Books in Canada
Some four centuries after warlike and fur-trading Europeans first contacted the warlike and grease-trading tribes of the area, the enormous Canadian province of British Columbia remains, in the literary sense, strikingly underwritten. BC, and particularly its vast muddy port Vancouver, have survived the province’s lack of key fiction and poems for a long time, and it’s a happy and prosperous, perhaps even post-literary, zone today: a booming brokerage space between Ontarian, Californian, and Asian media empires. You can scarcely find a Lower Mainland pencil-pusher these days who doesn’t aim to write for the movies, for example. And one local weekly’s recent headline about architecture in “The World’s Youngest City” showed, simultaneously, a very Canadian ignorance of actual history and facts, and a very American/New Chinese longing to rush headlong into a lucrative future. In short, Vancouverite and British Columbian culture has never been ideal ground for the growth of great literature in any recognizable mould. But the province’s restless energy has often generated good, and sometime even remarkable writing (bits of Emily Carr; George Bowering; Douglas Coupland; Timothy Taylor and Don Coles, arguably). At the very least, the writer reviewed here suggests that Vancouver’s status as an amnesiac bartertown of history and geography will continue to give us a trickle of pretty superior readables.
More accessible, and perhaps inevitably less startling, than some of the other recently-published small press books, is the young Matt Rader’s first collection of poems, Miraculous Hours. A Vancouverite now, Rader grew up in the less-populated regions of southern Vancouver Island, and is at his best when exploring some of the more forgotten edge lands there, where raw nature collides with small-town (and sometimes national-scale) industry and resource extraction, and the artifacts thereof:
Night oozed through the streets and the chain-link skirt
of the public-works yard, flattered itself
in the owl’s pupil, spilled a thousand thousand silent shrews
onto the forest floor, wretched a muscle of worm
(Context suggests Rader must’ve meant “retched” there.) This is the real and strange British Columbia, where rough-hewn frontage roads lead to ancient middens, and the fringes of every little town are choked with salal, fireweed, and abandoned logging equipment. Among BC poets, perhaps only John Pass has mapped these out-of-the-way territories to any great extent. Rader casts an uneasy eye on this subject matter, serving up neither an environmentalist’s usual stew of rant and lament, nor any condescending canonization of the tough and sometimes wild people who necessarily populate such places:
the old Ford pickup rutting
in the gravel where the road washed out
the previous winter and Pete rolling a joint
in the passenger seat, always so anxious
to meet a bear or cougar, something at least
potentially vicious, out there in the woods
In this macabre poem, “Wolf Lake”, probably the best of this short book, the joyriding kids do, indeed, encounter something vicious. But for Miraculous Hours to rise to the level hinted at by his intelligent choice of material Rader would have required a language a bit livelier than what he seems capable of. Rader is somewhat afflicted by calmness, and too often dawdles along with gerunds when a bit more presentness seems required; mostly, as with a lot of tasteful Canadian poets, you wish he would get upset once in a while. One almost-brilliant poem here, “Last Night on Earth”, hints at something more eruptive in Rader’s talent-“the stars are tied-off dogs frenzied at their stakes,” he writes-but the piece then promptly vanishes in a cloud of “-ings.” Still, probably a good half of Miraculous Hours plays to Rader’s strengths: a keen eye for nature’s hidden and blind machinations; an abundance of that rare poetic skill, knowing when to stop; and that virtue which matters most in fine poets, an evident but unflamboyant work ethic. Still a couple years shy of thirty, Rader’s among the likeliest of his generation to overcome the errors of youth, and craft some of the next decade’s really valuable Canadian poetry.
