What do you think?
Rate this book
When Earth Leaps Up
"?one of Canada's major poets. The audacity - the courage - of her imagination teaches us, gives us our better selves." - Tim Lilburn This posthumous collection will be a delightful surprise for readers who thought they had heard the last of Anne Szumigalski's nimble, sideslipping, otherworldly voice. Szumigalski's poetic universe is as beguiling and unpredictable as dreams and myth, and like them, her universe can be enchanting, visually lush, and suddenly dangerous. Untitled ("glory to the queen?") glory to the queen whoever she is
wherever she finds herself as she moves
up and down round and round
all the spaces that are hers once she was a young thing and jumped
easily over any fence any line
now she's an old woman thick and earthy by tomorrow she hopes to leap
out of this skin and into a new one
a skin like petals like leaves The poems deal with ultimate questions. What is time? What is memory? Is it invented or real? Is death a kind of dream? Is life? Is God a man, a woman, or a Sacred Reptile? The imaginative leaps in When Earth Leaps Up are as easy as looking up at the prairie sky, as simple as turning your head to the side to catch a glimpse of an idea as it skips past you in the form of an interesting stranger, a passing cloud, the face of a loved one, long dead. Szumigalski immigrated to Canada from England in 1951, and lived in Saskatoon from 1956 until her death in 1999. The author of 15 books, she received the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1995 for Voice, a collaboration with the visual artist Marie Elyse St. George. Mark Abley is the editor or author of 10 books, including the internationally acclaimed Spoken Travels Among Threatened Languages. Abley is the literary executor for Anne Szumigalski.
wherever she finds herself as she moves
up and down round and round
all the spaces that are hers once she was a young thing and jumped
easily over any fence any line
now she's an old woman thick and earthy by tomorrow she hopes to leap
out of this skin and into a new one
a skin like petals like leaves The poems deal with ultimate questions. What is time? What is memory? Is it invented or real? Is death a kind of dream? Is life? Is God a man, a woman, or a Sacred Reptile? The imaginative leaps in When Earth Leaps Up are as easy as looking up at the prairie sky, as simple as turning your head to the side to catch a glimpse of an idea as it skips past you in the form of an interesting stranger, a passing cloud, the face of a loved one, long dead. Szumigalski immigrated to Canada from England in 1951, and lived in Saskatoon from 1956 until her death in 1999. The author of 15 books, she received the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1995 for Voice, a collaboration with the visual artist Marie Elyse St. George. Mark Abley is the editor or author of 10 books, including the internationally acclaimed Spoken Travels Among Threatened Languages. Abley is the literary executor for Anne Szumigalski.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2006
14 people want to read
About the author
Anne Szumigalski
20 books2 followersAnne Szumigalski was one of Saskatchewan and Canada's best-known, best-loved poets. She published more than a dozen books of poetry, as well as a play, two collections of essays and a "book of fables." Her 1995 publication Voice received the Governor General's Award for poetry, while her works received several Saskatchewan Book Awards and others. She was instrumental in the founding of both the Saskatchewan Writer's Guild and the literary journal Grain, and is appreciated for having been a mentor to many young poets in the region.
Born Anne Davis, in London, England, she served as an interpreter and welfare officer with the British Red Cross Civilian Relief organization during WWII. She immigrated to Canada with her family, eventually settling in Saskatoon. Anne Szumigalski died in 1999.
Born Anne Davis, in London, England, she served as an interpreter and welfare officer with the British Red Cross Civilian Relief organization during WWII. She immigrated to Canada with her family, eventually settling in Saskatoon. Anne Szumigalski died in 1999.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 31, 2021
This is a collection I return to again and again, each time discovering fresh highlights, new insights, deepened pleasure. It is indeed a blessing that Anne’s literary executor, Mark Abley, gathered these wonderful poems from among the poet’s papers — after her death on Earth Day 1999, — to bring her readers this fitting final collection - When Earth Leaps Up.
R.I.P. Anne Szumigalski.
R.I.P. Anne Szumigalski.
