June 25, 2022

Winnipeg
19° C, Partly cloudy

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
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West
  • 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
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • 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
  • Reader BridgeNEW
  • WFP EventsNEW
  • 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
  • Free Press Community Review
    • All Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • 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
  • LifestylesNEW
    • All Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Homes
    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Newsletters
  • Obituaries
  • Puzzles
  • Photo and Book store
  • More

©2022 FP Newspaper Inc.

Close
  • Quick Links

    • Coronavirus Coverage
    • Federal Election
    • Above the Fold
    • Home
    • Local
    • Canada
    • World
    • Classifieds
    • Special Coverage
    • Newsletters
    • Obituaries
    • Photo and Book store
    • Archives
    • Contests
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Content
    • Privacy Policy

    Ways to support us

    • Pay it Forward program
    • Subscribe
    • Support Faith coverage
    • Support Arts coverage
  • Replica E-Edition

    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West

    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 Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • 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
The 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
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • 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
  • Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Manitoba’s Top Employers
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • 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$1.50 for 5 months
Home Arts & Life Arts & Entertainment Books

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Poet pens formula to quantify grief

Poetry By: Jonathan Ball
Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Saturday, Mar. 22, 2014
Last Modified: 8:19 AM CDT Saturday, Mar. 22, 2014 | Updates

  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Print
  • Email
  • Save to Read Later

The title of M x T (Coach House, 96 pages, $18), by Montreal's Sina Queyras, proposes a formula to quantify grief: Feeling Memory x Time.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/3/2014 (3017 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The title of M x T (Coach House, 96 pages, $18), by Montreal's Sina Queyras, proposes a formula to quantify grief: Feeling Memory x Time.

Like this proposed formula, which seems sincere as much as it seems to be a joke, Queyras remains deadpan throughout (aside from a few moments: "If you did not arrive to this city by canoe you can f--k off").

Where other poets bleed the dead for as many elegies as they might drain, Queyras wonders how to balance honest, heartfelt grief against the artificial, often-empty impulse to write about this grief.

"We are bent with emotion. We are uneven in our ability to move forward, we say, Beware of the empty boat, but we are often, ourselves, the empty boat." Although here she echoes Lisa Robertson, and elsewhere echoes Emily Dickinson ("Death, I want to drag you right into the mall, the earth, which is made of death"), Queyras remains resolutely herself, crashing her voice against attempts to escape it in her most affecting, accomplished book.

***

The Unknown University (New Directions, 836 pages, $42) collects the poetry of Chile's Roberto Bolaño, best known for his novels 2666 and The Savage Detectives.

Bolaño combines raw, emotive brutality with affected self-parody: "I grew up alongside puritan revolutionaries... What I'm trying to say is my lyricism is DIFFERENT / (that's all there is to it, but let me / add one thing more)."

Bolaño at his best is hilarious, poking fun at his own pretensions: "I remember Plato told me / and I didn't pay attention. / Now I'm in death's nightclub."

The collection is a bilingual edition, and includes the full text of the experimental novel Antwerp (under the title People Walking Away), one of Bolaño's most underrated books. Outstanding and often outrageous, though sometimes simple and sad, Bolaño's poetry shimmers.

***

"When was Detroit?" asks Vancouver's Jeff Derksen in The Vestiges (Talonbooks, 134 pages, $17). A "remake" combining the form of late-modernist long poems with the style and political concerns of Derksen's peers from the Kootenay School of Writing, The Vestiges wonders what remains of the world, or what will remain, after the ravages of neoliberal capitalism.

Derksen tempers his political critique through an elliptical approach. "When was Detroit?" works by humorously implying rather than dryly explaining complex socio-political issues that other poets might thrash to a death by a thousand clichés.

The Free Press | Newsletter

Embrace your inner bookworm

Join the Free Press Book Club for monthly picks and online meetings.

Join the Free Press Book Club
Sign Up

We spend our days "managing language / and management language," but it takes a poet like Derksen to show us that we do. The Vestiges is Derksen's most elegant work, with a grace to match its bite.

***

Phil Hall, who lives near Perth, Ont., follows the Governor General's Award-winning Killdeer with The Small Nouns Crying Faith (BookThug, 90 pages, $20). Hall's poems strike a fine balance, halfway between a raw outpouring and a poised restraint. Hall oscillates between tragedy, atrocity and silliness in a way that shouldn't work, moving from sexual abuse to satire without undermining either.

"I will write a poem again today / it will make no sense" begins one poem, ending with "Under Truth liked this / The Loom's Shadow liked this / Vestigial Tail liked this." Sandwiched in between the self-deprecation and the ironic, overwrought Facebooking is a poem that doesn't wink, at least not in the way we might expect. Fearless, Hall jostles and jitters in protean, exhilarating lines.

 

Winnipeg English professor Jonathan Ball's latest book is John Paizs's "Crime Wave" (University of Toronto Press), about the Winnipeg-made cult film classic.

If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism.
BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

History

Updated on Saturday, March 22, 2014 at 8:19 AM CDT: Tweaks formatting.

  • Report Error
  • Submit a Tip
  • Refund
  • The Free Press is certified by

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