smart cocktails, funereal almost
in our elaborate decoration. Around us the room
is dangerously lit.

Every year it is the same ritual -
it sounds quite normal I know and I
suppose it is. Smile, smile. I unwrap
each gift with the same cautious enthusiasm
in which it was no doubt chosen.
My young brothers twitch and their
tinselly wives twitter. My mother laughs too
in spite of my own happiness.
Even my father the undertaker is smiling to himself
as he opens another bod and quietly closes it again.

- The Embalmer's Art, pg. 280-281

From Cocktails at the Mausoleum ...

After two years of torture, he said,
he couldn't touch a book of poetry
without trembling
They let him go because he was the
wrong person - after two years of torture
he could not say I love you
to his wife or his children.

His torturers, he said, were
ordinary people - they had feelings too.
Sometimes they would show him photographs
of their families - ordinary people
like me, like you.

Personally I do not like to
think about torture. I do not like to
hear of it on the radio, or read about it
or even believe it happens.
I know it happens.
He told me, after two years of torture
you still can't believe it's happening.

You just want to die but
they won't let you. If you happen to die
they have a real sense of loss.
Torturers, he said, have feelings too.
They are ordinary people
like me, like you.

- Ordinary People, pg. 335-336

* * *

The first trick is being born
not easy go grasp, no,
the grip being difficult at
dizzying altitudes

the appetite hideous.

A voluptuous gluttony,
a gorging on flesh;
the eventual intimacy of
earth and death.

I guffaw.
the sky is evidence of my unalterable existence,
my leavings are a different matter
my judgement, law.

Unarguable I ascend
all wingbone and talon,
a flick of a bird only
the quirk of a cranky brain.

The trick is old,
the art unaccountable and infinite.

The blood moves sluggishly
through a drudgery of veins
till death, infective,
replaces pain with dull efficiency.

- Eaglets Tricks, after Ted Hughes, pg. 343

[Ursula Pflug · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father Michael gave this beautiful book to my award winning poet daughter Kelly upon its release some years ago. It's a great compendium to dip in and out of, a book in which there is always something new to discover.

The cover painting is a portrait of my sister Esther, by my mother Christiane Pflug. "Kitchen Door with Esther" is the sister portrait to my current Facebook profile pic, "Kitchen Door with Ursula." It occurs to me now that my father gave my daughter his "contributor's copy," and that is how the book found its way into our family's house. I was already familiar with Musgrave's work as a close friend's mother had shared "Songs of the Sea Witch" when we were teenagers.

I'm thinking I'd like a list of all the books that have used my mother's work on the covers...a thought completely unrelated to Susan's wonderful poems! It's funny because all (or most) of my Goodreads reviews thus far are things which have previously appeared in The Peterborough Examiner, The New York Review of Science Fiction and elsewhere. It's an odd feeling to write about a book only here because I can say entirely different things than if I'm writing a review for publication.

[Tiffany Canha]

One of my all time favorite reads.