Queen Rat: New and Selected Poems

by Lynn Crosbie

Poet, novelist, and journalist, Lynn Crosbie brings her unique voice to the forefront of the Canadian poetry canon with this important collection of verse. Hers is a world of Shakespeare, skinheads and centurions; and hers is a life stripped down to the basics and then reconstructed, slowly, with relish, every brick scrutinized meticulously.

In Queen Rat her language is urban, but her soul is universal as she explores that which makes up everything.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

Lynn Crosbie is a Canadian poet and novelist. She teaches at the University of Toronto.

She received her Ph.D in English from the University of Toronto, writing her thesis on the work of the American poet Anne Sexton.

Crosbie has lectured on and written about visual art at the AGO, the Power Plant, and OCAD University (where she taught for six years.) She is an award-winning journalist and regular contributor to Fashion magazine and Hazlitt. She has had columns in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, Flare and Eye magazine.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queen Rat is perhaps the best introduction to Lynn Crosbie's unique brand of poetry. Admittedly I preferred the early poems to the new poems. In fact, there are only three new poems, each a sequence of shorter poems.

The first, "Fredo Pentangeli", is inspired by the character Fredo from The Godfather . Although the poems are well written, I found the poet's choice of subject matter to be out of place. Crosbie frequently and effectively integrates numerous popular culture references into her poems, but to make one aspect of popular culture the focus of her poem proved less effective...

Michael takes me to the cabana;
I am hot and flustered.
The Havana sun beats on our striped umbrella,
I drink banana daiquiris and Michael sips
club sodas, cool and self-possessed.

Why don't we ever talk, I ask, flustered by his
attention, his quiet kindness.

I was so mad at you, I begin, and his patient smile
disarms me. My admission settles, the residue of pulp
and ice. Another! I call, rattling my glass. Please.

Mama said I wasn't hers, I tell Michael. That I was
left by Gypsies. He holds me hand.

As he swoons in the nightclub he will seize
the railing, deciphering my plans.

The clock is easing to midnight: lovers embrace
and stardust falls.

Michael grabs me amid the pandemonium and kisses
me, hard, on the lips.

You broke my heard, he says.
I take flight, my mouth bruised,
for he is righteous, and he hath
taken arms against my perfidy:
he, who is like God.
- Fredo Pentangeli, iv. Mulciber (pg. 6)

The second, "Presley", is inspired by an article, "Frozen Pup-Sicle", from Weekly World News, April 1998: "Pet-crazy Dana Caneberry has kept her dead puppy Presley on ice in her refrigerator freezer for the past two years, right next to the frozen peas and TV dinners - because she just can't stand to part with the pitiful pooch." Photographs by Bruce McDonald accompany the poems...

Priscilla arched her back and hissed when I brought
him home, her black fur rising like garter snakes.
Two little ones are double trouble,
but when I saw them kids take a knife to him,
my hands flew in the air like I was catching a moonstone.
He trembled against me, and I told him, All you trials soon be over.
Singing it some: his tail beating like a little white scarf,
caught in some king's fingers.
- Presley (pg. 11)

The third, "Alphabet City", is a familiar mix of autobiography and popular culture. In fact, the poems of "Alphabet City" have a day-in-the-quality, following Crosbie from one place to another, even following her onto the subway in-between. The poems, as the title suggests, are named after locations in Toronto for each letter of the alphabet...

Allen Gardens, 1994

He was a difficult person to get to know. For one think he was
obsessed with coincidences.
- Daniel Jones, "The Birth of a Minor Canadian Poet"

I left my little black jacket at Diane's and he forgot his raincoat. Susan
drove us downtown, telling us about the tantric orgasm; he offered to
pick up our coats. He called me to meet him, and we went to Hernando's
Hideaway. We talked about Daniel's death, and I asked if he was depressed.
I hardly ever talk about killing myself anymore, he said.