Lyle Neff (Books in Canada)
More accessible, and perhaps inevitably less startling, than some of the other recently-published small press books, is the young Matt Rader’s first collection of poems, Miraculous Hours. A Vancouverite now, Rader grew up in the less-populated regions of southern Vancouver Island, and is at his best when exploring some of the more forgotten edge lands there, where raw nature collides with small-town (and sometimes national-scale) industry and resource extraction, and the artifacts thereof:
Night oozed through the streets and the chain-link skirt
of the public-works yard, flattered itself
in the owl’s pupil, spilled a thousand thousand silent shrews
onto the forest floor, wretched a muscle of worm
(Context suggests Rader must’ve meant “retched” there.) This is the real and strange British Columbia, where rough-hewn frontage roads lead to ancient middens, and the fringes of every little town are choked with salal, fireweed, and abandoned logging equipment. Among BC poets, perhaps only John Pass has mapped these out-of-the-way territories to any great extent. Rader casts an uneasy eye on this subject matter, serving up neither an environmentalist’s usual stew of rant and lament, nor any condescending canonization of the tough and sometimes wild people who necessarily populate such places:
the old Ford pickup rutting
in the gravel where the road washed out
the previous winter and Pete rolling a joint
in the passenger seat, always so anxious
to meet a bear or cougar, something at least
potentially vicious, out there in the woods
In this macabre poem, “Wolf Lake”, probably the best of this short book, the joyriding kids do, indeed, encounter something vicious. But for Miraculous Hours to rise to the level hinted at by his intelligent choice of material Rader would have required a language a bit livelier than what he seems capable of. Rader is somewhat afflicted by calmness, and too often dawdles along with gerunds when a bit more presentness seems required; mostly, as with a lot of tasteful Canadian poets, you wish he would get upset once in a while. One almost-brilliant poem here, “Last Night on Earth”, hints at something more eruptive in Rader’s talent-“the stars are tied-off dogs frenzied at their stakes,” he writes-but the piece then promptly vanishes in a cloud of “-ings.” Still, probably a good half of Miraculous Hours plays to Rader’s strengths: a keen eye for nature’s hidden and blind machinations; an abundance of that rare poetic skill, knowing when to stop; and that virtue which matters most in fine poets, an evident but unflamboyant work ethic. Still a couple years shy of thirty, Rader’s among the likeliest of his generation to overcome the errors of youth, and craft some of the next decade’s really valuable Canadian poetry.
Lyle Neff (Books in Canada)
Review
Very impressive... Rader has craft to burn and a compelling dark vision of life.
-Zachariah Wells, Quill & Quire
Constructs a series of solid images and then takes them apart to see what makes them tick. It's hard to believe this is Rader's first book... The poet has the ability to see strange things, the quirky unseen details that might be difficult to mention... He documents that continuing sensual edge between the bright light and the burn.
-Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia Straight
These poems are the work of an artist who sees things differently... [and] provide illuminating bursts of insights and recognition. This is brawny, challenging work.
-Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
"What's most striking about Rader's voice is the lack of attitudinizing; the brutal scenes he describes (the accidental crushing of a kitten's throat under a child's heel, a rape, a man hiding a dead body in the forest) are presented with respectful care and integrity, finished in language of high gloss... Rader's speaker possess the fragile lucidity of one who encounters the world in all its violence and beauty."
-Linda Besner, The Dominion
...an environment loaded with both beauty and cruelty, where the unusual interactions between characters shape their perception of the world they live in... Rader's speaker possesses a cold eye, able to accept the world as one filled with both beauty and violence. This impressive debut collection has me looking forward to what the future holds for this talented new poet.
-Greg Santos, PoetryReviews.ca
With Miraculous Hours, Matt Rader has hit the ground running. The poetic voice is confident and for the most part the poems are admirably sure-footed. A kind of calm self-possessedness was the right note to strike. The pieces in this collection are not exactly recollections in tranquility, their often dramatic subjects and content requiring a cool hand at the switch to avoid the slide into melodrama. Rader's control of the language and tone mean that this largely works... In Rader's work, the urban and domestic is as much a wilderness as wilderness is, charged with discovery and danger.
