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Robinson's Crossing
Poetry. The poems in this book arise from Robinson's Crossing--the place where the railway ends and European settlers arriving in northern Alberta had to cross the Pembina River and advance by wagon or on foot. How have we crossed into this country, with what violence and what blind love? ROBINSON'S CROSSING enacts the pause at the frontier, where we reflect on the realities of colonial experience, but also on the nature of living here--on historical dwelling itself. In long meditative narratives and shorter probing lyrics, Jan Zwicky shows us--as she has in her celebrated Lyric Philosophy and the Governor General's award-winning SONGS FOR RELINQUISHING THE EARTH--how music means and meaning is musical.
- GenresPoetry
84 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2004
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About the author
Jan Zwicky
35 books51 followersJan 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).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 18, 2022
The photograph;
the past life;
the long lost
black sheep who's become
the shoe that fits.
The ghost town,
a.k.a. the rummage bin,
that old sweet song.
The suitcase; the hotel
room; the surprise
box lunch; the plain
brown wrapper. The umbrella
someone opened in the house.
The alphabet, or perhaps
I mean a river, or a well.
The skeleton in the closet.
The writing on the wall.
The telltale heart.
* * *
Not much has changed
since the electric was put in,
that round-shouldered Frigidaire
is probably half a century old.
Asphalt siding;
saskatoons and aspen bush and roses
crowding the north side.
The sort of place you might have spent
your childhood in . . . How quiet
now the rest have gone.
Through the wood-frame window,
hayfields, distant sun - the unwordedness
of beauty pressing up
through ordinariness: an elbow
or a knee, the pink skin showing
where the cloth is thin.
* * *
Someone walks alone
under the sky. The sky
is grey, like history. The walker
wears an overcoat bu it's
no use: the cold
turns to metal in his joints, noiselessly,
the way it slicks the sky.
Nothing moves: the walker,
who is walking, does not move. That's
history for you. Did I mention
that the walker's back
is to us, collar turned up, that he
wears a hat? Still,
we know everything. We have forgotten
when it was we last slept.
Did I mention we have lost
out eyelids. Did I mention
that the distance lengthens
every step, that every step the distance
stays the same.
* * *
Someone is sitting in the small glow
of a fireplace. Earlier, when he looked out,
he could see the smoke, like overweight
black party-streamers,
and the usual rubble in the street. Now
his desk is locked; yesterday
he burnt the fly-leafs from his books.
In a lull, he hears a rustling
in the cupboard, then a little tink.
A mouse has found the cheese rind
from his breakfast. It is bold,
this mouse, and merely steps back
one or two mouse-paces while the man
divides what's left. The armies
are marching in the bathroom now,
the basement. The mouse
settles on the broad rim of the plate
to eat its portion. Elbow on a shelf,
the man eats standing up.
* * *
It's quiet now.
The nameless officers for State Security
shrug on their overcoats
and head home through the pre-dawn streets.
Oiled locks turn,
then turn again.
The generals snore.
Now light comes.
You will think it cold,
the way it fingers
open eyes, the darkened cheekbones,
the blood between the legs.
You will think it deaf as generals
the way it stands beside the ones still dying
and moves on.
But see
how weightlessly it gathers them,
the gold curl and the ebony,
with what tenderness
the folded silence of the ribs.
* * *
Someone is running
fingers through their hair.
The fingers
are like fish, they flicker
upstream while the current
purls around their backs
and falls away.
The fish
resemble wind inside a field
of wheat, resemble
solar flares, the fish
are water
that is trying to flow
up itself, the gravity
that hauls and tumbles it
deaf as the grief
inside perfection.
Do not ask.
You are running fingers
through your hair. This
is what you do sometimes
because you cannot put your hands
around your heart.
* * *
Someone is standing
at a wall. The wall
is high and curves away
on either side, through smoke,
to the horizon.
She has been standing there
some time. Once
she raised her hand to it
and underneath the glassy surface something
spasmed: flash of brilliant
blue-green wing;
a severed ear.
A bloodless palm swam up then,
mirror image of her own,
and now the reek
won't wipe away.
At her back
the paths are tumbling
over one another in their
hurry to escape. Remember,
it is silent. A shadow
creeps up,
settles on its haunches
by her side.
She cannot look.
She squats, too,
head cocked,
listening.
* * *
The sky has left us
and the corn that bent and glittered
in the invisible wind is not itself
invisible. Our headlights
scoop a tunnel in the dark,
and we drive into it.
It's too late for the radio,
we're out of range. But sometimes
mist in white skeins lifts
from nowhere, ancient
sorrow, earth
breathing in its sleep.
* * *
It was late March, I think, or April,
not winter anyway, one of those
end of season gigs, Mozart or Haydn, high
spirits, the way they can get, spring coming,
a small band, good charts. You were standing
with the huddle of smokers by the stage door, glancing up
laughing as they car pulled out, catching
my eye: fingers to lips, uncharacteristically
hammy - that extravagant kiss as we roared by see ya
tomorrow - and then the next day - what
was it? flu? or you cut yourself making dinner? anyway
the section reshuffled, and me,
as always, leaving town the week after, it wasn't
until the other day, some years later, I remembered
that gesture - how in fact it had been raining, you there
at the edge of the light, your hand trailing out of the bright
into the darkness, the tip
of your cigarette like a tail-light
climbing some distant ridge to the horizon - and realized
it was the last time I saw you.
the past life;
the long lost
black sheep who's become
the shoe that fits.
