Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

Books in Review
and the ignored, is a theme that is introduced
in the title poem when he discovers
to his wrath that the 92-year-old Mr. Fox
has been seated towards the wall lest his
palsy embarrass the other diners. This
theme recurs in various forms, most
notably in "Retreat" wherein an old soldier
finds himself half a century after the war
engaged in a bewildering retreat of a different
sort on the Scarborough strand. But it
is not only the old, and not only men, who
are so treated. A variety of individual characters
are portrayed throughout the collection
with sensitivity and compassion.
Our ties to the past can constrain and
confine us. They can also, subject to the
reshaping and reforming forces of poetic
memory, liberate us into freshly perceived
realities. As the poet notes:
Perhaps I know better now what poetry's
for—
Small words pulling, tugging, trying to
join us,
Words circling round our gatherings and
passings.
Wiseman's "small words" do indeed
accomplish these things. And at their best,
they do more than circle: they clothe the
human experience with the dignity and the
joy it was meant to have, but of which, all
too frequently, it is tragically stripped.
To appreciate the significance of Ralph
Gustafson's Collected Poems Volume III, we
need to place it in the broader context of
his poetic career. In 1987 his Collected
Poems, Volumes I and II were published, a
substantial compilation of his earlier
works. In many cases, such a publication
could have signalled the end of a long and
distinguished poetic career. Yet in that
same year Mr. Gustafson also published
Winter Prophecies about which I noted in a
contemporary review, that whatever else
was indicated by the title, it did not necessarily
prophesy an end to the poetic creativity
of a poet approaching his ninth decade.
Indeed, some half dozen years later, the
present volume brings together poems
from four books published between 1987
and 1992: the aforementioned Winter
Prophecies; The Celestial Corkscrew and
other Strategies; Shadows in the Grass; and
Configurations at Midnight. (His most
recent book of poetry, Tracks in the Snow is
not included.)
The broad scope of Gustafson's learning,
his due sense of history, his artistic consciousness,
are displayed to great advantage
throughout this collection. Gustafson's
powers of synthesis are remarkable, his
poetry reflecting an acute and perceptive
awareness of the significant shaping influences
of western civilization. Art, religion,
literature, and especially music figure
strongly as poetic subjects throughout the
collection, and their intricate interrelatedness
forms the basis for many successful
poems. The relationship between music
and poetry has always been a favorite
theme of Gustafson's; the potency of that
relationship is quite evident in the synesthetic
tones of these lines from
Configurations at Midnight.
Music itself,
A burst of broken light centred
And splayed in a thousand shatterings of
coloured
Vision, impressions on impressions—
Many of his earlier poems, already
reprinted in previous editions, are also here
as well. "Figurations," his witty and
inspired series of portraits of fellow poets,
adapted to their distinctive styles, is happily
included in this edition. Many quotable
gems are here, particularly the concluding
lines on the subject of W. C. Williams'
famous red wheel barrow poem:
I was struck dumb
anything modern
could last
so long
What ultimately holds the entire collection
together is the tremendously powerful yet
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