He disliked Daniel's fiction and I disagreed. He told me a photograph of
the two of them together had fallen from a book the week before he died,
which troubled him. At the S/M store I tried on a vinyl skirt and he told
the salesperson he was my father.
[...]
- Alphabet City (pg. 33)

In addition to the new poems, Queen Rat offers a selection of Crosbie's early poems from Miss Pamela's Mercy , VillainElle , and Pearl ...

When Michael left me,
I gave him a gift of grace.
For the silk garters,
emerald and lapis lazuli.
The orange cameo -
my hair layered into suns
and two Madonnas -
my title, the Marquise Des Barres.
I left him the glass bottles,
the buttonhooks and tap shoes.
My holy relics, the Judas lips,
the saint's fingers I kissed.
Tonight I am a scientist,
with a crate of kings and archbishops.
The girl in the pink satin
bustier, who will only dance
when Iron Butterfly is playing.
She throws long yellow roses,
and pulls Daryl's zipper
with her teeth.
The shadow in the cemetery,
backlit with purple haze.
I wanted to write a moral story,
even though I married a vicious man.
His glitter and plastic
tool kit, his velvet platforms.
My tender heart,
notorious and threadbare.
[...]
- Miss Pamela's Mercy, from Miss Pamela's Mercy


[...]
I pin my prayers to a photograph of her,
she is burning money and her arms are
spread open, she id bleaches by the
light of the sun. and I pray, she will
come to me tonight and bless my body
with her hot breath and cruel mouth.
I am lost inside of her, as her spirit
becomes flesh, generous and sweet.
I hear her walking in the grass, circling
the garden below. she calls to me,
to join her and she tells me how she
hates me. his impression, soulful,
cryptic, rejects me too but I
reach for her, still, for her
faithless heart and we fall to the
earth, struggling, and wild with
desire.
- Betty and Veronica, from VillainElle


a deliberate for of frenzy - John, who sleeps so easily, and I,
setting out barbiturates, grapefruit juice: If you read his diary all will
be explained. Especially the latter part, I wrote,

and crushed his skull with nine hammer blows. He is still warm when I lie down.
My eyes closing, I see blood on the Magdalene, the mandolin, my design -

it has come to this. The latter part - eight pages - has disappeared, the diary ends
and what, what became of us in early August. It was painfully bright; I do not care
what others think and pause at the spiked-black entrance gate,

drawing its points across my throat. You're sick, he says and leaves, more often these days, or
presses a napkin to the telephone. I hear murmured devotions, soon, patience
my love -
[...]
- Nine Hammer Blows, from Pearl

[Tamara Aschenbrenner · Rating 2 out of 5]

When it comes to poetry, I can never tell if I just don't *get* it or if my criticisms are valid. But many of the choices were jolting and, for me, took away from the experience and mood. Italics, parentheses—all these additions that jolted me from the flow of words and seemed odd and out of place. I liked the overall perspectives of the poems, but not necessarily their structure, and had a hard time deciphering what the heck was going on or whyyy (God, why??) something was being talked about. Again, though, it may be a "it's not you, it's me" situation.

[Kel · Rating 3 out of 5]

there are certainly some gems in here including a poem to fredo corleone.

[Jeffrey Greening · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite like her

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

really wanted to love these poems
I love the places and themes in these poems but just could not find the flow in the poem or the connection.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of all the sections of this book, the Pearl section shines most. I bought this specifically because Superfly is one of the best poems I've read, but the rest of the collection didn't quite measure up. It's tangential poetry; you have to follow the bouncing commas - if that's a thing you like, buy this. But I couldn't follow the seemingly randomly italicized words, the intense sadness, the punctuation and enjambment that led me off the beaten path. Superfly - yes, it's amazing, as is Radiant Boys. But the rest is too much for me.

[dirty derk · Rating 3 out of 5]

'new' material is excellent.

good survey of lynn's work.

[BeckyisBookish · Rating 2 out of 5]

The language was beautiful but I really felt like the violence, sexuality and angst was a bit juvenile. The poems towards the end had some lovely wording but all in all I think I could be related to the emotion and enjoyed the collection more when I was a teenager.