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Red Ledger
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
7 people want to read
About the author
Mary Dalton
34 books8 followersMary Dalton is a Canadian poet and educator, born in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. She is professor emerita in the Department of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, and founder of the SPARKS Literary Festival at the university. Dalton is also a former editor of the Newfoundland literary journal Tickleace and St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador's poet laureate for 2019–2020.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 15, 2025
I bought this book for the cover, which didn’t really end up having anything to do with the content, but I didn’t mind.
I thought the poetry was at its strongest when firmly situated in Newfoundland, as it was I thought the book meandered too much and was a slog at times.
Not a ton I think I’ll come back to. My favorites were “July,” “Lies for the Newfoundlanders, the Labradorians,” and “I’m Bursting to Tell: Riddles for Conception Bay.”
I thought the poetry was at its strongest when firmly situated in Newfoundland, as it was I thought the book meandered too much and was a slog at times.
Not a ton I think I’ll come back to. My favorites were “July,” “Lies for the Newfoundlanders, the Labradorians,” and “I’m Bursting to Tell: Riddles for Conception Bay.”
January 27, 2022
He: You know what a pidgin is?
She: A rock-dove.
That's how it was with us -
birds flying past the words.
* * *
It was the depth of winter: musing on small fires,
they found him in the salt-work,
flattened like a codfish in the Durnberg mountain.
(Two weeks before, a comet-star had shocked their sky.)
Weird one, split cod of a man, a figure out of some
ancient bestiary, cured to a sere yellow-brown,
all the flexed muscle, the running juice of him
pressed down by the mountain of salt.
Yet he was his own salt comet, that newly mined Celt:
resplendent in his twill jacket of roaring red plaid,
his cone-shaped hat, his grand shoes of leather,
his torch of pine sticks lavished with resin,
his horn.
Did his brilliance astonish when he blazed up
sixty-three shoe-lengths and two storied millennia
into the punishing air?
* * *
Pity for whitecoats, round-eyed and black nosed -
endless pity.
Pity for grey harps, waddlers so portly.
Pity for beaters, bluebacks and bedlamers.
Pity for fishes that vanish from oceans -
limited pity.
Pity for kelp and plankton and krill.
Pity for cells
in Petri dishes swarming.
Pity for furry and cuddly and tiny.
Sealers
with five youngsters for supper and no ready cash
can just fuck off. They offend our fine notions.
Paul Watson be with them
for ever and ever. Amen.
* * *
Read the month:
the runes promise ice
Close the book. Follow
the veins of the leaf,
your stiffening hand.
She: A rock-dove.
That's how it was with us -
birds flying past the words.
- How It Was, pg. 16
* * *
It was the depth of winter: musing on small fires,
they found him in the salt-work,
flattened like a codfish in the Durnberg mountain.
(Two weeks before, a comet-star had shocked their sky.)
Weird one, split cod of a man, a figure out of some
ancient bestiary, cured to a sere yellow-brown,
all the flexed muscle, the running juice of him
pressed down by the mountain of salt.
Yet he was his own salt comet, that newly mined Celt:
resplendent in his twill jacket of roaring red plaid,
his cone-shaped hat, his grand shoes of leather,
his torch of pine sticks lavished with resin,
his horn.
Did his brilliance astonish when he blazed up
sixty-three shoe-lengths and two storied millennia
into the punishing air?
- The Salt Man, after Mark Kurlansky, pg. 21
* * *
Pity for whitecoats, round-eyed and black nosed -
endless pity.
Pity for grey harps, waddlers so portly.
Pity for beaters, bluebacks and bedlamers.
Pity for fishes that vanish from oceans -
limited pity.
Pity for kelp and plankton and krill.
Pity for cells
in Petri dishes swarming.
Pity for furry and cuddly and tiny.
Sealers
with five youngsters for supper and no ready cash
can just fuck off. They offend our fine notions.
Paul Watson be with them
for ever and ever. Amen.
- Seal Rights, after Miroslav Holub, pg. 48
* * *
Read the month:
the runes promise ice
Close the book. Follow
the veins of the leaf,
your stiffening hand.
- Runes, pg. 95
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews