Poetry

70 LETTERS IN CANADA 1992 une in,rraisemtHallce centrale - nous en fin de sans croire que la voix narrative est d'une femme et non d'un comme Ie texte Ie entendre. sur sur de meme pas mal de meurrres concurrenceI' 1a t(He. On sort tres bien. Les RHEA TREGEBOV PO:SSIl:He that 1992 may become a toehold of heart.' Faint Our and now POStrln04:1eJ"n allied with the assertion POETRY 71 this statement by reassuring readers of the Preface to Lyrical Ballads that the is not any man 'a man, it is endowed with more lively sensibility, more and tenderness, who has of human and a more f"I"1o.,.,...,......'.."'n4::.n4:HT;::> UJ.J.,lUU,P;; mankind.' i"1.:>ll"1n,Ii"'1l".¥\ lies notion that petry is somehow """'~."""'J". It has in fad been argued that the governing distinction betw'een and fiction is poetry's affiliation with the an which the ........... ~&Il'-~' and il\f1ection that prose tends to overlook. But while a given may indeed feel like this is a poetic fiction: the illusion of voice is artifice. yet, and yet - when we the ""V'-,"'J."'-~ are we left with? If the poetic persona is a the written word is somehow ""V';;-o;;,\"·At to the body Intuitively, we may use the dard by which we test the naturalness of speech as the stanthe credibility of the voice. And a which its verbal often strikes us as, precisely, artificial. Our discomfort as readers with poetry as mere artifact is perhaps the kernel of what I to call this core that we butt up over and over our 1-'U.,",LoJ.';:;J.~It;J.I~ tionship between the poet's intent the poem's; and the correlating HU.LLU •. UV between, I suppose, author and reader. Erin Moure to the of this essential dox in the (in WSW): A common error confuses narrator & author. The woman at the desk is not the narrator, & doesn't want to be narrated, no permission is given, although she looks a bit like the author when she up & goes "'''''-elI''''''''"'' overshoes in the ele'JaU)i doesn't she Claire Harris is a poet who, like Moure, refuses to let her readers .U'L.... I1I:"_ about with any comfortable assumptions. Harris's U1TI"l"IIO' of genre by news and other apparently sources own brilliant and highly crafted poetry. Drawing Down a 112, $12.95 paper) takes this challenge even further. combination of and weaves a web of narra- 72 LEITERS IN CANADA 1992 a narrative whose witty and titillating deconstructions of our about fiction contradictorily insist both on the of its tale and on the of down the simple, unified 'truth' of any story. It is an Borges would a imbued folk Triniin is never allowed to rest in a fami- 'rational' assessment cause and effect. Harris traces the of Patricia Williams L . . . . ...., .... " ' ... of Patricia is a writer born and raised in who' has many years on the banks of the Bow in The book's complex of of Patricia's and hopes for her child: Jshe catches at trees stones climbs on hands and knees baby stomach she stumbles begins to roll fast to roll at fast earth bounces a man candy gleaming shirt Burri flings his over a shoulder moves his lean easy grace past all the moon in his hands behind him dravving as a are There is a sense preoccupations of the sections; Harris's fixation on the ~n'""",'A"'vl"l in the Croziers ........'M~irr almost exercises in acc:on\pllshed.., but the work in 'The Gardens POETRY 75 Within Us' proves she is capable of much more than mere accomplishment . One u.,...,...... ,.,orc: u,M,Ol"t'U"'" Crozier trimming for apl~n(:aDJleroanoiliernu__ll~HuH~ A~Dm.,jtmU':tl Suite (144, merits, suffers from an irritating prolixity. As in the book is the death of a McFadden's 1TlL'fLIJTTlU,U Suite is dedicated. There an n'I"T.. h~..n poems, a sad, if wry, sense of displacement despite its collection, the to whom these In the which deal specifically with his mother (who remains evoked of the author is...