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Washita: New Poems
Following the success of his award-winning memoir "There is a Season" (2004) and his bestselling novel "Red Dog, Red Dog" (2008), Patrick Lane felt his celebrated poetry career might be at an end and published his "Collected Poems" in 2011. But the process of revisiting his collected poetic works rekindled his first love and launched him on a new phase of poetry composition that resulted in this impressive and distinctive new book.
Honest and self-aware, "Washita" evokes some of the most inexpressible experiences a human being can undergo: the loss of a parent, the breakdown of a body, the perversion of nature, the acquiring of wisdom. In "Hard-Rock," a boy begins to understand that his father will die: "His lungs created elaborate cathedrals from quartz dust, / a crystal symphony playing Mahler under water." In "Submission," a speaker struggles with losing his sight, capable only of expressing himself through metaphor. But amid this darkness sparks an awareness of the artistry of the world: ""Vete a la mierda, hijo de puta!" / Hate is beautiful in Spanish."
As might be expected from a seventy-five-year-old poet, "Washita" is reflective in tone, exploring all facets of the poet's own life as well as those others his has touched. Introducing a new style employing medium-length, end-stopped lines, terse diction and concrete imagery, "Washita" has a solidity and mastery that marks it as a new highlight in Lane's distinguished career.
Honest and self-aware, "Washita" evokes some of the most inexpressible experiences a human being can undergo: the loss of a parent, the breakdown of a body, the perversion of nature, the acquiring of wisdom. In "Hard-Rock," a boy begins to understand that his father will die: "His lungs created elaborate cathedrals from quartz dust, / a crystal symphony playing Mahler under water." In "Submission," a speaker struggles with losing his sight, capable only of expressing himself through metaphor. But amid this darkness sparks an awareness of the artistry of the world: ""Vete a la mierda, hijo de puta!" / Hate is beautiful in Spanish."
As might be expected from a seventy-five-year-old poet, "Washita" is reflective in tone, exploring all facets of the poet's own life as well as those others his has touched. Introducing a new style employing medium-length, end-stopped lines, terse diction and concrete imagery, "Washita" has a solidity and mastery that marks it as a new highlight in Lane's distinguished career.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2014
1 person is currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Lane
85 books39 followersPatrick Lane was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, on March 26, 1939. He has no formal education beyond high school in Vernon, B.C. From 1957 to 1968 with his young wife, Mary, he raised three children, Mark, Christopher, and Kathryn, and began working at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia. He has been a salesman, office manager, and an Industrial Accountant. In 1968 his first wife divorced him. Much of his life after 1968 has been spent as an itinerant poet, wandering over three continents and many countries. He began writing with serious intent in 1960, practicing his craft late at night in small-town western Canada until he moved to Vancouver in early 1965 to work and to join the new generation of artists and writers who were coming of age in the early Sixties.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2017
Lane seems to have embraced a more Eastern sensibility in this collection.
This poem is a good example of it:
Calligraphy
It was before the plum blossoms. Before that.
Before the mist and the wind rising from the sea.
And the little brown bats in the false dawn gorging on fragrant moths.
The feast that is the promise of light.
The raccoon was only a tail, a slip in the failing shadow.
And Basho coming home, his ear torn, happy with the night.
And, please, before I forget.
Write this.
Write this down:
the old rat turns and turns in his paws a delicate seed.
And the Horned owl meditates upon death on the yard pole.
O, and yes, before the pilgrim sea lion's moon song
was your hand in my hand in the dark.
Patrick Lane
He captures that sense of fleeting moments, of close focus on small things somehow blending into universals.
This poem is a good example of it:
Calligraphy
It was before the plum blossoms. Before that.
Before the mist and the wind rising from the sea.
And the little brown bats in the false dawn gorging on fragrant moths.
The feast that is the promise of light.
The raccoon was only a tail, a slip in the failing shadow.
And Basho coming home, his ear torn, happy with the night.
And, please, before I forget.
Write this.
Write this down:
the old rat turns and turns in his paws a delicate seed.
And the Horned owl meditates upon death on the yard pole.
O, and yes, before the pilgrim sea lion's moon song
was your hand in my hand in the dark.
Patrick Lane
He captures that sense of fleeting moments, of close focus on small things somehow blending into universals.
March 7, 2020
Having just read through it once, I found it to be full of stuff I'm not familiar with so there wasn't a lot here for me to relate to. It feels like the kind of book that requires several readings to get "into" it.
November 12, 2025
largely hit or miss more miss for me, the few that hit had me putting the book down, sadly most of them were a miss for them, I can see where parts of them are coming from however it just did not land with me
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December 4, 2014Hi, Everyone! Please check out my interview with award winning poet Patrick Lane as we discuss his latest collection of poetry, Washita (Harbour Publishing, 2014). Read the interview and 3 poem excerpt on my TTQ blog now. http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews