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The Sorrowing House
Genevieve Lehr's debut poetry collection is astonishing in its stylistic range, employing the lyric, prose poem, folk song and fable, as well as several long poems, in her attempt to understand the complexities of human life. The Sorrowing House focuses on her difficulties as a single mother with three children, including a son with special needs. The poems range far and wide in search of metaphors adequate to elucidate the stark contrast between the joys and sorrows of a life constrained by harrowing limitations and challenges.
In March the river rises. On its bank the thin bodies of birch reach up, herons stretching a paper-maker's wife pounding reeds in the wind. from "river images for my son"
Lehr's work is haunting. She is deft in her ability to move from the small, intimate details of a life, to universal issues of human existence: the immutability of pain, the limits of love, the consolation of song and music, the solace of intimacy. The Sorrowing House is symphonic in scale, giving us beautiful lyric solos while drawing together its larger themes in an overarching sweep from the first page to the last. A book to read and reread.
"This new voice in Canadian poetry is veined with fierce insight and a lyrical sense of direction. Each poem takes us to the depths of its truths and stays lit long after being read." -- Sue Goyette
In March the river rises. On its bank the thin bodies of birch reach up, herons stretching a paper-maker's wife pounding reeds in the wind. from "river images for my son"
Lehr's work is haunting. She is deft in her ability to move from the small, intimate details of a life, to universal issues of human existence: the immutability of pain, the limits of love, the consolation of song and music, the solace of intimacy. The Sorrowing House is symphonic in scale, giving us beautiful lyric solos while drawing together its larger themes in an overarching sweep from the first page to the last. A book to read and reread.
"This new voice in Canadian poetry is veined with fierce insight and a lyrical sense of direction. Each poem takes us to the depths of its truths and stays lit long after being read." -- Sue Goyette
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 26, 2022
Faith comes from the ground, the faces of deer,
a coyote on the footpath looking warily
in two directions.
Pain is a lyrical host. It is the image of a house
falling into the earth, cast down, stoned
by its own people.
My son will never come home.
* * *
There is a sudden loneliness that crosses the road
and walks uphill toward my house.
Perhaps it is the fog approaching, or the moon
only halfway here.
Loneliness is a luna moth
on fire inside the moon's yellow rings.
It is the moon with her unpowdered face,
the night-dewed grass closing over the antennae of a snail.
In May, tree frogs give off a scent I lean my upturned face into.
Lupines move slowly around the pond, darkness stumbling
alone through the twilight.
To see from the bottom up is to live many times.
* * *
My mother's face is
a conspiracy of trees under moonlight.
It is the unnavigated ocean
mapped by a child's hand.
On it the Orinoco is a rivulet,
a watershed of exotic life ...
I see the greying institution of the chin
with its downward pull.
I see the night sky underwater,
the extravaganza of war,
a woman in flames at the water's edge.
a coyote on the footpath looking warily
in two directions.
Pain is a lyrical host. It is the image of a house
falling into the earth, cast down, stoned
by its own people.
My son will never come home.
- Host, pg. 37
* * *
There is a sudden loneliness that crosses the road
and walks uphill toward my house.
Perhaps it is the fog approaching, or the moon
only halfway here.
Loneliness is a luna moth
on fire inside the moon's yellow rings.
It is the moon with her unpowdered face,
the night-dewed grass closing over the antennae of a snail.
In May, tree frogs give off a scent I lean my upturned face into.
Lupines move slowly around the pond, darkness stumbling
alone through the twilight.
To see from the bottom up is to live many times.
- Loneliness, pg. 45
* * *
My mother's face is
a conspiracy of trees under moonlight.
It is the unnavigated ocean
mapped by a child's hand.
On it the Orinoco is a rivulet,
a watershed of exotic life ...
I see the greying institution of the chin
with its downward pull.
I see the night sky underwater,
the extravaganza of war,
a woman in flames at the water's edge.
- A Woman in Flames, pg. 53
Displaying 1 of 1 review