Oolichan Books, 2005
Read by Darren Bifford
Stumbling in the Bloom, John Pass’ fifteenth book of poetry in just over thirty years, has the distinction of stealing this year’s Governor General’s award. It also has the distinction of being a long and difficult book. It runs 116 pages, and the poems are governed by unusual syntactical arrangements which, for the most part, avoid the direct pleasure of simple statements. The poems often required me to read them several times, not for increased appreciation but for first comprehension. For instance, “But eager to say / what it was gave my body, tradition, happiness, depth / of field to the moment you’ll appreciate / my difficulty”. I’ll admit I did not as yet appreciate. But this, I told myself, is only the first poem.
Turn the page. The second poem, “nowrite.doc” is in fact an extended poem that has been published separately as a chapbook. The theme of the book is beauty, used as both noun and adjective. It is applied especially in the present instance to flowers and swimming, to unplugging the toilet and watching the spokes of a boy’s bike spinning, as well as to the difficulties and demands it imposes on the poet. So, by the time the speaker asks, “Have I said beautiful?” I felt inclined to answer, or shout, or emote, or whatever, “My god yes! with the emphasis on said.” “Here’s what I mean: “My good fortune, good mood, relatively / privileged and happy life notwithstanding it is first of all that the world / is beautiful [...] I say it over and over without irony and edge.”
I recall with new admiration Ms. Dickinson’s advice to “tell the truth, but on a slant.”
I apologize for beginning with the story of my frustrations, since there is a good deal in this book to admire and enjoy. At best these poems seem to owe something to the open form poetics of the mid-fifties; and at least to my ear, to the terse, syntactically governed rhythms of Creeley. While I don’t pretend that Pass writes with anything of the economy of Creeley, or even shares themes, there seems to be evidence of a connection. In the best poems I sense that Pass’ writing, like Creeley’s, is an open search for form. The result is unusual and varying stanza lengths that are governed in their order by the sounds of words rather than the logic of ideas.
A short review says little. But whether this work beats Babstock or, better, Bachinsky, for one of the top Canadian awards is not a judgement I would venture.
