Mobile

by Tanis MacDonald

Longlisted for the 2020 Toronto Book Awards Mobile is an uncivil feminist reboot of Dennis Lee's Civil Elegies and Other Poems ; an urban lament about female citizenship and settler culpability; an homage to working and walking women in a love/hate relationship with Toronto, its rivers and creeks, its sidewalks and parks, its history, misogyny and violence. How do we, in Lee's words, see the "lives we had not lived" that "invisibly stain" the city? What are the sexual politics of occupying space in a city, in a workspace, in history? How can we name our vulnerabilities and our disasters and still find strength? Written in a slippery mix of lyric and experimental styles, Mobile is MacDonald's grouchiest book yet. Praise for Tanis "These poems performatively perturb our toward city, land, plant, women, and men. With her sybil voice full of sass but never lacking civility, MacDonald forages the city for women's lives and names, knocking not on heaven's door but on the tombs where our world is heading. Confronting barriers of attitude and structure that women face daily, full of sounds and verve, Mobile is a deft counterpoint to Dennis Lee's long-ago Civil Elegies. Pick up this Mobile , readers; it?s ringing and it's no robocall!" ―Erín Moure "With delightfully subversive wordplay and intertextual sleight of hand, Tanis MacDonald wanders the text of the modern city, exploring its civil energies with intelligence, incision, compassion, music, ferocity and wit. A Sibyl's elegies for the civil legacies of the past, these feisty poems interrogate the mansplaining streets, finding the always-there voices and experiences of women in its architecture and shadows, curbs and enthusiasms, structures and strictures, its texts and traditions, violence and vibrance, twists and d�tournes. Go with MacDonald as she guides you through the streets of Mobile . It's a tour de force." ―Gary Barwin

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2019

About the author

Tanis MacDonald is the author of two books of poetry: Fortune (2003) and Holding Ground (2000), and is the winner of the 2003 Bliss Carman Poetry Prize. She has published articles on the poetry of P.K. Page, Lorna Crozier, and Anne Carson. She teaches English at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how MacDonald argues with the Canon in comeback poems in response to Eliot, Yeats, Dennis Lee, Billy Collins and others. I laughed at her remaking of lyrics and common phrases into rebellious catch phrases. I delighted in Crazy Jane, the Bluestockings, the word play and the sheer fun of the book. At the same time, I appreciated her engagement with the dangers encountered by women and I felt outrage at the injustice of women's treatment. We cannot walk alone. We are threatened in our workplaces. This is a feisty and playful book that resists the long held notion that women should be mollified and docile. The Love Song of Vivienne Haigh-Wood , T.S. Eliot's first wife, is my absolute favourite. I had to read it aloud. "Mornings, evenings, dark spittoons, you/measured out your wife in bleak lampoons." Such fun! I love the way MacDonald brings in influences of other women writers through her centos. I highly recommend this book for everyone who is fucking sick of the patriarchy.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not particularly keen on feminist writing albeit I'm a feminist without ever calling myself one. There's a certain amount of pigeonhole-ness to it, and it's marketed. These poems take a feminist approach to the city of Toronto and its female inhabitants, on the wayside its men. I had high hope for this one but it fell short of inclusion. Maybe I'm weird in thinking it is ironic. If that makes sense. Three stars because even if I don't exactly looooove something I can appreciate why others might. Plus writing poetry (that doesn't rhyme) is tough.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I loved the play of form in free fall, O bricoleuse!

Mad MacDonald hurtled me back to poetry. “From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth.” W. H. Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”.

How I loved the Jane poems: Jacobs would have too!

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these poems. Some of them I've heard, perhaps in other iterations, over the years. I'm partial to the bluestocking poems especially, but enjoyed the whole collection. I do like hearing them in Tanis's voice in my head :-)