Teeth: Poems 2006–2011

by George Bowering

Every new collection by George Bowering is an event in Canadian poetry. His latest book—topping a six-decade writing career—is an eclectic, lively mix of free verse, list poems, haiku, and more. Whether Bowering is taking on the big themes—love, mortality, politics—or the mundane or trivial, his poems are fresh, snappy, and always provocative. The poetry in Teeth is by turns playful, meditative, and outrageous—odes to his contemporaries, to long-dead bards, to baseball players and jazz musicians, to loved ones lost.

An unusual bonus in this volume is an extensive end-of-the-book interview with Bowering by fellow poet Judith Fitzgerald that explores the evolution of Canadian poetry since the 1960s, what it means to be a poet, and Bowering’s
own oeuvre.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2013

About the author

George Bowering was born and brought up in the Okanagan Valley, amid sand dunes and sagebrush, but he has lived in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta — great sources of hockey stars. Along the way he has stopped to write several books on baseball. He has also picked up Governor General’s Awards for his poetry and fiction, and otherwise been rewarded with prizes for his books, except in his home province of British Columbia. His earlier ECW book, His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for 2000. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I met a lady
in the meads full beautiful
a faery's child.

- Keats Haiku, pg. 14

* * *

Three times did she suck
vast waves into her abyss,
the deepest whirlpool.

- Vergil Haiku, pg. 19

* * *

Here's what's sad
about astronomy:

when another big thing
collides with Earth

it will not happen
in an instant.

Science will have
told us a year before.

Here's the thing
that is not so sad:

that "us" will not
include me and my friends.

- A Poem for Stuart Ross, pg. 23

* * *

Not to be married,
not to knit my soul to an
approved wanton.

- Shakespeare Haiku, pg. 26

* * *

I am redolent
of thee and thine enthralling
love, my Adeline.

- Poe Haiku, pg. 32

* * *

What wheels compose
let no poet decompose,

let circles enter
and once inside,

roll
as a heart never will.

- What Wheel, pg. 34

* * *

So he lies circled
with evil, till his very
soul unmoulds its ess.

- Coleridge Haiku, pg. 40

* * *

Unseen angel beats
hsi wings, and the poor waif runs
laughing in the sun.

- Baudelaire Haiku, pg. 49

* * *

Hi there, said I, you
new arrivals, you know you
are humans, naked.

- Valery Haiku, pg. 59

* * *

Brown old pond the
cow falls in:
a big kerplop

- Furu ike ya, pg. 67

* * *

On the toilet
reading Dudek
I can tell you
it's a pleasure.

All the trochees
hit their target,
all the stanzas
so their doing.

I can hear the
poet clapping
while his nouns are
making headway.

I am sitting
reading satire,
reading wisdom,
waving bye-bye.

See his victims
swimming quickly
down the sewers
of his city.

Louis's trochees
leave you weeping,
make you give your
self a wiping.

- Dudek's Trochees, pg. 76

[Andrew Sare · Rating 3 out of 5]

George: (in Ocean Eyeball):

If he treats those codfish as well as he treats the English
language, they'll leap into the pan.
Panning for gold flakes in a river called Canadian
literature, he wore out his eyes and mad us rich.

I would respond, firstly: very nice, and to your second: I may wear out my eyes, though the resourcefulness of the library system will keep me from making you rich.

George: (in What Is He?)

people within a thousand kilometres of each other
have been wondering
the same thing.
What is Goofy?
A dog?

me:
George. I just googled it. Apparently he's an Aberdeen-Angus cow. Or bull I guess. Goofy's full name is Dipalwa Dawala. Born in Scotland, Dipalwa was the son of Egyptian immigrants. There you have it. Who knew?

[Mike Heyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I read a fair amount of poetry, I had not discovered George Bowering before receiving a free copy of this book from a Goodreads First Reads drawing. (Thank you, Goodreads.) Bowering, as he makes clear in the interview with which the book concludes, is a "serious" poet. That is, he writes "serious" or "literary" poetry. It is probably easier to say that he is somewhere near the far end of the poetic spectrum from Rod McKuen. In my estimation Bowering is a very accomplished poet.

That said, my rating of this collection reflects my personal response to these poems more than their intrinsic quality. I find it interesting that serious poets so often complain about the marginalization of poetry (as Bowering does) while writing abstruse verse. If you want lots of people to read your work you need to write things that they can understand and relate to without too much hard work. Bowering is Canadian and I am not; he mentions many names of people I have never heard of before; he talks about places and events in such abstract terms that I have no idea what he is talking about. This doesn't make the poems bad, but it makes them difficult for me to appreciate.

Many of the names in these pages are other poets I have yet to discover. Some of the obscurity in these poems may dissipate on rereading, should I choose to do that. The interview offers insight into a poet's thinking and some of the history of modern poetry. Bowering's use of language is deft and he puns quite artfully in some of the poems(most notably "Gran"}.

I like this book but I don't love it, as others will. And that's OK.

[Philip Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the poems in this collection mostly uninspired and unengaging. The included haiku, while somewhat novel, were transparent in their syllable constraints and devoid of the insightful energy of Japanese verse; the list poems seemed mostly nonsensical and lacking in a paratactical execution which would make the radical juxapositions work; and, I found the majority of the other poems to be simply uninteresting. A bit of a let down, considering Bowering is one of the most celebrated names in Canadian poetry. I have to admit I was expecting something more impressive. Reminded me of reading Frank Bidart's Metaphysical Dog, tho in even grander shades of disillusionment.