CM Magazine: Toward a Catalogue of Falling.

________________ CM . . . . Volume IV Number 17 . . . . April 24, 1998

Cover Toward a Catalogue of Falling.
Meira Cook.
Vancouver, BC: Brick Books, 1996.
109 pp., paperback, $12.95.
ISBN 0-919626-88-2.
Grades 12 and up / Ages 17 and up.
Review by Willa Walsh.
***1/2 /4

excerpt:

his father that digital man took one litmus look
and beat his son silly taking care in his fine ship captain's fury that the
blows were confined to the hands of the clumsy troublesome unlovely loveless boy
I never wanted you he raged
I never wanted you he hit him only on the hands even his anger precise
the hands of the boy swelled in the night turned
blue by morning the skin was tight with blood tight with blood and dark with
the smell of it and death

This volume is the poet's second published book, and it features a startling, sophisticated repertoire of poems. Recurring themes and metaphors include: falling - whether from a tightrope or in the garden of Eden; musical metaphors - violas and cellos as erotic beings responding to the rhythm and timbre of music - music as sex or sex as music; the Circus of life with its idiosyncrasies and bizarre extremes, the mermaid with her unattainable lover.

The language is rich and sensual and often Dali-like - grouping images in surreal combinations. Precise and memorable expressions abound, their aptness taking the reader's breath away -"rotten as camembert," "sea and sky hinge open," "heavy with sediment," "the colour of consumption." The mermaid section is the highlight of this collection - a story fabulous in imagery, evoking the slicing pain of a sea creature wishing to walk in a forbidden land. There is so much here that the poems need to be read and re-read. Students would need a high level of maturity and sensitivity to fully appreciate the selections.

This title would be a good choice for Creative Writing students at the grade 12 level.

Highly recommended.

Willa Walsh is a high school teacher librarian in Richmond, B.C.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - APRIL 24, 1998.