January 23, 2022
some of those the child
handing over her pocket money
pointing to the jar of many-coloured
sugared almonds
and could she please have one of each kind
all folded into a blue paper cone
but then how to give up those colours
just to make sugar to crunch nuts
her teeth white as kernels
her tongue pink as a bud
her greed dark as licorice
her avarice grey as fields
before they quicken into spring
* * *
an eggshell is a house to be broken out of
a house is a shell to be broken into
I at the window, the bird in the tree
whose leaves are marbled with birdshit
my children roll dibs on the sidewalk
and I at my work already
painting a hex on my door
to warn away thieves
climbing the neighbour's fence
to thieve flowers for my table
on my table a loaf, a long knife
a cup a spoon and an apple
the children complain
what no butter, no jam?
afternoon and the sun has browned the edges
of the tree's white blossoms
later a small storm greys the sky
nightfall and now it's snowing
on the bid on her next in the tree
* * *
When I think of him I say
"He is lost to me."
I should say perhaps
"He is found to himself."
For his is now that ample
silence he wanted in a woman.
At last he is safe from my demand
that he answer, that he speak.
Safe from my shrieking dancing
and tears, from my challenging
him with a thick branch of words.
Once I beat upon a pot
for an hour with a metal spoon
simply to save him
from his own grim silence
which I thought then
to be worse than death.
Now I know that for the living
there is nothing worse than death.
handing over her pocket money
pointing to the jar of many-coloured
sugared almonds
and could she please have one of each kind
all folded into a blue paper cone
but then how to give up those colours
just to make sugar to crunch nuts
her teeth white as kernels
her tongue pink as a bud
her greed dark as licorice
her avarice grey as fields
before they quicken into spring
- Assortment, pg. 20
* * *
an eggshell is a house to be broken out of
a house is a shell to be broken into
I at the window, the bird in the tree
whose leaves are marbled with birdshit
my children roll dibs on the sidewalk
and I at my work already
painting a hex on my door
to warn away thieves
climbing the neighbour's fence
to thieve flowers for my table
on my table a loaf, a long knife
a cup a spoon and an apple
the children complain
what no butter, no jam?
afternoon and the sun has browned the edges
of the tree's white blossoms
later a small storm greys the sky
nightfall and now it's snowing
on the bid on her next in the tree
- Rowan in May, pg. 33
* * *
When I think of him I say
"He is lost to me."
I should say perhaps
"He is found to himself."
For his is now that ample
silence he wanted in a woman.
At last he is safe from my demand
that he answer, that he speak.
Safe from my shrieking dancing
and tears, from my challenging
him with a thick branch of words.
Once I beat upon a pot
for an hour with a metal spoon
simply to save him
from his own grim silence
which I thought then
to be worse than death.
Now I know that for the living
there is nothing worse than death.
- Untitled ("When I think of him..."), pg. 48
May 18, 2019
Another collection that I wanted to like more than I did. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the problem and if I've simply lost my appetite for poetry. The poems in this collection are good but not many of them amazed me. Szumigalski writes of time, seasons, wildlife, death and rebirth.
This is a posthumous publication. The poems seem polished enough, and the way the editor describes how he selected the poems for this collection make me believe that Szumigalski would be content...I'm not very familiar with her work, but I feel like some of the poems in this collection are weak, and I also don't really like the different styles (for example, there are more prose poems than I expected).
Poems worth re-reading:
"A Child and his Mother Camp Out on a Cool Night," "Untitled("when earth leaps up")," "To a Friend Dying," "A Catechism (or Conversation)"—although this one was more of a dialogue than a poem.
= 4/40 (10%) poems worthy of a re-read
This is a posthumous publication. The poems seem polished enough, and the way the editor describes how he selected the poems for this collection make me believe that Szumigalski would be content...I'm not very familiar with her work, but I feel like some of the poems in this collection are weak, and I also don't really like the different styles (for example, there are more prose poems than I expected).
Poems worth re-reading:
"A Child and his Mother Camp Out on a Cool Night," "Untitled("when earth leaps up")," "To a Friend Dying," "A Catechism (or Conversation)"—although this one was more of a dialogue than a poem.
= 4/40 (10%) poems worthy of a re-read
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews