Vancouver: A Poem

by George Stanley

Poetry. The Lions bare of snow, crowded express buses, a giant red turning letter W. VANCOUVER: A POEM is George Stanley's vision of the city where he lives, though he does not call it his own. Vancouver, the city, becomes Stanley's palimpsest: an overwritten manuscript on which the words of others are still faintly visible. Here the Food Floor's canned exotica, here the stores of Chinatown, here the Cobalt Hotel brimful of cheap beer and indifferent women.The poet travels through the urban landscape on foot and by public transit, observing the multifarious life around him, noting the at times abrupt changes in the built environment, and vestiges of its brief history. As he records his perceptions, the city enters his consciousness in unforeseen ways, imposing its categories and language. Skirting chestnuts on the sidewalk or reading William Carlos Williams's "Paterson" on the Granville Bridge, the poet travels along the inlet, past the mountains, under the trees, interrogating the local world with his words. Other George Stanley titles available from SPD are A TALL, SERIOUS GIRL: SELECTED POEMS 1957-2000, AT ANDY'S, and GENTLE NORTHERN SUMMER.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 2008

About the author

George Stanley is an award-winning American-Canadian poet associated with the San Francisco Renaissance in his early years and later a resident of British Columbia

Reviews

[Alexia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favourite poetry book, it was a really neat peek into the past and what Vancouver was like a few decades ago, however, the author has self proclaimed that he wrote this about a city that he does not belong to. I felt like I wanted to immerse myself in the city that o grew up in, that despite not living in for the past near decade, I still feel as though I belong to it. Over all a bit self fulfilling and woe is me for my taste I’m soooo sorry.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stanley spends about a decade thinking, writing through Vancouver, city of his residence, city of his mind. Like William's Patterson (mentioned multiple times within the poem), the city becomes more enmeshed in the psyche of our speaker, of the other characters reworking the landscape and architecture of economy and ecology. The homeless blend with the youth, the students with the bar men, the mind and its processes with the movements of the bus lines on the streets. The synapses of this work collect into a web, they fall back to the french poets Baudelaire and Verlaine, the the political struggles of the 60's and 70's, the nationalist claims of US vs Canadian political pressure, even mentions of Jameson and Keynes. Ultimately the book is an examination of the one constant: "A change in the relation / of background to figure." Citizen and City.