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Kill-site
By the winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Best Book of the Year
To his virtuoso collection of new poems, Tim Lilburn brings a philosopher’s mind and the eyes and ears of a marsh hawk. This series of earthy meditations makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Lilburn’s close study of goldenrod, an ice sheet, or night opens into surprising interior and subterranean worlds. Pythagoras lurks within the poplars, Socrates in stones, people fly below the ground. Elsewhere, the human presence of motels and beer parlours is ominous. Kill-site is an exploration of a human’s animal nature. Lilburn invites the reader to: “Go below the small things… then / walk inside them and you have their kindness.” Though a natural progression from Lilburn’s last book, To the River, in Kill-site, the poet moves toward a greater understanding of the human, of sacrifice.
To his virtuoso collection of new poems, Tim Lilburn brings a philosopher’s mind and the eyes and ears of a marsh hawk. This series of earthy meditations makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Lilburn’s close study of goldenrod, an ice sheet, or night opens into surprising interior and subterranean worlds. Pythagoras lurks within the poplars, Socrates in stones, people fly below the ground. Elsewhere, the human presence of motels and beer parlours is ominous. Kill-site is an exploration of a human’s animal nature. Lilburn invites the reader to: “Go below the small things… then / walk inside them and you have their kindness.” Though a natural progression from Lilburn’s last book, To the River, in Kill-site, the poet moves toward a greater understanding of the human, of sacrifice.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 2003
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About the author
Tim Lilburn
25 books15 followersTim Lilburn is the author of six books of poetry, including the Governor Generals Award-winning collection Kill-Site. He is also the author of a book of essays, Living in the World as if It Were Home, and the editor of two anthologies, Thinking and Singing and Poetry and Knowing.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 10, 2019
A flag of names blows inside the tongue; in another
place a deer hunches back into chokecherries; there
is a wave inside the earth...let the hidden, shy, terrifying things
lift you in their long red beak....
like seeing with the eye that sees you
from the poem The Book That Changes Everything p37
Considering how engaged I have been with the work of Tim Lilburn, how enthusiastically I struggled with his essays and how much I liked Moosewood Sandhills, I overcame my distaste at the title and ordered this, the book that won the GG. I was very glad that I hadn't started there. I doubt I would have even finished it. In these poems I found evidence of the man who has reawakened my passion for philosophies, but nothing to endear me.
To be sure, there's a touch of grandeur in his sonorous cadences, his stubborn obscurity, the blunt muscularity of his diction; and more than a few stunning images and juxtapositions. Perhaps I will be able to come back to these poems in some future where I can appreciate them more. But even in the few poems that drew me in, I quickly lost the impetus under a burden of language.
The only way in is impoverishment. Don't repeat this to anyone. Everything
is poor, moving in a slow light from itself. Further in, a dark. This
is home and song. The names of things
are hidden and alone.
from the poem A Gloss on to the River p44
place a deer hunches back into chokecherries; there
is a wave inside the earth...let the hidden, shy, terrifying things
lift you in their long red beak....
like seeing with the eye that sees you
from the poem The Book That Changes Everything p37
Considering how engaged I have been with the work of Tim Lilburn, how enthusiastically I struggled with his essays and how much I liked Moosewood Sandhills, I overcame my distaste at the title and ordered this, the book that won the GG. I was very glad that I hadn't started there. I doubt I would have even finished it. In these poems I found evidence of the man who has reawakened my passion for philosophies, but nothing to endear me.
To be sure, there's a touch of grandeur in his sonorous cadences, his stubborn obscurity, the blunt muscularity of his diction; and more than a few stunning images and juxtapositions. Perhaps I will be able to come back to these poems in some future where I can appreciate them more. But even in the few poems that drew me in, I quickly lost the impetus under a burden of language.
The only way in is impoverishment. Don't repeat this to anyone. Everything
is poor, moving in a slow light from itself. Further in, a dark. This
is home and song. The names of things
are hidden and alone.
from the poem A Gloss on to the River p44
May 26, 2013
Tim is a poet with a deep insight into the natural landscape and the inner landscape of the human soul. He shares his interpretation of his native Saskatchewan with those who are along for the journey. Lilburn is a poet, a philosopher, and a guide. Titles that stay with you are ones such as A Gloss On To The River, A History Of Waiting, and Swallowed Rituals to name just a few. Lines such as "There is sorrow and sleep in things." and one more that stays with you enticing you to enter is world again "The animal dreamed of me-smoke of looking namelessly lifting-below snowbanks on the creek,... you will have to read more to find out what this all means to you. That is the magic of poetry. Tim Lilburn is an alchemist of the craft.
October 20, 2019
This is definitely not Mr Lilburn...it's Me. All my fault.
His poetry combines agriculture, Canadian history, geology and Christian philosophies. A lot of which I do not know the appropriate background to enjoy his words of wonder to the fullest.
Definitely going to try other collections later, after some research and more experience with poetry.
Again: it's not you, it's me, Mr Lilburn.
His poetry combines agriculture, Canadian history, geology and Christian philosophies. A lot of which I do not know the appropriate background to enjoy his words of wonder to the fullest.
Definitely going to try other collections later, after some research and more experience with poetry.
Again: it's not you, it's me, Mr Lilburn.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews