“Some pivot for significance” in the poetry of Margaret Avison

"Some pivot for significance" in the poetry of Margaret Avison JAMES NEUFELD In her otherwise cryptic and mysterious poem "The Mirrored Man" (Winter Sun, p. 71), Margaret Avison articulates clearly one of the major concerns underlying the rest of her poetry. "All of us," she says in the last stanza, "flung in one/Murky parabola,/ Seek out some pivot for significance...." Most of what Avison has puhlished is concerned in some way with this search for a "pivot for significance." Her poetry describes with acute perception the space which man inhabits, whether it be the boundless space of the universe or the bounded space of one's own house and garden. But in either case, space by itself is inimical, or at best neutral to man. In her poetry, then, the human occupation reduces itself to the task of defining space, informing it with meaning, and thus discovernig a "pivot for significance ." For in Avison's universe, the person who succeeds in defining the space around him, whether it be limitless or limited, frequently succeeds in defining himself as well. As a descriptive poet, Avison is without equal in presenting the challenges and limitations of the space confronting mankind; as a Christian poet, she meets those challenges and overcomes those limitations by defining space in human terms and so wresting from it a "pivot for significance." The following paper examines a small selection of her poems in an attempt to outline various aspects of this theme as they appear in her published work to date. In two of her poems, "Geometaphysics" and "Mordent for a Melody," Avison takes the widest possible view and considers man's space as the universe itself. In both cases, her sardonic sense of humour and mordant wit serve to emphasize the fact that the vastness of the universe makes it an uncomfortable place for man. Boundless space Journal of Canadian Studies is terrifying. Physics and astronomy widen man's physical horizons almost inconceivably ; his spiritual horizons must be correspondingly widened if he is to make of boundless space a home. Such is the tenor of Avison's "Geometaphysics ."1 "The earth was once a circlestage ," she begins, and in the first stanza develops the metaphor of the enclosing circle as the defining factor in the theatre of human action. In the past, man stood within the circumference of that circle, pressing always towards its outer bounds. Beyond the circle lay the fearful unknown. Man's position was precarious, but at least he had the advantage of standing upright within a clearly defined circle: And men alive Braved it out upright in a fearful foreground Limned by the glaring footlights of the unknown. The second stanza brings the poem into the present, where the new vision provided by scientific insights into the nature of the universe has turned the "circle-stage" inside out and made of the earth a "bulging ball." The theatrical mystery of the first stanza vanishes, to be replaced by a comic vision of man on the outside of this ball, trying desperately to maintain his stance. And to its sides (right-angles everywhere) We, moving out-thrust, cling, Bound by such posture to absurdity. The thrusting back of the limits of space presents man anew with the challenge of defining space in his own terms. Paradoxically , his stance becomes more absurd, the more he discovers about the nature of the universe he inhabits. But for Avison, there is no returning to the earlier position, upright within the circleStage . Man stands now on the bulging ball, 35 and must learn to define himself in his new position. (It is perhaps relevant to note here that man's position is new only because his vision of himself has changed; Avison's creative vision is at work once again, forcing the reader to re-evaluate familiar things.) Redefinition in this case must come in spiritual rather than in scientific terms. The wider man ranges, the deeper his spiritual quest must go, as Avison points out quite clearly in her last stanza: The callowness of our predicament Will be outgrown when one of us can find Where to locate new heaven and new hell, These that...