The ghost town,
a.k.a. the rummage bin,
that old sweet song.
The suitcase; the hotel
room; the surprise
box lunch; the plain
brown wrapper. The umbrella
someone opened in the house.
The alphabet, or perhaps
I mean a river, or a well.
The skeleton in the closet.
The writing on the wall.
The telltale heart.
- Theories of Personal Identity, pg. 18
* * *
Not much has changed
since the electric was put in,
that round-shouldered Frigidaire
is probably half a century old.
Asphalt siding;
saskatoons and aspen bush and roses
crowding the north side.
The sort of place you might have spent
your childhood in . . . How quiet
now the rest have gone.
Through the wood-frame window,
hayfields, distant sun - the unwordedness
of beauty pressing up
through ordinariness: an elbow
or a knee, the pink skin showing
where the cloth is thin.
- Shabbiness, pg. 26
* * *
Someone walks alone
under the sky. The sky
is grey, like history. The walker
wears an overcoat bu it's
no use: the cold
turns to metal in his joints, noiselessly,
the way it slicks the sky.
Nothing moves: the walker,
who is walking, does not move. That's
history for you. Did I mention
that the walker's back
is to us, collar turned up, that he
wears a hat? Still,
we know everything. We have forgotten
when it was we last slept.
Did I mention we have lost
out eyelids. Did I mention
that the distance lengthens
every step, that every step the distance
stays the same.
- One Version, pg. 33
* * *
Someone is sitting in the small glow
of a fireplace. Earlier, when he looked out,
he could see the smoke, like overweight
black party-streamers,
and the usual rubble in the street. Now
his desk is locked; yesterday
he burnt the fly-leafs from his books.
In a lull, he hears a rustling
in the cupboard, then a little tink.
A mouse has found the cheese rind
from his breakfast. It is bold,
this mouse, and merely steps back
one or two mouse-paces while the man
divides what's left. The armies
are marching in the bathroom now,
the basement. The mouse
settles on the broad rim of the plate
to eat its portion. Elbow on a shelf,
the man eats standing up.
- History, pg. 42
* * *
It's quiet now.
The nameless officers for State Security
shrug on their overcoats
and head home through the pre-dawn streets.
Oiled locks turn,
then turn again.
The generals snore.
Now light comes.
You will think it cold,
the way it fingers
open eyes, the darkened cheekbones,
the blood between the legs.
You will think it deaf as generals
the way it stands beside the ones still dying
and moves on.
But see
how weightlessly it gathers them,
the gold curl and the ebony,
with what tenderness
the folded silence of the ribs.
- History, pg. 49
* * *
Someone is running
fingers through their hair.
The fingers
are like fish, they flicker
upstream while the current
purls around their backs
and falls away.
The fish
resemble wind inside a field
of wheat, resemble
solar flares, the fish
are water
that is trying to flow
up itself, the gravity
that hauls and tumbles it
deaf as the grief
inside perfection.
Do not ask.
You are running fingers
through your hair. This
is what you do sometimes
because you cannot put your hands
around your heart.
- History, pg. 56
* * *
Someone is standing
at a wall. The wall
is high and curves away
on either side, through smoke,
to the horizon.
She has been standing there
some time. Once
she raised her hand to it
and underneath the glassy surface something
spasmed: flash of brilliant
blue-green wing;
a severed ear.
A bloodless palm swam up then,
mirror image of her own,
and now the reek
won't wipe away.
At her back
the paths are tumbling
over one another in their
hurry to escape. Remember,
it is silent. A shadow
creeps up,
settles on its haunches
by her side.
She cannot look.
She squats, too,
head cocked,
listening.
- History, pg. 63
* * *
The sky has left us
and the corn that bent and glittered
in the invisible wind is not itself
invisible. Our headlights
scoop a tunnel in the dark,
and we drive into it.
It's too late for the radio,
we're out of range. But sometimes
mist in white skeins lifts
from nowhere, ancient
sorrow, earth
breathing in its sleep.
- Night Driving, pg. 70
* * *
It was late March, I think, or April,
not winter anyway, one of those
end of season gigs, Mozart or Haydn, high
spirits, the way they can get, spring coming,
a small band, good charts. You were standing
with the huddle of smokers by the stage door, glancing up
laughing as they car pulled out, catching
my eye: fingers to lips, uncharacteristically
hammy - that extravagant kiss as we roared by see ya
tomorrow - and then the next day - what
was it? flu? or you cut yourself making dinner? anyway
the section reshuffled, and me,
as always, leaving town the week after, it wasn't
until the other day, some years later, I remembered
that gesture - how in fact it had been raining, you there
at the edge of the light, your hand trailing out of the bright
into the darkness, the tip
of your cigarette like a tail-light
climbing some distant ridge to the horizon - and realized
it was the last time I saw you.
- Some Years Later, pg. 83
September 13, 2010
This is my first encountery with Zwicky's poetry. I truly enjoyed this book. I found the "History" sequence (which is scattered through the book) powerful, and I much admire Zwicky's use of music as a platform for those poems. I also found Zwicky's evocations of landscape and family history to be very moving. I was reminded of poetry by Kate Northrop--how the empty spaces of a family's past (abandoned houses, lakes and rivers from a childhood)can be thought of as both haunting and transformative. I look forward to reading more of Zwicky's work soon.
February 6, 2012
I loved all of it, but really, this would get five stars from me based only on "Prairie." That hasp has stayed with me since the first time I read it. Amazing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews