Issue 152 Is Online!

search index
of all issues

Search This Site Enter word(s) to search for:

The merging of art and poetry has always been a popular technique. The advent of photography heightened this trend, making it easier to bond written and visual art together. These books each attempt to work those two mediums together; but where Trower works in harmony with the late Jack Wise's masterful artwork, Gripp fails to use the word and the photo to his advantage.

Peter Trower spent twenty years as a logger before turning to the pen for salvation. Nine books of poetry and three novels later he puts forth a manuscript of new and previously published poems that contrast starkly with Wise's fabulous black and white ink drawings. Upon first glance, Wise's art could fit nicely onto the cover of a Grateful Dead or Big Brother and the Holding Company record jacket. When examining them more closely, there is a complexity within the drawings that reminds me of William Blake's engravings; an attention to detail that has the power to keep your attention for a long, long time. Trower's writing is much like that - on the surface it seems too simple, but once you get beneath the words there is a subtle richness that is difficult to describe with a handful of Roget's adjectives.

Trower separates his book into three sections: "Roots, "Coastlines" and Inklings." "Roots" is not only a section of poems of Trower's past, but also of deep introspection. "Coastlines" explores the clash between Nature and Life, a voyeur's glimpse into postcard fragments of the narrator's life. "Inklings" takes those first two sections and brings them together with a taste of philosophy, a pinch of suburbia, and a dash of disillusionment.

In Trower's introductory poem, "Upwind From Yesterday," he writes, "These are my passage-rites my poems / I pass them to you come what may / I offer no apologies no excuses / They are only residual echoes I have sifted / upwind from yesterday" (p. 11). This is a statement that reflects the honesty his poems emit, as he passes through moments in his life, pausing with a need to share them, "for I / have been struck by lightning / have felt / the sledgehammer force of it / have tasted / its life-cancelling power and I know / the sabres that slash from the clouds / play no favourites" (p. 20).

Trower has his demons, many of which come forth in his poetry; for with honesty, emotion will follow. In "Little Red Schoolhouse" he laments, "I wish all my ogres / had thrown in the towel / as easily as you" (p. 22). Later, of fading love, he writes, "Nothing dies quicker than heady delusion - / it flames on blue days then falls away / I watch wet laundry dance in the wind / I drink red bloody wine and think of you" (p. 97). Trower isn't secluded in sadness, however, sharing whimsy and fantasy as well, both the figurative in "Writer's Block on Soames Hill" ("I clasp you when I can / kiss you when we clasp my / soft girl of strangeness / whose defenses melt easily /to the proper heat" (p. 54)) and the abstract in "Two Figments in January" ("On a day half-fancy half fact / we rock in a flat-bottomed boat / into the shivering earth's-end mist / where time is frozen and no birds weave" (p. 56)).

Much of Trower's writing also reflects on poetry, the poet, and the act of writing. In his final two poems, facing each other, and perhaps facing off against each other, he puts writer against writing. In "Through the Apricot Air," Trower describes the poet, among other things, as "a brief mad seer in a sea of bottomless mysteries" (p. 120). His final poem, "The Pause" puts forth four eight-line rhyming stanzas, a summation of the musing he has proffered throughout the book. He begins with "Cessation rules a kingdom of the halted / between a moment and its beating sequel -", traversing a moment of thought; the seconds elapsing during the birth of an idea, culminating with "The universe resumes its dream of process / to flicker on until the next decision" (p. 121). This poem emulates the reading of the book; a series of introspective pauses, offset with frozen visual landscapes that echo the poems. When the poems are finished, the universe continues, while we await another series.

It is perhaps unfair to contrast Andreas Gripp's book of poems with Peter Trower's. The level of intensity is missing; the title alone, Captain Fascist and the Plastic Storm Troopers, displays a potential for sharp wit and satire; a sense that is reflected in many of the poem titles such as "Ted the Bastard Sticks it to the Man," "Mary-Grace, Canonized at 16 Years of Age" "A Zen-Garden is no place for someone to be in love," "Jill hit her head on the sidewalk," and "Dimitri the Putz, as told by his Inner Voices." These titles, and others, gave me the impression that this book would contain a funny, and rather warped, look at life, society, and other deep topics. A broken mirror reflection of Peter Trower's book, if you will. Unfortunately, the book fell flat; the humour all but ends with the title and cover photos. This book ends up as a poetic mimicry of the same protester culture that kill more trees through their 'Save the Earth' pamphlets than they save.

I think that perhaps Gripp was overly ambitious, attempting to be too clever at times when understatement would have worked more to his favour. But there are still moments where that potential shines through, such as the last stanza of "Mary-Grace, Canonized at 16 Years of Age": "And then there are nights / when you think that diving off a bridge / doesn't lead to death / but is a positive thing to do, / stretching your arms out / as if to hug the world, / walking on air like you're some kind / of god, and you would be, / if only we'd give you a chance / to prove it." (p. 19). Other moments make it difficult to tell whether he's satirizing his characters, or championing them: "And Ted shoves his middle finger / in the teller's face, / swearing at corporate rip-offs / and saying he doesn't need cable / or hydro or a touch-tone line / and the bank can pay the bills / themselves" (p. 5).

Gripp also includes a handful of photographs, most taken by him. The majority of the photos appear to have only a thin connection to the text, if any at all. The photos, like many of the poems, are too obvious to be properly appreciated; he deals with many trendy topics (urban waste, political repression, the suffering of the common man, etc.) but doesn't seem to have anything new to say in that regard. "And the newsman said the sky was falling, / that another angry nation had made the bomb, / that the earth had shook in varied places / and the poor continued to starve, / liars continued to lie, / the wicked stayed wicked / and a little girl from Jersey was raped and killed today, / visions of sweet red licorice and a knight in shining armor / laid waste by twisted, choking hands / that never once eased up / amid the cries of no and help" (p. 46). Words such as these ruin good intent with cliché and a preaching voice. When I read these poems, I feel that they are words that Gripp feels the audience expects to hear, not words from his true voice. When I encounter a poem such as "Barrett Browning's Atomic Saturday," one of the highlights of the book, it makes me lament that there weren't more of these words and fewer of the self-righteous ones: "Run outside and have a look: / They sit and wait for you, / below the soaring trunks of maplewood / and the outgrown limbs of wet green leaves / that saved the rains for inspiration, / spits of cool tear drops / that miss your head by inches, / enough to make you aware / that cherubs watch and mourn as you / and fancy something better." (p. 73).