-Karen Solie, Event
This is the real and strange British Columbia, where rough-hewn frontage roads lead to ancient middens, and the fringes of every little town are choked with salal, fireweed, and abandoned logging equipment... Rader casts an uneasy eye on this subject matter, serving up neither an environmentalist's usual stew of rant and lament, nor any condescending canonization of the tough and sometimes wild people who necessarily populate such places... Rader [has] a keen eye for nature's hidden and blind machinations; an abundance of that rare poetic skill, knowing when to stop; and that virtue which matters most in fine poets, an evident but unflamboyant work ethic.
-Lyle Neff, Books In Canada
-Zachariah Wells, Quill & Quire
Constructs a series of solid images and then takes them apart to see what makes them tick. It's hard to believe this is Rader's first book... The poet has the ability to see strange things, the quirky unseen details that might be difficult to mention... He documents that continuing sensual edge between the bright light and the burn.
-Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia Straight
These poems are the work of an artist who sees things differently... [and] provide illuminating bursts of insights and recognition. This is brawny, challenging work.
-Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
"What's most striking about Rader's voice is the lack of attitudinizing; the brutal scenes he describes (the accidental crushing of a kitten's throat under a child's heel, a rape, a man hiding a dead body in the forest) are presented with respectful care and integrity, finished in language of high gloss... Rader's speaker possess the fragile lucidity of one who encounters the world in all its violence and beauty."
-Linda Besner, The Dominion
...an environment loaded with both beauty and cruelty, where the unusual interactions between characters shape their perception of the world they live in... Rader's speaker possesses a cold eye, able to accept the world as one filled with both beauty and violence. This impressive debut collection has me looking forward to what the future holds for this talented new poet.
-Greg Santos, PoetryReviews.ca
With Miraculous Hours, Matt Rader has hit the ground running. The poetic voice is confident and for the most part the poems are admirably sure-footed. A kind of calm self-possessedness was the right note to strike. The pieces in this collection are not exactly recollections in tranquility, their often dramatic subjects and content requiring a cool hand at the switch to avoid the slide into melodrama. Rader's control of the language and tone mean that this largely works... In Rader's work, the urban and domestic is as much a wilderness as wilderness is, charged with discovery and danger.
-Karen Solie, Event
This is the real and strange British Columbia, where rough-hewn frontage roads lead to ancient middens, and the fringes of every little town are choked with salal, fireweed, and abandoned logging equipment... Rader casts an uneasy eye on this subject matter, serving up neither an environmentalist's usual stew of rant and lament, nor any condescending canonization of the tough and sometimes wild people who necessarily populate such places... Rader [has] a keen eye for nature's hidden and blind machinations; an abundance of that rare poetic skill, knowing when to stop; and that virtue which matters most in fine poets, an evident but unflamboyant work ethic.
-Lyle Neff, Books In Canada
Product Description
NOMINATED FOR THE 2006 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD
Matt Rader's debut collection is the fierce and tender retelling of our first "miraculous hours"--those early significant-and-strange interactions with the ones we love and the world we live in. From a world where wild dogs slide like ghosts into homes, water towers are "giant blue bullets unexploded in the earth" and walls are tortured to talk, Matt Rader forms a meticulously crafted reflection on how the events, experiences and environment of our early lives shape our sense of faith, our strongest convictions, and the map of the world we carry with us.
Matt Rader's debut collection is the fierce and tender retelling of our first "miraculous hours"--those early significant-and-strange interactions with the ones we love and the world we live in. From a world where wild dogs slide like ghosts into homes, water towers are "giant blue bullets unexploded in the earth" and walls are tortured to talk, Matt Rader forms a meticulously crafted reflection on how the events, experiences and environment of our early lives shape our sense of faith, our strongest convictions, and the map of the world we carry with us.
About the Author
Matt Rader is the author of two books of poems: Miraculous Hours (2005) and Living Things (2008). His poems, stories, and non-fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies across North America, Australia, and Europe and have been nominated for numerous awards including the Gerald Lampert Award, the Journey Prize, and two Pushcart Prizes. His website is www.mattrader.com.
