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Witness by Patrick Lane (Harbour $16.95)
Some years ago, when asked how long it took him to build his garden, Patrick Lane replied, "Sixty-two years."; He could well now answer, "Seventy-one years"; to the same question about his new collection of selected poems.
Lane made the selections himself. Readers who are familiar with his work will be happy to see old favourites showcased again. (Yes, for anyone who already knows Lane's work, the severed-hand-tossed-over-the bridge poem is included, as well as the doomed ptarmigans twins and the castrated ram.)
There is nothing that was previously published from the years 2004 to 2010, and there are no poems from some of his previous titles including A Linen Crow (1985) and No Longer Two People (1979).
But we do find some early poems from the sixties, the odd stories from Old Mother (1982), the tough, tight-lipped father/son poems from Mortal Remains (1991) and seven pages of previously unpublished poems.
Patrick Lane was twenty-three years old when his first poems were published. Witness begins with excerpts from Separations (1969). His first identities were nomad, brawler, working class tough. His writing often detours into his hardscrabble childhood.
Subsequent public personas were the traveler, the champion of the Third World poor, the lover. The arc reveals that Lane did not get stuck in any one identity. Nor were previous identities jettisoned. They're all still here but altered in emphasis.
Out of the confused tangle of stories and passions, some threads begin to suggest a patterned life tapestry. There is a shift in the psycho/spirituality that is not just about aging. The traveling mendicant has become a garden Buddha, from brawleresque to Mertonesque.
In 1980 the garden was screaming in "an irrevocable flood of rage."; Thirty years later, the poet on his knees, caresses rare mosses and remembers how afraid he was once. The chaos and helplessness of Wild Birds (1987) has given way to "the crazing time makes. How precious the broken.";
Looking closer at the earlier poems, the reader can detect there were contemplative moments throughout. As in the equilibrium of the Taoist yin/yang symbol, the active and the contemplative lie curled side by side, each one seeing with the eye of the other.
Lane's recent 2010 poems are stunning. He was always a teller of powerful stories but now, in the later poems, the narratives become more covert, more discreet, as in the exquisite still life, The Green Dress (2010) about a woman's choice of dress in which to face a family tragedy.
What My Father Told Me (2010) is not just like some of the painful material Lane has shared before. It belongs at the end of this book because it is different. There was always some gentleness under his bravado. Now it is more open, a compassion for the father who failed him, for the son who failed the father.
What does an accomplished and no-longer-young poet do with his own apparent Lost and Found? As the book's title suggests, he takes on the role of a witness, makes a history of his people and of himself, "whether in pain or in ecstasy."; "Rest, reflect, prepare, listen."; Re-collection can be a monkish task. Lane has paid his dues as a human and a poet. Let him reflect!
That is why he is on his knees cleaning the garden...
It is what the old know,
a slight turning, something
not seen, and reaching back
for what was left behind
on the moss, something fallen,
under the rain.
A new Collected is now slated for the fall. If it contains more new poems such as these in Witness, it will be worth buying even for readers who already own Lane's previous titles.
978-1-55017-550008-0
[BCBW 2011]
Lane made the selections himself. Readers who are familiar with his work will be happy to see old favourites showcased again. (Yes, for anyone who already knows Lane's work, the severed-hand-tossed-over-the bridge poem is included, as well as the doomed ptarmigans twins and the castrated ram.)
There is nothing that was previously published from the years 2004 to 2010, and there are no poems from some of his previous titles including A Linen Crow (1985) and No Longer Two People (1979).
But we do find some early poems from the sixties, the odd stories from Old Mother (1982), the tough, tight-lipped father/son poems from Mortal Remains (1991) and seven pages of previously unpublished poems.
Patrick Lane was twenty-three years old when his first poems were published. Witness begins with excerpts from Separations (1969). His first identities were nomad, brawler, working class tough. His writing often detours into his hardscrabble childhood.
Subsequent public personas were the traveler, the champion of the Third World poor, the lover. The arc reveals that Lane did not get stuck in any one identity. Nor were previous identities jettisoned. They're all still here but altered in emphasis.
Out of the confused tangle of stories and passions, some threads begin to suggest a patterned life tapestry. There is a shift in the psycho/spirituality that is not just about aging. The traveling mendicant has become a garden Buddha, from brawleresque to Mertonesque.
In 1980 the garden was screaming in "an irrevocable flood of rage."; Thirty years later, the poet on his knees, caresses rare mosses and remembers how afraid he was once. The chaos and helplessness of Wild Birds (1987) has given way to "the crazing time makes. How precious the broken.";
Looking closer at the earlier poems, the reader can detect there were contemplative moments throughout. As in the equilibrium of the Taoist yin/yang symbol, the active and the contemplative lie curled side by side, each one seeing with the eye of the other.
Lane's recent 2010 poems are stunning. He was always a teller of powerful stories but now, in the later poems, the narratives become more covert, more discreet, as in the exquisite still life, The Green Dress (2010) about a woman's choice of dress in which to face a family tragedy.
What My Father Told Me (2010) is not just like some of the painful material Lane has shared before. It belongs at the end of this book because it is different. There was always some gentleness under his bravado. Now it is more open, a compassion for the father who failed him, for the son who failed the father.
What does an accomplished and no-longer-young poet do with his own apparent Lost and Found? As the book's title suggests, he takes on the role of a witness, makes a history of his people and of himself, "whether in pain or in ecstasy."; "Rest, reflect, prepare, listen."; Re-collection can be a monkish task. Lane has paid his dues as a human and a poet. Let him reflect!
That is why he is on his knees cleaning the garden...
It is what the old know,
a slight turning, something
not seen, and reaching back
for what was left behind
on the moss, something fallen,
under the rain.
A new Collected is now slated for the fall. If it contains more new poems such as these in Witness, it will be worth buying even for readers who already own Lane's previous titles.
978-1-55017-550008-0
[BCBW 2011]
Submitted on March 4, 2011 in By David.
