\s mYevtew KALEIDOSCOPE - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWa tree is rootedor a rock.Many things here hint at a solid, unusualtalent, but much of the collection fails tosatisfy fully, fails to communicate. Manyof the poems come across as experimentalexercises: we progress through the bookassailed by handwritten poems, graphs,concrete poems, drawings, and every kindof avant-garde device, but we never findthe real voice of the poet here, as he castsaround, seduced by experimental gesture.The collection, for all its attempts atgnomic wisdom, leaves me ultimatelybaffled and a little bored as I search forreference points to which I can connectmy own experience. Playing with words,wrenching them around, missing outconnectives, dislocating syntax, does notin itself make language into poetry. Ihope the poet will continue in the directionpointed to by "Cultivated Earth,""From Snow to Snow," "No Frame,""Gat," "In Umbría." He has real talent,but a book this long does not serve himwell at this stage.Still seeking recognizable and tangibleexperience, feeling I can respond to, Iopen Marlene Cookshaw's first collectionand find myself once again in a semisurrealisticworld with few referentialtoe-holds :Let's say you're almost down the alleywhen a man passes you on his way to thegarbage binLet's say, too, that your lover constructsparallel beamsfor both him and you to follow. Youkeep straying to hisAnd the man has in his hand a deadwoodpeckerWhat, really, is this all about? We can,I admit, by working hard enough, tentativelyconjecture some symbolic meaningsin Cookshaw's work, but why shouldwe have to? Why the bafflement? Whythe long sequence of prose-poems, wherethe pseudo-narrative confuses? Much ofthis seems like private experience writtenin semi-private language, and the poet isnot communicating enough because sheis using techniques of obliqueness to hidebehind. She gives away practically nothingwhile pretending it's a lot. Not all islike that, however — there are somehopeful signs in poems like "ZoologicalGarden," "Angling," and "SevenMonths" that Cookshaw will come todeal more openly with the real world.When she allows us in, we can see a verygood poet.Eva Tihanyi lets us further into herpoetry, her world of experience. Theblurb gave me chills — "a range of imageryfrom mythological and romantic totechnological and cosmic" — but it's notthat bad! Here are real people in realplaces having real and clearly expressedexperiences. Blessed relief. But look alittle closer and the "cosmic" comes in,nuzzling at the poet, tempting her tojump too high to find "significance." Wehave "the primal pull of blood," "the truearcanum," "the primitive pliant consciousness,""God's invisible fingers," "thesky's dream" — over-elevated stuff whichis clichéd and pretentious. This showsTihanyi at her worst, but there are realvirtues here as well. When she comesback to earth and writes of people, relationships,laundromats, blueberries, windowblinds, her poetry is accessible andstrong. This is a promising and interestingbook, where we can find shrewdobserved significance in the ordinary.When she realizes that ultra-romanticcosmic imagery is softening her work insteadof giving it strength, Eve Tihanyiwill be a poet to watch :The only reassurance:that somewhere in the small movements,a hand brushing hair off a browor flicking lint from a shoulder,there is a poignant rhythm,a trifling dance of humanityJohn Lent's long, handsome collection189