Missing Children: poems

by Lynn Crosbie

A daring and innovative collection of new poems by the controversial author of Paul’s Case and VillainElle.

Missing Children is a daring and innovative collection of new poems by the controversial author of Paul’s Case and VillainElle. Here, Lynn Crosbie creates a bold fusion of genres by taking traditional elements of the novel – dialogue, plot, and description – and weaving them through a series of narratively linked poems. Centering on a man and a woman obsessively drawn to each other, Missing Children unfolds around a forbidden relationship and a series of letters, written by the protagonist, to the parents of missing children. Infused with psychological insight, rich in cultural iconography, and written in spare, clear language, Missing Children takes us to the moral fringes of society and challenges us to judge what we find. Crosbie breaks new stylistic and dramatic ground in this compelling, original collection.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

128 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 25, 2003

About the author

Lynn Crosbie is a Canadian poet and novelist. She teaches at the University of Toronto.

She received her Ph.D in English from the University of Toronto, writing her thesis on the work of the American poet Anne Sexton.

Crosbie has lectured on and written about visual art at the AGO, the Power Plant, and OCAD University (where she taught for six years.) She is an award-winning journalist and regular contributor to Fashion magazine and Hazlitt. She has had columns in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, Flare and Eye magazine.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to the author, Missing Children is "loosely based" on an email sent to her by Marlene Arpe, the first four songs of Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits (1. Born to Run, 2. Thunder Road, 3. Badlands, and 4. The River), with a "grateful acknowledgment" to Mike Bratcher's Classic Ford Page, Paul Duval's Canadian Impressionism , P. J. Redouté's Roses, John Milton's Paradise Lost , The Holy Bible, Albert Elsen's The Purpose of Art , Peter and Linda Murray's The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists, Neil Diamond, The Pointer Sisters, Travis Tritt, Allen Ginsberg's Howl , and Harold Robbins.

There is a definite parallel between the songs of Bruce Springsteen and Crosbie's Missing Children... Generally, Springsteen's songs are populated by characters who have lost sight of their dreams, who are over-the-hill, whose glory days are behind them, who cling to each other either as a last grasp at happiness or a form of consolation. The same can be said of Crosbie's characters. There are specific references too... The song "Born to Run" is addressed to a Wendy ("together Wendy / we can live with the sadness / I'll love you with all the madness / in my soul"). The Wendy of Missing Children is undoubtedly named after the Springsteen's Wendy, not just superficially but in their relationship to the protagonist/singer.

Missing Children chronicles the affair between the protagonist and the unhappily married Wendy. the protagonist's failed literary career, and the protagonist's obsession with missing children... The protagonist's failed literary career and obsession with missing children find their outlet in the writing of letters to the parents of the missing children...

Dear Mr. Lavender,

You do not know me but I have seen you child Olivia,
and want to tell you where she is, but I am afraid.

The man who has her keeps wild dogs in a pen
behind his shack and uses a shotgun -

I have come across the bodies of squirrels and worse,
there was a Scottie in a velvet tam-o'-shanter and cape.

He shouts at her to be a good girl: I drown him out
with heavy metal and a chainsaw.

I am not a bad person!

I want to tell you so much.

Your friend -
(pg. 27)

Not surprisingly, these letters land the protagonist in trouble. Like the voice of Springsteen's "Bandlands", the protagonist finds himself "caught in a crossfire [he doesn't] understand"

[Susie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the writing was beautiful, and the concept of narrative, prose poetry based on four Springsteen songs was certainly unique, I just couldn't connect to the storyline and it all was a bit too convoluted for my liking.

[Moktoklee]

My review of Lynn Crosbie's Missing Children:

I didn't like this book much. Having the concept for the collection based on four Bruce Springsteen songs I found to be moderately interesting and although it is a collection of poems, it contains a consistent narrative throughout which is unique, I guess, on the whole I found it remarkably unamusing.
Perhaps if I read it again I might find clever nuances, but I don't think I will end up doing that. This book, I feel, taps into society's fears of pedophilia/child abuse/kidnapping and sort of de-exceptionalizes violence… Oh man I hate this style of lecturing and highlighting of what is wrong with humanity. I understand, totally and completely, that Crosbie is criticizing that dark element present the world today, but I'm tired of these unsubtle fictional criticisms of society. If I can't convince myself that the story or events described could have happened in real life, then I simply lose interest as I did here.
It should be noted that the collection is based on a real life child abductor, but here's my problem: it's the fiction writer’s job to make the mundane and boring seem interesting, but on the flip side they have to make the absurd and unbelievable seem believable or the reader can't relate themselves to the story. I suppose because the work is a collection of poems I could cut Crosbie some slack, but her including a connected stream of narrative opens Missing Children up to this kind of criticism because if she wants to include that connected stream of narrative, then it should work artistically as a connective stream of narrative and for me it just didn't and I've explained why already.
Maybe some people like being told what to think by fiction, but fiction writers are not sociologists and their opinions on what society needs to do better or is doing worse than it could doesn't matter much to me. You can have all that, but if I'm not entertained I'm not going to come back. I'm sick and tired of authors saying with their themes and stories that I have to care about what they write because it's important for my awareness. Well, I don't, and if it's bad and uninteresting then I won't.

[Samantha Louise]

No rating giving as it would be unfair to rate a book written in a style I'm not really a fan of. Just had to read this for an English class.