Certain Details: The Poetry of Nelson Ball

by Nelson Ball, Stuart Ross (Editor)

Nelson Ball has had a significant impact on contemporary Canadian poetry not only as a poet but as an editor, with his Weed/Flower Press in the 1960s and 70s. Certain Details provides a major overview of the breadth and many paths of Ball’s poetry over six decades. This selection of his work includes his trademark minimalist poems in addition to longer works and sequences; it spans nature poems, homages, meditations, narratives, found poems, and visual poems. The book contains selections from all of Ball’s major collections as well as works that have previously appeared only in chapbook or ephemeral form. In a generous and thoughtful afterword, and for the first time in print, Ball discusses his processes, influences, and aesthetics. The book is introduced by editor and poet Stuart Ross, who offers a personal entry point into Nelson Ball’s extraordinary oeuvre.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

Published January 11, 2017

Reviews

[Dag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar poems by a master poet.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certain Details is a selection of Nelson Ball's poems from six of his previous books, including With Issa: Poems 1964-1971, The Concrete Air, Bird Tracks on Hard Snow, Almost Spring, At the Edge of the Frog Pond, Some Mornings, along with a selection of Uncollected Poems...

From With Issa: Poems 1964-1971...

storm
clouds

roll
past

tease
these

rattling
aspens

- Dry Spell, pg. 2

* * *

Little
bits

of
desperate

cloud
the air.

I
can't

catch
much

of
anything.

I'll
go

&
sit

with
Issa

by
the Tamagawa.

- With Issa, pg. 12

From The Concrete Air...

Briefly
we
talk

words
cling

to
words

talk
touches

- Talk, for Barbara, pg. 14

* * *

The air hammer's
rat-rat-rat --

perforate
concrete

and
air

- The Concrete Air, pg. 17

 

From Bird Tracks on Hard Snow...

Swallows
dart

back and forth

like
hyphens

on grey paper

awaiting
words

- Fall Sky, pg. 25

 
* * *

Words
on this white paper

bird
tracks

on

hard
snow

- Tracks, pg. 28

From Almost Spring...

Swallows
flit and swoop

to and from
a nest packed against

the farmhouse wall
below the eave

they will persist
in this, with

or without 
my eye

- Swallows, pg. 31

* * *

W)here

the
grass-

hopper

is (it

was

- Grasshopper, pg. 35

 

From At the Edge of the Frog Pond...

Frog
gone

plip
into

mud
cloud

- At the Edge of the Frog Pond, pg. 37

* * *

Peering
into the pool

I see
beyond my face

sunken
leaves

tadpoles
snails

and
mud

our
ancestral past

- The Pool, pg. 43

 

From In This Thin Rain...

the birds fly
across this wooden country road

a foot
above ground

in front
of the car

- How Low, pg. 45

* * *

A single leaf csught
in a long narrow breeze

dances, runs
on the spot

not going
anywhere

- Leaf, pg. 47

 

From Some Mornings...

Some mornings
as I awaken

I compose a poem
in my head

usually gone
when I get to my desk

this morning
I caught one

- Some Mornings, pg. 54

* * *

Beside
the Rail Trail

lies
a red woolen glove

it's lain
there

for
weeks

the other
glove

is
lost

- Point of View, pg. 60

 

From Uncollected Poems...

Spoken
words

cling

to
walls

in
rooms

we
inhabit

- Caution, pg. 66

* * *

We're adrift
and as free

as the earth
in space

tied to
the sun

by astro-
mechanics

- Ties, pg. 73

 

[James Hawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A glorious document of Nelson’s work. Pound for pound he is the knockout king of Canadian poetry. This book is a must have for those unfamiliar with Nelson’s work. Even those of us who have obsessively collected his books will appreciate this travel size emergency kit of his work. An absolute pip of a book.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Nelson Ball. Then look out your window for a weekend.