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Shortlisted for the 2004 Pat Lowther Award and longlisted for the 2004 ReLit Awards
Gunvaldsen Klaassen's second poetry collection has the condensed intensity of light from old stars. Like a slow, multifoliate explosion, her metaphors track the luminous traces left by the mind as it flows into and away from the life of the body. She is a poet's poet: her images are emblematic of the inner and outer worlds that both shadow and illuminate everyday life.
Lost
thoughts, soot-lined, silver-lined
concatenations
incense of coal, cumulonimbus...
pennies and ponies on the track
heads or tails, a chance
the sleeper
lugged backwards through France,
honey-moon, lune de miel
suite, sigh, tunnel of
tickets and black gates, fate line rising from the luna mount mind the gap a porter calls
and we cross, linked elbow to elbow
ghost cars sparking the synaptic tracks...
--from "Trains"
Gunvaldsen Klaassen's universe is as elusive as the quantum physicist's, where particles flash in and out of existence. Yet the shimmering quality of these poems is hooked to the earth by nouns of astonishment: "Belts, boots, spurs, stars" "sepals, stamens, catkins, matchsticks" There is nothing ordinary about the trajectory of human existence, as these poems prove time and again.
Gunvaldsen Klaassen's second poetry collection has the condensed intensity of light from old stars. Like a slow, multifoliate explosion, her metaphors track the luminous traces left by the mind as it flows into and away from the life of the body. She is a poet's poet: her images are emblematic of the inner and outer worlds that both shadow and illuminate everyday life.
Lost
thoughts, soot-lined, silver-lined
concatenations
incense of coal, cumulonimbus...
pennies and ponies on the track
heads or tails, a chance
the sleeper
lugged backwards through France,
honey-moon, lune de miel
suite, sigh, tunnel of
tickets and black gates, fate line rising from the luna mount mind the gap a porter calls
and we cross, linked elbow to elbow
ghost cars sparking the synaptic tracks...
--from "Trains"
Gunvaldsen Klaassen's universe is as elusive as the quantum physicist's, where particles flash in and out of existence. Yet the shimmering quality of these poems is hooked to the earth by nouns of astonishment: "Belts, boots, spurs, stars" "sepals, stamens, catkins, matchsticks" There is nothing ordinary about the trajectory of human existence, as these poems prove time and again.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 28, 2022
You who called me into this world,
reveal yourself
- the night is barbed. Like promises of stars on the brain
I've inherited a fear of hooves and love.
Labouring,
I draw another circle around us
a ring of posies or thorns,
a safe cave.
Dark horse, come out of the storm.
Cradle my head again, the tender fontanelle
closing itself to pain. A cross.
My palms are lined with what
proof I have of birth -
I stare and stare, expecting
the face of another
Oh mother, where have you ridden?
There's coal in my hair,
snow in the smoke of your breath.
* * *
I move through the night, hooded
in flesh, bones lit from within.
A self:
the sea's milk teeth a rising, receding
old ache of waiting,
mind tapping tongue and groove
in the wooden absence of boats.
At every seventh or ninth wave
the shimmering appearance of my mate -
his tongue a quiver of feathered arrows
the Norse ör, each arching
luminous
current, a memory of time before boats.
I can't concentrate on
the present
his presence, mine.
Behind the soft hollows his tongue finds
oars, bones.
* * *
O omniscient, omnivorous, oneiric bear
O fabled one
Bear of Wonder, Bear of Night
First bear I see tonight: a sigh
Rises from your hibernaculum like smoke from a tree
Omni omni omni (I'm
Agoraphobic); you're the cosmos curled up in the locked closet
Laid with rough black rugs
You're the stone sewn
Into your own maw - ravenous,
Bare-handed
Eater of roots and dreams and gravel
You dug your way into me
Omega bear
I smell sulphur on your paws
reveal yourself
- the night is barbed. Like promises of stars on the brain
I've inherited a fear of hooves and love.
Labouring,
I draw another circle around us
a ring of posies or thorns,
a safe cave.
Dark horse, come out of the storm.
Cradle my head again, the tender fontanelle
closing itself to pain. A cross.
My palms are lined with what
proof I have of birth -
I stare and stare, expecting
the face of another
Oh mother, where have you ridden?
There's coal in my hair,
snow in the smoke of your breath.
- The Fence, pg. 11
* * *
I move through the night, hooded
in flesh, bones lit from within.
A self:
the sea's milk teeth a rising, receding
old ache of waiting,
mind tapping tongue and groove
in the wooden absence of boats.
At every seventh or ninth wave
the shimmering appearance of my mate -
his tongue a quiver of feathered arrows
the Norse ör, each arching
luminous
current, a memory of time before boats.
I can't concentrate on
the present
his presence, mine.
Behind the soft hollows his tongue finds
oars, bones.
- After the X-Ray, pg. 51
* * *
O omniscient, omnivorous, oneiric bear
O fabled one
Bear of Wonder, Bear of Night
First bear I see tonight: a sigh
Rises from your hibernaculum like smoke from a tree
Omni omni omni (I'm
Agoraphobic); you're the cosmos curled up in the locked closet
Laid with rough black rugs
You're the stone sewn
Into your own maw - ravenous,
Bare-handed
Eater of roots and dreams and gravel
You dug your way into me
Omega bear
I smell sulphur on your paws
- Gravity, pg. 68
March 16, 2011
Some very good poems here. I'm thinking quite a bit about how poetry collections are structured these days... I like how this poet did not feel compelled to give each section a title - the lovely hand drawn arrow served nicely to seperate the various sections. I also liked how she was confident enough to allow two sections to contain only one poem each.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews