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The Given
Winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poery Prize
Finalist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award
“You remember — what is it you remember? / the feel of home, that moment of coming into your body. . . ”
So begins Daphne Marlatt’s haunting and multi-layered long poem, which reads with all the urgency and depth of a novel. Set in present-day and 1950s Vancouver, The Given begins with the news of a mother’s death, then opens up to become an intricate tapestry of lives, as Marlatt deftly interweaves the past with the present, replicating the arc of memory itself, while questing for — and questioning — the meaning of home and identity. Circling around the narrator’s mother — theatrical, troubled, imprisoned in the small existence of a 1950s housewife, and a persistent presence in the lives of others — The Given is a ceremony performed for her, and for all “those who have left, who go on burning in us.” In luminous, deeply resonant fragments, Marlatt resoundingly answers the drive to live with deep attention in a now that is, for all of us, “tangled in the past.”
Finalist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award
“You remember — what is it you remember? / the feel of home, that moment of coming into your body. . . ”
So begins Daphne Marlatt’s haunting and multi-layered long poem, which reads with all the urgency and depth of a novel. Set in present-day and 1950s Vancouver, The Given begins with the news of a mother’s death, then opens up to become an intricate tapestry of lives, as Marlatt deftly interweaves the past with the present, replicating the arc of memory itself, while questing for — and questioning — the meaning of home and identity. Circling around the narrator’s mother — theatrical, troubled, imprisoned in the small existence of a 1950s housewife, and a persistent presence in the lives of others — The Given is a ceremony performed for her, and for all “those who have left, who go on burning in us.” In luminous, deeply resonant fragments, Marlatt resoundingly answers the drive to live with deep attention in a now that is, for all of us, “tangled in the past.”
124 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2008
41 people want to read
About the author
Daphne Marlatt
53 books12 followers"Nationality: Canadian (originally Maylasian, immigrated to Canada in 1951). Born: Daphne Shirley Buckle, Melbourne, Australia, 1942.
Education: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1960-64, B.A.; University of Indiana, Bloomington, 1964-67, M.A. 1968. Career: Has taught at University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, University of Saskatchewan, University of Western Ontario, Simon Fraser University, University of Calgary, Mount Royal College, University of Alberta, McMaster University, University of Manitoba; second vice chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, 1987-88.
Awards: MacMillan and Brissenden award for creative writing; Canada Council award. Member: Founding member of West Coast Women and Words Society.
Other Work:
Plays
Radio Plays:
Steveston, 1976.
Other
Zócalo. Toronto, Coach House, 1977.
Readings from the Labyrinth. Edmonton, Alberta, NeWest Press, 1998.
Editor, Lost Language: Selected Poems of Maxine Gadd. Toronto, Coach House Press, 1982.
Editor, Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures. Vancouver, Press Gang, 1990.
Editor, Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka. Edmonton, Alberta, NeWest Press, 1997.
Translator, Mauve, by Nicole Brossard. Montreal, Nouvelle Barre du Jour/Writing, 1985.
*
The National Library of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
Critical Studies:
Translation A to Z: Notes on Daphne Marlatt's "Ana Historic" by Pamela Banting, Edmonton, NeWest Press, 1991; "I Quote Myself"; or, A Map of Mrs. Reading: Re-siting "Women's Place" in "Anna Historic" by Manina Jones, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993; The Country of Her Own Body: Ana Historic, by Frank Davey, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993.
"Although I think of myself as a poet first, I began writing both fiction and lyric poems in the early 1960s. My collections of poetry have usually had a loose narrative shape as I tend to write in sequences, or "books." As an immigrant, I'd long held the ambition to write an historical novel about Vancouver, but Ana Historic actually critiqued and broke open the genre, as it also increased my fascination with the potential for openness in the novel form. Influenced by the development of "fiction/theory" in Quebec by feminist writers there, I see open structures combined with a folding or echoing of women's experiences in different time periods as a way to convey more of the unwritten or culturally overwritten aspects of what it means to be alive as a woman today.'"
* * *
Read more: "Daphne Marlatt Biography - Daphne Marlatt comments:" - http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4556...
Education: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1960-64, B.A.; University of Indiana, Bloomington, 1964-67, M.A. 1968. Career: Has taught at University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, University of Saskatchewan, University of Western Ontario, Simon Fraser University, University of Calgary, Mount Royal College, University of Alberta, McMaster University, University of Manitoba; second vice chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, 1987-88.
Awards: MacMillan and Brissenden award for creative writing; Canada Council award. Member: Founding member of West Coast Women and Words Society.
Other Work:
Plays
Radio Plays:
Steveston, 1976.
Other
Zócalo. Toronto, Coach House, 1977.
Readings from the Labyrinth. Edmonton, Alberta, NeWest Press, 1998.
Editor, Lost Language: Selected Poems of Maxine Gadd. Toronto, Coach House Press, 1982.
Editor, Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures. Vancouver, Press Gang, 1990.
Editor, Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka. Edmonton, Alberta, NeWest Press, 1997.
Translator, Mauve, by Nicole Brossard. Montreal, Nouvelle Barre du Jour/Writing, 1985.
*
The National Library of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
Critical Studies:
Translation A to Z: Notes on Daphne Marlatt's "Ana Historic" by Pamela Banting, Edmonton, NeWest Press, 1991; "I Quote Myself"; or, A Map of Mrs. Reading: Re-siting "Women's Place" in "Anna Historic" by Manina Jones, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993; The Country of Her Own Body: Ana Historic, by Frank Davey, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1993.
"Although I think of myself as a poet first, I began writing both fiction and lyric poems in the early 1960s. My collections of poetry have usually had a loose narrative shape as I tend to write in sequences, or "books." As an immigrant, I'd long held the ambition to write an historical novel about Vancouver, but Ana Historic actually critiqued and broke open the genre, as it also increased my fascination with the potential for openness in the novel form. Influenced by the development of "fiction/theory" in Quebec by feminist writers there, I see open structures combined with a folding or echoing of women's experiences in different time periods as a way to convey more of the unwritten or culturally overwritten aspects of what it means to be alive as a woman today.'"
* * *
Read more: "Daphne Marlatt Biography - Daphne Marlatt comments:" - http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4556...
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