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There is just so much here that is fresh, new, exciting.
This is Scheier's first book-length publication, and he should be proud of it. There is an abundance of fresh images and a maturity of style that belie the fact he is a mere novitiate in the arcane world of poetry. He apparently learned his lessons well as editor of existere, York University's journal of art and literature, as we are told on the back cover.
The second poem in the book, "Genesis," is a primer on Freudian psychotherapy as spoken by Lacan, where "mother" is the giver of language, the one closest to nature who
taught me the names
of the fowl of the air
and every beast in the field,
and father
was no word for absence
of mother, (4)
and where "father," in part 4 of the poem, becomes the giver of science and rationality, the one who
. . . had many letters after his name,
blessing him
with authority.
He cured, not with touch or speech,
but something small and round
to swallow. (5)
The implication is that mother, the original naturopath, heals with touch and speech. As a result of the acceptance of the authority of the father and, consequently, the diminishing of the mother's influence, the separation from nature and language, this leads, in part 5, to:
And on the seventh day
the earth collapsed.
On the seventh day
I lost part of my sight. (6)
Sight is the equivalent of language, to which part 7 turns:
The names (again) turned to absence.
I could not call this smeared yellow thing
a flower.
I could not name this thing. (6)
The logical rationality of the father has buried the mother's intuition, leaving the protagonist unable to name things, to be one with them, resulting in the loss, or at least the diminishment of language, which is that thing essential for entering into a dialogue with life.
There is just so much here that is fresh, new, exciting. The next poem, "Big Band Music," is an incredible anti-war poem. These lines in the first stanza: "It is music meant for how our bodies used to be, / before the dance steps we learned / became a talent for avoiding the land mines beneath our feet (7) lead to: "The song is replaced by the hourly news, / the wars which are now commercials between melodies" (7), and the poem ends with: "I have been lying here too long / to distinguish war from suicide." (8) --a wry comment on our current reality.
I could go on endlessly quoting from this book. For example, being a Buddhist, I love the opening stanza of "Stuff":
I'm not a Buddhist,
I just hate stuff.
It's different from detachment--
I am very attached to my hatred of things. (21)
The poet must have studied Zen Buddhism at some stage in his life and has been keeping a diligent eye out during his many travels in the event he does happen to see the Buddha walking along the side of the road. What makes this perfect is that dash, the sign of attachment, at the end of line 3.
But now to what I consider a faux pas on Scheier's part, and it has to do with the opening poem, "The Voices." I am assuming from the Acknowledgements that Di Brandt, one of Canada's premiere poets and one whose work I respect very highly, was one of Scheier's editors. Which is why I cannot understand what happened here. After reading this enthralling poem, I arrived at the inscription on the bottom: "'The Voices'" is a collaborative translation, with Di Brandt, of Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Title Poem for The Voices.'" (3) Which part was Scheier's, which Brandt's? I felt robbed of the pleasure I had experienced reading this poem, and seriously misled as a reader.
Fortunately, this was not enough to diminish the incredible writing in this book. If Scheier continues to demonstrate the talent evident here, he is destined to become a major Canadian poet.
John Cunningham has returned to the writing fold after 8 years, during which time he has learned to accommodate himself to Crohn's disease and treatment-induced Type II Diabetes.
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