January 16, 2021

Winnipeg
-14° C, Ice crystals

Full Forecast

Contact Us Subscribe Manage Subscription Chat with us
Log in Create Free Account Help Chat with us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • My Account
    • Manage my Subscription
    • Change Password

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
    • Log in
    • Create Free Account
    • Help

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
  • Coronavirus Coverage
  • Replica E-Edition
    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • The Herald
    • The Headliner
    • The Lance
    • The Metro
    • The Sou'Wester
    • The Times
  • Above the Fold
  • Front page
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Book Club
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
  • Canada
  • Local
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • World
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Archives
  • Canstar Community News
    • All Canstar Community News
    • The Headliner
    • The Herald
    • The Lance
    • The Metro
    • The Sou'wester
    • The Times
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Classifieds
  • Contests
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • Sponsored
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Flyers
  • Homes
    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Newsletters
  • Obituaries
  • Puzzles
  • Photostore
  • More

©2021 FP Newspaper Inc.

Close
  • Quick Links

    • Coronavirus Coverage
    • Above the Fold
    • Home
    • Local
    • Canada
    • World
    • Classifieds
    • Special Coverage
    • Flyers
    • Newsletters
    • Obituaries
    • Photostore
    • Archives
    • Contests
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Content
    • Privacy Policy

    Ways to support us

    • Pay it Forward program
    • Subscribe
    • Day Pass
    • Read Now Pay later
  • Replica E-Edition

    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • The Herald
    • The Headliner
    • The Lance
    • The Metro
    • The Sou'Wester
    • The Times

    Business

    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
  • Arts & Life

    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Sports

    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • Opinion

    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor

    Media

    • All Media
    • Photo Galleries
    • Videos

    Homes

    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Canstar Community News

    • All Canstar Community News
    • The Headliner
    • The Herald
    • The Lance
    • The Metro
    • The Sou'wester
    • The Times
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Coupons

    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • About Us

    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
Winnipeg Free Press
Articles Read
Your Balance +tax
Day Pass Till
Day Pass
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Report an Error
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
    • Staff Biographies
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • Log in
    • Create Account
    • Help
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
    • My Account
    • Manage My Subscription
    • Change Password
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
Log in Create Account Contact Us
Contact Us Manage Subscription
  • Sections
  • Local
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Diversions
    • Environment
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Health
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Soccer
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • E-Edition
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Automotive
    • Careers
    • Garage Sales
    • Merchandise
    • Pets
    • Real Estate
    • Rentals
    • Services
  • Sponsored
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print
    • Ripley's Aquariums
    • The Bay
    • Staples Canada
    • Altitude Sports
    • Nike
    • Tuango
    • Ebay Canada
    • Sport Chek
    • Roots
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe
Arts & Life Arts & Entertainment Books

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Ordinary extraordinary in Patrick Warner poems

By: Jennifer Still
Posted: 07/26/2009 1:00 AM

  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Print
  • Email

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/7/2009 (4192 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEWFOUNDLANDER Patrick Warner's third book, Mole (Anansi, 78 pages, $19), is a comically vulnerable, tender collection concerned with the re-emergence of self with careful attention paid to the bizarre.

Whether the narrator is standing in line for the newest Nicole Kidman movie or lounging on a snowbird holiday, the ordinary becomes extraordinary when seen through Warner's rose-coloured, resort-town lenses.

In Entertainment, a meditation on popcorn topping becomes a sexual odyssey into the poet's fertile mind: "The line I was in was like a sleeve of cups. / I was like an empty white cardboard cup, / my mood as light as that funnel container / I would soon fill with effervescent desire."

Endearingly childlike and whiskered in wildness, these are the verses of a tough-meat world that when set to Warner's musical sensibility, emerge tender-nosed and curious.

"ö "ö "ö

Moncton poet Serge Patrice Thibodeau sings a reflective and ethereal praise song to New Brunswick's Petitcodiac River in One (Goose Lane Editions, 57 pages, $17), an English translation by Jo-Anne Elder of Thibodeau's 2007 Governor-General's Award-winning Seul on est.

Thibodeau's meditative riverwalk reflects on the connection of landscape and spirit through the rhythmic phenomenon of the mascaret, or tidal bore, a single wave that travels against the current.

In One, the world sprouts from our gaze, skies root the earth, all is alive, connected in an "inexhaustible geography / a single being."

In poems that consider the transformative power of how we see our landscape, Thibodeau invites us to join him in exalting gaze and "lose oneself" in our own wonder: "The ice flows upstream, against the current, / so it was written; our astonishment transforms gravity.

"ö "ö "ö

New Brunswick poet James Langer's debut, Gun Dogs (Anansi, 68 pages, $19), is a pristine, formally diverse collection.

From humorous re-enactments of guy rhetoric (see Half Full) and imaginative scenes of a drunken, beer-swigging loon, to the small and clever Life as a Nail and the narrative majesty of Gangrene, Langer rolls around in varying forms with playful assurance.

He also knows grief and writes a tormented dance in Terminal Velocity: "the safest place / is always the place / where things can't get any worse."

However, for all Langer's technical savvy, including his exquisitely musical ear, Gun Dogs plays a disappointingly safe emotional turf. In poems that are as diligent as gun dogs "always willing / to start over, go further than need," there is often a sense of strain or restraint in voice, as if the poems are still hunting, looking "to close the distance" on what it is they really want to say.

"ö "ö "ö

Winnipeg can add Gillian Sze to its roster of literary talent. Now living in Toronto, Sze writes of wandering and lostness in her debut collection, Fish Bones (DC Books, 65 pages, $17).

Loosely conceived in the ekphrastic tradition (a poetic response to visual art), Sze gives imaginative voice to paintings, sculptures and photographs in her search for a sense of place.

The poems on their own are evocative in voice and imagery. But the collection as a whole feels fragmented and removed from its original artistic encounter, reading more like a collection of writing assignments than a fully formed, layered body of work.

This is not to say Sze's impulse is misdirected. A contagious lyrical energy ignites when concept gives way to necessity and her subjects -- family, place, origin -- are given voice.

In The Changes Between, Sze's clear-eyed attention illuminates the sad and beautiful details of returning home: "I am thinking about lights while trying to forget / how I can't remember my mother's eyes."

Jennifer Still writes poetry in Winnipeg.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

  • Report Error
  • Submit a Tip
  • Refund

The Winnipeg Free Press invites you to share your opinion on this story in a letter to the editor. A selection of letters to the editor are published daily.

To submit a letter:
• fill out the form on this page, or
• email letters@freepress.mb.ca, or
• mail Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2X 3B6.

Letters must include the writer’s full name, address, and a daytime phone number. Letters are edited for length and clarity.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Top