Why Are You So Sad?: Selected Poems of David W. McFadden. Selected and Introduced by Stuart Ross

by David W. McFadden

His life in Canadian poetry has spanned five decades, and David W. McFadden is still going strong. This selection from his career to date brings back into print many of the greatest poems from nearly two dozen books. Chosen and introduced by fellow poet Stuart Ross, in full collaboration with the author, these poems reaffirm McFadden's status as one of Canada's most gratifying, ineffable, and necessary poets. Praise for David W. McFadden "The arcs of his imaginative flights illuminate whole arks for the soul, places you can enter, come in out of the rain, the storms, and claim as your own." — bpNichol "McFadden is a national treasure." — Brian Fawcett "Gypsy Guitar is everybody's favourite book of poetry." — George Bowering "Ideally, I'd like everyone to read it." — Rhonda Batchelor on Gypsy Guitar "McFadden is the poet laureate of the happy accident." — Bruce Grierson "I tore up all the other letters today tho there is one smart kid called Dave McFadden." — Jack Kerouac

Genres: Poetry

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

David William McFadden was a Canadian poet, fiction writer, and travel writer. The author of 35 books of poetry, fiction and travel writing, McFadden started publishing poetry in 1958 and has been previously shortlisted for the 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize, as well as for three Governor General's Awards. He won the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize for his collection What's the Score?

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife asks is it raining out
& I say no
although there are raindrops on the road
& I am all aglow.

How long have I been on the road
as a thought goes through me,
my head dark as a speeding car
with snow tires in rainy summer-night coolness.

It did not rain, the drops dried.
She puts her foot on the rim of the sink
& towels her ankles pink,
puffy white small clouds below the darker -

Something might have come out of the sky & spoken
but I was in the bathroom & couldn't look.

The car sped downhill quite rapidly.
My ears were its wheels.
I was reading a book & couldn't look.
My ears were joined by the axle.
blockquote>- Travellin' Man, pg. 16
* * *

Why am I writing
Imaginary haiku?
Because they’re not there.

*

High school wrestling team
Gets fired up when the coach bites
Heads off live sparrows.

*

Excuse me, darling.
I’m trying to write haiku.
What season is this?

*

Why do we worry?
We’re merely leaves on a tree.
Let the tree worry.

- Three on a Tree, pg. 32

* * *

If in the dusk with the quietness of an eyelid's blink
A hawk soars through the shadows to alight
Upon the ancient wind-warped upload thorn,
Will some dear old friend stop and think
Of me in my recent return to my eternal home
And say: "To him this must have been a familiar sight"?

And when my bell of quittance rolls through the gloom
As a hedgehog scurries over the moonswept lawn
And a crossing breeze muffles the bell like a yawn
For but a moment till the bell renews its boom,
Will they say I'd have noticed such an auditory feature
And that I'd have wanted to save this innocent creature?

When I am dead and Time's hunting horn
Blasts away as it did before I was born,
Will a child pick up a piece of doggish excrement
And with puppy-like innocence wolf it down
And ill someone, perhaps a passing bureaucrat,
Say: "My Hardy would have noticed that"?

When folks hear that my body has been stilled at last,
Will those who will see my face no more
Stand late at night quietly by the snow filled door
Looking up and watching the stars stream past?
And while picking their nose and scratching their fleas
Remember that I had an eye for such mysteries?

When Time has evicted me and latched its gate
And the mouth of May causes everyone to copulate
Under the tress wit their leaves flapping like wings
Throwing to the breeze their smelly underthings
Will one of my neighbours pause, suddenly clairvoyant,
And say: "Mr. Hardy would have loved it join in"?

- When I Am Dead, after Thomas Hardy, pg. 50-51

* * *

I was thinking of you
& wrote a handful of poems.

I'm a poem specialist!

More poems to write than tears in the ocean
sad to think I'll never get most of them written
especially the good ones.

Maybe I should just specialize in good poems
No, I could never stoop that low
I want to work among the humble poems
poems that can't afford the high cost of justice
the have-not poems that don't know where to turn.

But there's so many of them!
Who's next?
Geez, it's hopeless.

Maybe I should just specialize in titles.
Instead of writing 10,000 poems this lifetime
I should write 10,000,000 titles.

I'm sure people would understand
& would be strangely grateful

& if all the poets would give up writing their daily poem
& start turning out something like 100 titles a day
- if there's a million poets in all languages
that'd be 36-1/2 trillion titles every year -

Maybe something glorious would happen to the world.

- This Poem Has a Good Title, pg. 61

* * *

There was a cop at the intersection
directing traffic
but there was
no traffic
& no people

with the cop's cruiser
parked at the roadside
and I came by -
hopped in the cruiser,
drove away.

Driving away
furiously
towards and exploding
horizon.

- Mandala Dream, pg. 63

[julia! · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8

[Kane Faucher · Rating 4 out of 5]

For five decades, McFadden’s poetry has been a veritable tour de force in Canadian literature and he is certainly a poet’s poet. One would be hard pressed to find among our contemporary poetry luminaries any who would not openly admit an inspirational fondness for McFadden’s deftness and candour with the written word, and indeed many have cut their literary teeth reading everything he produces. And although McFadden hails from literary generations gone by, what is particularly remarkable about his work is that it remains so viscerally relevant – and this is what is successfully highlighted in this selection of his works spanning an entire career that could be otherwise named an earnest passion.
This collection’s sequence, assembled mostly by the poet himself, does not follow the usual chronological trajectory; instead, McFadden opts for a thematic randomness. From the earliest to most recent works, McFadden’s poetry remains playful, vibrant, self-deprecating, and reminiscent in some ways to that of John Newlove insofar as it patently rejects academic analysis. For a touch of local and nostalgic flavour for Londoners, a poem dedicated to the memory of the poet’s friendship with Greg Curnoe also features in this collection. Conversant and inviting, this collection has the feel of striking up a pleasant and random exchange while waiting for the bus stop or relaxing at a fireside chat. McFadden never loses his whimsical approach to life, although these are nested with amazingly astute observations.