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Apocrypha of Light
In her twelfth collection, Lorna Crozier offers us startlingly original and profoundly humane revisionings of familiar Biblical figures and events. Her purpose is anything but sectarian, though these are poems rooted in elemental truths of land, light, and the human heart. The compassion and psychological insight that have made her one of Canada’s most beloved poets are here in force, shot through with wit and intelligence, rendered in a lithe, tensile line. This is vintage tales of beginning and of ending, sharp, sweet, heretical, and deeply true. The remarkable closing sequence, “Book of Praise,” was commissioned for broadcast by the CBC, and aired to public acclaim in the spring of 2000.
96 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 2002
1 person is currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Lorna Crozier
56 books85 followersLorna Crozier was born in 1948 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. As a child growing up in a prairie community where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, she “never once thought of being a writer.” After university, Lorna went on to teach high school English and work as a guidance counsellor. During these years, Lorna published her first poem in Grain magazine, a publication that turned her life toward writing. Her first collection Inside in the Sky was published in 1976. Since then, she has authored 14 books of poetry, including The Garden Going on Without Us, Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Inventing the Hawk, winner of the 1992 Governor-General’s Award, Everything Arrives at the Light, Apocrypha of Light, What the Living Won’t Let Go, and most recently Whetstone. Whether Lorna is writing about angels, aging, or Louis Armstrong’s trout sandwich, she continues to engage readers and writers across Canada and the world with her grace, wisdom and wit. She is, as Margaret Laurence wrote, “a poet to be grateful for.”
Since the beginning of her writing career, Lorna has been known for her inspired teaching and mentoring of other poets. In 1980 Lorna was the writer-in-residence at the Cypress Hills Community College in Swift Current; in 1983, at the Regina Public Library; and in 1989 at the University of Toronto. She has held short-term residencies at the Universities of Toronto and Lethbridge and at Douglas College. Presently she lives near Victoria, where she teaches and serves as Chair in the Writing Department at the University.
Beyond making poems, Lorna has also edited two non-fiction collections – Desire in Seven Voices and Addiction: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Together with her husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane, she edited the 1994 landmark collection Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets; in 2004, they co-edited Breathing Fire 2, once again introducing over thirty new writers to the Canadian literary world.
Her poems continue to be widely anthologized, appearing in 15 Canadian Poets X 3, 20th Century Poetry and Poetics, Poetry International and most recently in Open Field: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets, a collection designed for American readers.
Her reputation as a generous and inspiring artist extends from her passion for the craft of poetry to her teaching and through to her involvement in various social causes. In addition to leading poetry workshops across the globe, Lorna has given benefit readings for numerous organizations such as the SPCA, the BC Land Conservancy, the Victoria READ Society, and PEERS, a group committed to helping prostitutes get off the street. She has been a frequent guest on CBC radio where she once worked as a reviewer and arts show host. Wherever she reads she raises the profile and reputation of poetry.
Since the beginning of her writing career, Lorna has been known for her inspired teaching and mentoring of other poets. In 1980 Lorna was the writer-in-residence at the Cypress Hills Community College in Swift Current; in 1983, at the Regina Public Library; and in 1989 at the University of Toronto. She has held short-term residencies at the Universities of Toronto and Lethbridge and at Douglas College. Presently she lives near Victoria, where she teaches and serves as Chair in the Writing Department at the University.
Beyond making poems, Lorna has also edited two non-fiction collections – Desire in Seven Voices and Addiction: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Together with her husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane, she edited the 1994 landmark collection Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets; in 2004, they co-edited Breathing Fire 2, once again introducing over thirty new writers to the Canadian literary world.
Her poems continue to be widely anthologized, appearing in 15 Canadian Poets X 3, 20th Century Poetry and Poetics, Poetry International and most recently in Open Field: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets, a collection designed for American readers.
Her reputation as a generous and inspiring artist extends from her passion for the craft of poetry to her teaching and through to her involvement in various social causes. In addition to leading poetry workshops across the globe, Lorna has given benefit readings for numerous organizations such as the SPCA, the BC Land Conservancy, the Victoria READ Society, and PEERS, a group committed to helping prostitutes get off the street. She has been a frequent guest on CBC radio where she once worked as a reviewer and arts show host. Wherever she reads she raises the profile and reputation of poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 24, 2024
My fave poetry collection I read this year and tbh the perfect poetry collection for this time of year! The poems about/twisting Bible stories really hit for my Catholic school self lol, and I ate up all the poems about snow and winter (‘tis the season). Can’t wait to read more from this Canadian poet, each poem was genuinely hit after hit after hit!!!
January 23, 2022
Leaving the garden, the snake
drags its old skin behind it
like a long smoky breath
trapped inside a saxophone,
the first saxophone
in the world.
* * *
Warts,
earwax, hic-
cups, the little
toe, wisdom
tooth.
* * *
And the whole earth is of one language
and one speech. Deer talks to woman
and woman to fox, no mistrust or fear.
Magpie chats with muskrat, and oh,
the grass! How wet and eloquent
its green jive with the rain.
If a man hates, he says so. If a child
needs love she mouths the word
and it moves warmth around her.
Even the husband understands his wife's
impatience, the names she cries in sleep,
and she, in turn, hears his childhood
on the tip of his tongue, holds him
for the lost ordinary boy he was.
Sometimes his voice draws water
from that place, fresh and clear.
How close he comes to God then,
how close to grace.
One language and one speech.
What a time is on the plains of Shinar!
What a sound in heaven's ears!
Surely Babel will forever mean
the radiance and candour of the word.
* * *
Imagine the boy a goat,
pupils horizontal,
his laugh a bleating
wind shepherds through the grass.
I still count those seconds
when I raised the knife:
sunlight blinking
on his belly. God's terrible
desire to see the heart fly out.
Everything after
comes from this.
* * *
A pause in conversation
and you hear them:
an owl's soft explosion
when it strikes what moves
across the snow, that sudden
punch when tinder's set on fire.
The weeping comes after.
It is the kind of weeping a woman does
after making love to a man
she has grown old with,
that moment when she senses most
the certainty of loss, the body
with its flawed grace falling
through the seven spheres
of loneliness
back into the known world.
* * *
His face could be a skull
carved feature from crystal,
or a death mask not allowed to set,
nose, cheekbones, forehead
blurred in the clay's slow slip.
Perhaps it's the face
of that Old World cousin
no one can identify - the boy
who stepped away from the rest
into the sun the second
the camera clicked.
Or maybe it's your father
who chose this blankness
so he won't startle you
with what he has become
So many years without a razor, a cigarette,
so many years of speaking
without a mouth.
Think again of that boy in the photograph
dancing from one light to another,
the face no one remembers,
a fiery smudge.
* * *
The bells I've heard in summer
sound different when they ring
across the cold. I invite the magpie
from the spruce to break bread,
his cry not what you would call
a song, he's so much
made of winter. Beguile me
wind, even if you're bitter.
The bells are waiting:
their hoods of hoarfrost.
* * *
Intricate scrolls along the fencelines,
illuminant, elegiac. The curious
scripts of mice and rabbits:
their coming and their going.
Teresa of Avila said, Learn to pray
not with noise but with longing.
Prayers, then, in the pawprints.
I learn to read them
with my fingers,
in poor light and in good.
drags its old skin behind it
like a long smoky breath
trapped inside a saxophone,
the first saxophone
in the world.
- The Start of the Blues, pg. 8
* * *
Warts,
earwax, hic-
cups, the little
toe, wisdom
tooth.
- Invention of the Lesser Gods, pg. 12
* * *
And the whole earth is of one language
and one speech. Deer talks to woman
and woman to fox, no mistrust or fear.
Magpie chats with muskrat, and oh,
the grass! How wet and eloquent
its green jive with the rain.
If a man hates, he says so. If a child
needs love she mouths the word
and it moves warmth around her.
Even the husband understands his wife's
impatience, the names she cries in sleep,
and she, in turn, hears his childhood
on the tip of his tongue, holds him
for the lost ordinary boy he was.
Sometimes his voice draws water
from that place, fresh and clear.
How close he comes to God then,
how close to grace.
One language and one speech.
What a time is on the plains of Shinar!
What a sound in heaven's ears!
Surely Babel will forever mean
the radiance and candour of the word.
- Tower of Babel, pg. 27
* * *
Imagine the boy a goat,
pupils horizontal,
his laugh a bleating
wind shepherds through the grass.
I still count those seconds
when I raised the knife:
sunlight blinking
on his belly. God's terrible
desire to see the heart fly out.
Everything after
comes from this.
- The Sacrifice of Abraham, pg. 32
* * *
A pause in conversation
and you hear them:
an owl's soft explosion
when it strikes what moves
across the snow, that sudden
punch when tinder's set on fire.
The weeping comes after.
It is the kind of weeping a woman does
after making love to a man
she has grown old with,
that moment when she senses most
the certainty of loss, the body
with its flawed grace falling
through the seven spheres
of loneliness
back into the known world.
- Fallen Angels 1, pg. 49
* * *
His face could be a skull
carved feature from crystal,
or a death mask not allowed to set,
nose, cheekbones, forehead
blurred in the clay's slow slip.
Perhaps it's the face
of that Old World cousin
no one can identify - the boy
who stepped away from the rest
into the sun the second
the camera clicked.
Or maybe it's your father
who chose this blankness
so he won't startle you
with what he has become
So many years without a razor, a cigarette,
so many years of speaking
without a mouth.
Think again of that boy in the photograph
dancing from one light to another,
the face no one remembers,
a fiery smudge.
- The Faceless Angel, pg. 52
* * *
The bells I've heard in summer
sound different when they ring
across the cold. I invite the magpie
from the spruce to break bread,
his cry not what you would call
a song, he's so much
made of winter. Beguile me
wind, even if you're bitter.
The bells are waiting:
their hoods of hoarfrost.
- Blow wind. The bell is lonely., pg. 67
* * *
Intricate scrolls along the fencelines,
illuminant, elegiac. The curious
scripts of mice and rabbits:
their coming and their going.
Teresa of Avila said, Learn to pray
not with noise but with longing.
Prayers, then, in the pawprints.
I learn to read them
with my fingers,
in poor light and in good.
- How the mind works, works, works., pg. 75
June 16, 2019
LC has an incredible vocabulary and range and in this volume she reveals once again her mastery. Unafraid of where they are leading, she bends words to her bidding and inverts the studied cliche into vivid imagery with the power to stop readers in mid assumption.
On the first day light said
Let there God.
And there was God.
Light needed shape to move inside
p3
The poems can be arch or obscure but there is deep wisdom and humour evident throughout.
There is an internal rhythm that makes itself felt, that sometimes stumbles against an odd word.
There are lots of odd words here and a second reading is usually necessary to carry off the voluptuous flow. Of course a familiarity with the myths that she is unpacking will be helpful if not totally necessary for the fullest appreciation of these poems. Dipped in mysticism, she never gets lost in the mist but noses in to the crux with a blunt agility that may unsettle those with fixed points of view.
The opening lines of God's Heart: It's tempting to say he/ doesn't have one p60
confirm that LC is not stuck on an old agenda. There is no dogma; she stands dogma on its ear.
There is also an over-familiarity with loss and despair. "There is no road without you" she wrote , even before having to incorporate the recent loss of her beloved partner, Patrick Lane. We can hope the many poems she has shared speculating on death, achieving a poetic handle on the fact, will help to soften the staggering impact of actual grief.
For all these reasons I rate this book highly, even as I struggled with some of the poems and concepts. Sometimes a poem needed multiple readings before it yielded its meaning. Other times I was blown away by delight.
from God's Bone p61
Even the smallest bone/in his inner ear
There's enough light/ for the whole world
to read by
On the first day light said
Let there God.
And there was God.
Light needed shape to move inside
p3
The poems can be arch or obscure but there is deep wisdom and humour evident throughout.
There is an internal rhythm that makes itself felt, that sometimes stumbles against an odd word.
There are lots of odd words here and a second reading is usually necessary to carry off the voluptuous flow. Of course a familiarity with the myths that she is unpacking will be helpful if not totally necessary for the fullest appreciation of these poems. Dipped in mysticism, she never gets lost in the mist but noses in to the crux with a blunt agility that may unsettle those with fixed points of view.
The opening lines of God's Heart: It's tempting to say he/ doesn't have one p60
confirm that LC is not stuck on an old agenda. There is no dogma; she stands dogma on its ear.
There is also an over-familiarity with loss and despair. "There is no road without you" she wrote , even before having to incorporate the recent loss of her beloved partner, Patrick Lane. We can hope the many poems she has shared speculating on death, achieving a poetic handle on the fact, will help to soften the staggering impact of actual grief.
For all these reasons I rate this book highly, even as I struggled with some of the poems and concepts. Sometimes a poem needed multiple readings before it yielded its meaning. Other times I was blown away by delight.
from God's Bone p61
Even the smallest bone/in his inner ear
There's enough light/ for the whole world
to read by
Read
July 9, 2024"The cat creates world
with a paw's touch, with a stroke of whiskers,
intricate parallels like a lesson in perspective
where no lines meet."
"At dusk he says a word that moves
so lightly across the mind
it must be a small, nectar-sipping moth,
feet of such delicate design
it walks on petals and leaves no bruise."
- 'Lesson in Perspective', pg. 7
"They [the gophers ears'] hear the inner and the outer
worlds: what rain says
underground. The stone's praise
for the sparrow's ankle bone."
- 'A Prophet in His Own Country', pg. 13
"She knows each beast and every secret name,
All things to her are different and the same."
- 'Who Is She, Then?', pg. 53
with a paw's touch, with a stroke of whiskers,
intricate parallels like a lesson in perspective
where no lines meet."
"At dusk he says a word that moves
so lightly across the mind
it must be a small, nectar-sipping moth,
feet of such delicate design
it walks on petals and leaves no bruise."
- 'Lesson in Perspective', pg. 7
"They [the gophers ears'] hear the inner and the outer
worlds: what rain says
underground. The stone's praise
for the sparrow's ankle bone."
- 'A Prophet in His Own Country', pg. 13
"She knows each beast and every secret name,
All things to her are different and the same."
- 'Who Is She, Then?', pg. 53
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2025
The reason I rented the book from the library was the picture on the cover. I am the type to judge a book by its cover. It looked interesting. When I opened it up I did not realize until I had gotten home that it was a religious book. Something that I struggle reading. I read a few of the poems and some of them were really intense. Others I really struggled with. If you're okay with religious books this might just be for you. It is a twist on Catholic / Christian stories from the Bible. If you're not good with religion or reading about twists and turns it may not be right for you.
August 23, 2018
I enjoyed her poetic take on Biblical stores and figures. It may have had a bigger impact on me if I knew some of the Bible stories.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews