Sunday May 22, 2011 Rediscover Poetry

It’s hard for me to believe that we are already celebrating Victoria Day weekend. I’m quite certain that the last time I looked at the calendar it was March and here we are in the third week of May. This of course means that I completely missed poetry month, maybe you did too? This situation however can be remedied with a quick visit to your Library. Not only do we have many books of poetry for all ages, we also are fortunate to have poets visit us. Most recently Charles Mountford read at Brodie on May 9th and we have Owen Neill reading at Waverley on June 7th at 7:00pm. With Mr. Neill’s visit upcoming I thought I would focus on his works for this column.

Owen Neill is best known as “Canada’s Poet of the Wolf” so not surprisingly one of his volumes is entitled “Eye of the Wolf.” The poems found within do not only tell of wolves, but of the geography, flora, and fauna of our region. Perhaps I was so drawn to this particular book because it is so rooted in Thunder Bay even though the author now resides in Sault Ste. Marie. The opening verse from Up Wolseley Street, leaves no doubt that the location is Thunder Bay:

Not much, it seems, has changed to the eye.
New life comes with updated furniture
but the street’s the same as it climbs its shelf
from Cumberland to Court then steepens to Algoma
lifting a little to Ruttan and leveling at Farrand.
Beyond lie the Flats we children used to own
but now of course housing sets the modern tone.

Anyone at all familiar with the city’s north side geography is immediately pulled in to the place. Your feet hit the sidewalk and you too climb the shelf from Cumberland to Court and enter the poem. In other poems you visit the Flats, the marina, the grain elevators, and the back lanes. This slim volume offers a chance to fall in love with our city all over again.

Other works to be found on the shelf include: “Gone to Gossamer”, “Under Moonleaves”, “What I Meant to Say”, “She Said, He Said: A Creative Dialogue,” and “Six Windows of the Giant” among others.

"What I Meant to Say” took me by surprise as the poems lack titles, instead they are identified by Roman numerals. I was particularly enchanted by XXIII:

Mention lucky stars
eternity’s comfort zone
when God is a concept
past understanding
and we need to define
our presence now
through a mist
the mirage
that never clears
quite enough
for perfection.

It is entirely different from the poems in “Eye of the Wolf” and equally enchanting. Each volume offers something different, a unique window in to the poet’s soul. Surveying our poetry collection we have something for everyone, from the serious to the absurd there’s something for everyone.

I know for many poetry was a less than loved subject in school, it is only when reading it for pure pleasure that poetry can be truly appreciated. As children many of us loved Dennis Lee’s “Alligator Pie” and Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends” only to lose that love of poetry as we had to learn about the structure of poems. Fall back in love with poetry at Your Library.

Ruth Hamlin-Douglas, Adult Services Librarian