- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Signature Editions (Oct 1 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0921833857
- ISBN-13: 978-0921833857
- Product Dimensions: 15.6 x 22.6 x 0.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 177 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,936,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Carolyn Marie Souaid has published two earlier volumes, and has already been a fixture on short-lists for various awards. Her work is praised by eminent poets, one of whom describes her as "the compleat poet". To my mind her work is undernourished, and her sense of the poetic line almost non-existent. The book's banality is evident from the blurb: "Weary of her humdrum existence, a woman packs up and heads for Arctic Quebec, where she hopes to find a new lease on life teaching native children. She soon discovers, however, that the Inuit have far more to teach her than she them, as she slowly learns that each day on this earth is a rich sensory experience, not merely to be lived but savored." Even if Souaid did not write this kitsch, she accepted it as a description of her poetry, and it is not far off the mark. She writes in "The Elder":
"Study her carefully: old brown woman in mukluks
and mismatched clothes embellishing the days
with colourful yarn.
See how her hand pushes back tired wisps
of hair from her face, how she positions
the large rusty blades of her scissors
on either side of the thread,
checking and double-checking her work
before making the next snip. See how her eyes
cloud over
when she remembers she is doing it all for money
–another artifact for another white tourist."
Souaid goes on to ask, "If this is her story, / how can I tell it?" My objection here is not on the grounds of cultural appropriation, which she is careful to address, but on the grounds that, step by step, the poetry is highly predictable. There are a few poems that rise above this standard, sometimes owing to surprising, even shocking, narrative elements. "Powerhouse", for example describes a knife-packing 6-foot-4 drunk demanding sex after Hockey Night in Canada; he ends the evening in tears, laughter, and farts. Seven years later he takes a .22 and ‘blows the ocean through his ears.' The grotesque violence quite convincingly gives way to pity. "Artifacts", "Elisapie", "Survival", "Blind Spot", and "Stonecarver" all possess the merit of delicate and poignant utterance, but they do not typify the collection.
Richard Greene (Books in Canada)
-- Books in Canada
"Study her carefully: old brown woman in mukluks
and mismatched clothes embellishing the days
with colourful yarn.
See how her hand pushes back tired wisps
of hair from her face, how she positions
the large rusty blades of her scissors
on either side of the thread,
checking and double-checking her work
before making the next snip. See how her eyes
cloud over
when she remembers she is doing it all for money
–another artifact for another white tourist."
Souaid goes on to ask, "If this is her story, / how can I tell it?" My objection here is not on the grounds of cultural appropriation, which she is careful to address, but on the grounds that, step by step, the poetry is highly predictable. There are a few poems that rise above this standard, sometimes owing to surprising, even shocking, narrative elements. "Powerhouse", for example describes a knife-packing 6-foot-4 drunk demanding sex after Hockey Night in Canada; he ends the evening in tears, laughter, and farts. Seven years later he takes a .22 and ‘blows the ocean through his ears.' The grotesque violence quite convincingly gives way to pity. "Artifacts", "Elisapie", "Survival", "Blind Spot", and "Stonecarver" all possess the merit of delicate and poignant utterance, but they do not typify the collection.
Richard Greene (Books in Canada)
-- Books in Canada
Book Description
Weary of her humdrum existence, a woman packs up and heads for Arctic Quebec, where she hopes to find a new lease on life teaching native children. She quickly discovers, however, that the Inuit have far more to teach her than she, them, as she slowly learns that each day on this earth is a rich sensory experience, not merely to be lived, but savoured. Loosely based on the author’s own three-year experience in settlements along the Hudson-Ungava coast, Snow Formations takes a realistic look at the modern Inuit world through post-industrial eyes, always walking the fine line between idealism and cynicism, hope and despair. Steeped in contradiction, this is Canada’s North with all its trappings: igloos and pool halls, raw meat and radio, dogsleds and diapers. The North may be great and white, but it is not always pretty. Snow Formations began as a thirteen-minute commission for the CBC Radio series "Home and Away," featuring new work by five Canadian poets writing from a cross-cultural perspective.
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