Based on Salt Spring Island, Gane wrote a collection of poems, Even the Slightest Touch Thunders on My Skin (Black Moss, 2002) about her experiences in the early 1990s when her fiancé was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, dying nine months later during a bone marrow operation in New York City. Selections from this collection were shortlisted for the Canadian Literary Awards in 1997 and the League of Poets chapbook contest.

Gane also published The Way the Light Enters (Black Moss, 2014) and The Blue Halo (Black Moss, 2014), in addition to three other chapbooks (Earthlight, The Phantom Orchid, and Beauty and Beyond: Songs of Small Mercies).

In 2020, Gane released Arc of Light (Raven Chapbooks $20), an elegy to her mother.

Arc of Light by Lorraine Gane (Raven Chapbooks $20)

They say I don’t have long to live,” Lorraine Gane’s mother tells her in the poem Death Dream.

“What can you say to the voice of death,” Gane wonders, which is answered with “I love you and a hug,” before her mother “sits down to cereal, milk, and her seven morning pills.”

Gane’s collection of poems, Arc of Light, an elegy to her mother, are bound together in an exquisitely produced chapbook by Salt Spring Island-based Raven Chapbooks. At times emotive, Gane’s writing is elegantly minimal and brutally honest.

We learn that Gane’s mother came to Canada as a poor émigré from Eastern Europe in The Girl from Poland. “Despite the strangeness of it all, you were happy,” writes Gane. When her mother comes of age, she marries at 23 and hides the “little girl” inside her heart along with “all her hopes that blossomed and withered there.”

Often, end-of-life stories include bad health—in this case a stroke. While visiting her mother in the hospital, Gane is alarmed when Mary points at the window and says, “Look at that reindeer.” At first Gane doesn’t see the reindeer. Then, Gane bends down so that her face is next to her mother’s and sees etched in the glass, “a small figure with antlers flying into the light blue sky.” Her mother is relieved that Gane can also see the figure. “I’m glad, you say. I didn’t want you to think I was seeing things,” writes Gane of her mother’s response.

Back and forth between home and the hospital, Gane engages with her mother. Some of these moments are set against metaphors of animals as in The White Heron in which Gane watches a heron and its hatchling “lift off together” and “vanish into the blue air.”
Gane describes her mother’s last breath: “a final wisp of air that disappears into the silence she becomes.”

The last poem, which gives the book its title, is about a photo of her dead mother’s body in a bed over which Gane sees a white arc floating above. “Yesterday I looked at the photo again five years after her death,” writes Gane. “The arc was still floating above her—all softness and light.” 978-0-9734408-4-3 [BCBW 2021]

BOOKS

Arc of Light (Raven Chapbooks, 2020) $20 978-0-9734408-4-3

The Way the Light Enters (Black Moss, 2014)

The Blue Halo (Black Moss, 2014)

Even the Slightest Touch Thunders on My Skin (Black Moss, 2002) 0-88753-366-3

[BCBW 2020] "Health" "Poetry"

REVIEW


BC BookWorld, SPRING 2021

Arc of Light by Lorraine Gane (Raven Chapbooks $20)

"They say I don't have long to live," Lorraine Gane's mother tells her in the poem Death Dream about the start of a long conversation her mother, Mary begins near the end of her life.

"What can you say to the voice of death," Gane wonders, which is answered with "I love you and a hug," before her mother "sits down to cereal, milk, and her seven morning pills."

Gane's collection of poems, Arc of Light, an elegy to her mother, is bound together in an exquisitely produced chapbook by Salt Spring Island-based Raven Chapbooks. At times emotive, Gane's writing is elegantly minimal and brutally honest.

We learn that Gane's mother came to Canada as a poor emigre from Eastern Europe in The Girl from Poland. "Despite the strangeness of it all, you were happy," writes Gane. When her mother comes of age, she marries at 23 and hides the "little girl" inside her heart along with "all her hopes that blossomed and withered there."

Inevitably, end-of-life stories include bad health -- in this case a stroke. While visiting her mother in the hospital, Gane is alarmed when Mary points at the window and says, "Look at that reindeer." At first Gane doesn't see the reindeer. Then, Gane bends down so that her face is next to her mother's and sees etched in the glass, "a small figure with antlers flying into the light blue sky." Her mother is relieved that Gane can also see the figure. "I'm glad, you say. I didn't want you to think I was seeing things," writes Gane of her mother's response.

Back and forth between home and the hospital, Gane engages with her mother. Some of these moments are set against metaphors of animals as in The White Heron in which Gane watches a heron and its hatchling "lift off together" and "vanish into the blue air."

Gane describes her mother's last breath: "a final wisp of air that disappears into the silence she becomes."

The final poem, which gives the book its title, is about a photo of her dead mother's body in a bed over which Gane sees a white arc floating above. "Yesterday I looked at the photo again five years after her death," writes Gane. "The arc was still floating above her -- all softness and light."