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Standing Wave
Themes of memory, myth, and the uneasy duo of body and mind fill the two long poems in this volume, "Sonnets from Jimmie Walker Swamp" and the conclusion to the ongoing poem "The Encantadas."
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2005
7 people want to read
About the author
Robert Allen
12 books1 followerRobert Allen (1946–2006) lived in Montreal and Ayer’s Cliff in Quebec’s Eastern Townships and taught creative writing at Concordia University. He is the author of fourteen books of poetry and prose including the poetry collections Magellan’s Clouds (1987), Ricky Ricardo Suites (2000), Standing Wave (2005) and The Encantadas (2007). Born in Bristol, England he was educated at the University of Toronto and Cornell University. He was the editor of the longest-running Anglo-Quebec literary journal, Matrix.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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January 1, 2025“No one thought that they could live their whole / lifetime well: eighty years is a long tide / to be coming in, a long tide out.”
“Slow creaking of birch boughs in the wind, a song once / dissonant and cold, has become talk—talk to and for / itself, but there for anyone who’s learned to listen.”
“Slow creaking of birch boughs in the wind, a song once / dissonant and cold, has become talk—talk to and for / itself, but there for anyone who’s learned to listen.”
May 27, 2015
Page 16:
Without much in my head tonight, I nevertheless
think fleetingly of Mars, closer than in sixty thousand years.
But Mars remains unseen, since cloud, moving in
three days ago, has not left, and obscures the sky. Rain
drums across the bare planes of my house, a third
of the way through August, still no summer in sight.
Without weather, I would be lost. It drives me to
poetry, to books about ancient history, to a relativism
that is reckless and hungry. This, at least, is event,
tropes as real as love, as realness, driving me
crazy with each squall--just weather, and really no
change at all. I wish I could see, for a minute,
a sky full of stars. There's no chance of that, or of
the orange beacon in the depth of my blind eye: Mars.
Without much in my head tonight, I nevertheless
think fleetingly of Mars, closer than in sixty thousand years.
But Mars remains unseen, since cloud, moving in
three days ago, has not left, and obscures the sky. Rain
drums across the bare planes of my house, a third
of the way through August, still no summer in sight.
Without weather, I would be lost. It drives me to
poetry, to books about ancient history, to a relativism
that is reckless and hungry. This, at least, is event,
tropes as real as love, as realness, driving me
crazy with each squall--just weather, and really no
change at all. I wish I could see, for a minute,
a sky full of stars. There's no chance of that, or of
the orange beacon in the depth of my blind eye: Mars.
February 16, 2016
Really not my cup of tea. With the exception of several sonnets most of this poetic collection came off as completely alien to me. The same can be said about the encantadas. I'll be listening to my professor's interpretation on several poems this Friday, and perhaps I'll change my review. As of now, I'm at a loss...
January 2, 2021
Found it on the poetry shelf from Bookends at the Toronto Reference Library one afternoon last September. Read through it in one sitting while invigilating a midterm. There are some striking pieces of imagery in the sonnets, though the I think I need to re-read the final poem Encantadas a couple more times before I can completely understand it
March 12, 2015
This was for a university class.
This book is interesting. It is a book best read in one sitting. Not bad.
This book is interesting. It is a book best read in one sitting. Not bad.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews