PARLOR PRESS 2011. I came across Emily Carr's work editing for a certain literary journal cough, cough and was immediately smitten with her poetry.
"13 ways of happily" is easily one of my favorite books this year. The brevity in which she accomplishes so much is astounding. For instance (I'm not even going to try to get the spacing correct, for which I apologise) "you are of three minds: like elegant grasshoppers/tearing each other to pieces in the unleavened/dandelions dreaming/of someone not born/yet someone who will change/your life—" Each stanza journeys into a world where every line ripples through the world's membrane like the horizon after an atomic blast. And each ripple is a new simulacrum shed out an eye of what a colour throbs and could mirror.
In Carr's world, there is so much shifting and invention—this book bleeds pleasurable aurality and surprise. I think Breton would have a hard-on of jealousy toward the intellectualisation of Carr's surrealism—the unexpected can shape such difficult moments of profound beauty. "on a rainspun afternoon when bombs/fall a continent away the season//flimmers like a watery jewel on the dream's/cobweb & the sparrow of what you are wakes, this/slaphappy derelict—" So many times I had to pause and acknowledge how amazingly Carr has shaped her poetry. This is truly a book to behold and praise. Then read again to make sure your face is still intact.
To say I have poem envy is understated like an egg—Emily Carr is writing the poems I want and am trying to write. For this, thank you Emily Carr.
No comments:
Post a Comment