Review
“With its strong lyric voice and simple yet dynamic forms, Loop is a collection that draws you, and draws you in.”
–Quill & Quire
“Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature, and, like the late Bronwen Wallace, are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to.”
–Elm Street
–Quill & Quire
“Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature, and, like the late Bronwen Wallace, are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to.”
–Elm Street
Book Description
By the author of Light Falls Through You and the novel Canterbury Beach
In Loop, Anne Simpson explores the power, and the anguish, of many different modes of return – retrieval, revision, the covering of old ground with eyes wider and thoughts reconditioned by difficult wisdom. These poems occur at that place where a focused, compassionate vision comes to inhabit language and to find the forms that will suffice: a Möbius strip poem that loops back on itself; a crown of sonnets that take us back to the shock and grief of the twin towers and find deep resonance with paintings by Brueghel; a set of quick improvisations like the motion studies done for a drawing class. Simpson’s work shows us, again and again, the insight and excitement that come from the practice of a necessary craft in the service of a committed vision.
In Loop, Anne Simpson explores the power, and the anguish, of many different modes of return – retrieval, revision, the covering of old ground with eyes wider and thoughts reconditioned by difficult wisdom. These poems occur at that place where a focused, compassionate vision comes to inhabit language and to find the forms that will suffice: a Möbius strip poem that loops back on itself; a crown of sonnets that take us back to the shock and grief of the twin towers and find deep resonance with paintings by Brueghel; a set of quick improvisations like the motion studies done for a drawing class. Simpson’s work shows us, again and again, the insight and excitement that come from the practice of a necessary craft in the service of a committed vision.
From the Back Cover
“With its strong lyric voice and simple yet dynamic forms, Loop is a collection that draws you, and draws you in.”
–Quill & Quire
“Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature, and, like the late Bronwen Wallace, are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to.”
–Elm Street
–Quill & Quire
“Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature, and, like the late Bronwen Wallace, are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to.”
–Elm Street
About the Author
Anne Simpson is the author of three books of poetry, Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry; and, most recently, Quick. Her first novel, Canterbury Beach, was shortlisted for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. In 1997 her short story “Dreaming Snow” shared the Journey Prize, and in 1999 she was awarded the Bliss Carman Poetry Award. Simpson lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she helped establish the Writing Centre at St. Francis Xavier University.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A NAME, MANY NAMES
I knew you
long before I saw you,
one thing inside another
making itself up. Lightly,
snow fell, kept falling
the night you were born —
like those prayers tied
to branches by the Japanese —
scissored bits of paper,
each one a word:
a name, many names, loose
in the dark.
Later you’ll need a name
that’s door and window, roof
and bed. You’ll need a name to foil
the thief that comes
to live in your heart. But now
you need a name so diaphanous
and small
it takes its shape from air.
Anne Simpson is the author of three books of poetry, Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; and, most recently, Quick. She is also the author of a novel, Canterbury Beach. She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she helped establish the Writing Centre at St. Francis Xavier University.
A Word about the Poem by Anne Simpson
I wrote “Name, Many Names” after the birth of my first child. Snow was falling that night; it was a delicate, shimmering thing in the darkness. Visiting hours were over at the hospital, and even my husband had gone home. I was half-asleep, thinking about what it is to name a child, and I realized that I wanted my son to have one name for the world, and another name that was not for the world at all, but something else — a hidden name.
I knew you
long before I saw you,
one thing inside another
making itself up. Lightly,
snow fell, kept falling
the night you were born —
like those prayers tied
to branches by the Japanese —
scissored bits of paper,
each one a word:
a name, many names, loose
in the dark.
Later you’ll need a name
that’s door and window, roof
and bed. You’ll need a name to foil
the thief that comes
to live in your heart. But now
you need a name so diaphanous
and small
it takes its shape from air.
Anne Simpson is the author of three books of poetry, Light Falls Through You, winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize; Loop, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; and, most recently, Quick. She is also the author of a novel, Canterbury Beach. She lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she helped establish the Writing Centre at St. Francis Xavier University.
A Word about the Poem by Anne Simpson
I wrote “Name, Many Names” after the birth of my first child. Snow was falling that night; it was a delicate, shimmering thing in the darkness. Visiting hours were over at the hospital, and even my husband had gone home. I was half-asleep, thinking about what it is to name a child, and I realized that I wanted my son to have one name for the world, and another name that was not for the world at all, but something else — a hidden name.
