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At the River’s Mouth: Writing Migrations
by Rachelle Stein-Wotten
Sometimes there is a place that each of us has a certain affinity towards. It may give us warmth or make us feel safe and secure. Often times it's inexplicable why this one location makes us feel the way we do. It may make us feel like we're part of something bigger and that we have a purpose. Perhaps it's somewhere we no longer feel lost and alone. Whatever the reason, it is a place where we feel we've come home.
Daphne Marlatt has found such a place for herself. She discovered the village of Steveston in the early 1970s as a young poet. Marlatt was honored last year as the Ralph Gustafson Chair of Poetry, right here at Vancouver Island University. Her subsequent lecture, At the River's Mouth: Writing Migrations, was published this year by the Institute for Coastal Research (ICR).
ICR is an interdisciplinary research organization bringing together scholars and students from many disciplines to focus on coastal issues. The institute promotes and stimulates research and education at VIU and partner organizations that will assist in realizing their goals.
The book is small and beautifully crafted. The colour and feel of the pages and book jacket bring out a tangibility to Marlatt's descriptions of the fishing village, Steveston, located in the Fraser Valley. Her lecture, as the title suggests, is about her frequent visits-her migrations-to Steveston over the decades.
"I have heard a call, much as wild geese are called southward or northward by changing seasonal cycles,"; she says of her continuous returns to the once booming cannery town.
Marlatt's style is a unique combination of poetry and history. She takes her interviews with the people of Steveston, such as the Japanese fishermen, and weaves them into her poems. The end result falls along the lines of journalistic storytelling.
Marlatt makes a unique connection in her poems between the way we brazenly use words without thinking about their true meaning and worth, and how we view and treat the natural world in the same manner. Not many of us would often make that kind of connection between etymology and biology.
The nature of change and the change in nature are other areas Marlatt touches on. Althogh she mainly speaks of Steveston in her work, she uses the small village to speak of the world at large-it is a microcosm of the non-stop flux in every part of life and the environment. She speaks of how nature is independent of humans and how it never ceases to continue, regardless of where humans may be, an idea that is echoed by others in both the creative and scientific fields.
One of the most fascinating elements of Marlatt's Steveston works is how they have trascended multiple mediums. Of course there are the numerous books of poetry she has authored, but the first Steveston book was an oral history. There is also a radio play based on the poems and oral history, and a CD released a few years back. Perhaps the most astonishing recreation is a Noh play started back in 2002. Noh is a highly stylized form of Japanese theatre dating back to the fourteenth century.
In all these efforts, Marlatt has collaborated with numerous people. She speaks of how these collaborations are the driving force behind the multiple forms of Steveston. It's a great gift to the public and speaks of how strong her voice is and how her poems can say so much to so many different people.
[October 2009]
Sometimes there is a place that each of us has a certain affinity towards. It may give us warmth or make us feel safe and secure. Often times it's inexplicable why this one location makes us feel the way we do. It may make us feel like we're part of something bigger and that we have a purpose. Perhaps it's somewhere we no longer feel lost and alone. Whatever the reason, it is a place where we feel we've come home.
Daphne Marlatt has found such a place for herself. She discovered the village of Steveston in the early 1970s as a young poet. Marlatt was honored last year as the Ralph Gustafson Chair of Poetry, right here at Vancouver Island University. Her subsequent lecture, At the River's Mouth: Writing Migrations, was published this year by the Institute for Coastal Research (ICR).
ICR is an interdisciplinary research organization bringing together scholars and students from many disciplines to focus on coastal issues. The institute promotes and stimulates research and education at VIU and partner organizations that will assist in realizing their goals.
The book is small and beautifully crafted. The colour and feel of the pages and book jacket bring out a tangibility to Marlatt's descriptions of the fishing village, Steveston, located in the Fraser Valley. Her lecture, as the title suggests, is about her frequent visits-her migrations-to Steveston over the decades.
"I have heard a call, much as wild geese are called southward or northward by changing seasonal cycles,"; she says of her continuous returns to the once booming cannery town.
Marlatt's style is a unique combination of poetry and history. She takes her interviews with the people of Steveston, such as the Japanese fishermen, and weaves them into her poems. The end result falls along the lines of journalistic storytelling.
Marlatt makes a unique connection in her poems between the way we brazenly use words without thinking about their true meaning and worth, and how we view and treat the natural world in the same manner. Not many of us would often make that kind of connection between etymology and biology.
The nature of change and the change in nature are other areas Marlatt touches on. Althogh she mainly speaks of Steveston in her work, she uses the small village to speak of the world at large-it is a microcosm of the non-stop flux in every part of life and the environment. She speaks of how nature is independent of humans and how it never ceases to continue, regardless of where humans may be, an idea that is echoed by others in both the creative and scientific fields.
One of the most fascinating elements of Marlatt's Steveston works is how they have trascended multiple mediums. Of course there are the numerous books of poetry she has authored, but the first Steveston book was an oral history. There is also a radio play based on the poems and oral history, and a CD released a few years back. Perhaps the most astonishing recreation is a Noh play started back in 2002. Noh is a highly stylized form of Japanese theatre dating back to the fourteenth century.
In all these efforts, Marlatt has collaborated with numerous people. She speaks of how these collaborations are the driving force behind the multiple forms of Steveston. It's a great gift to the public and speaks of how strong her voice is and how her poems can say so much to so many different people.
[October 2009]
Submitted on January 5, 2012 in By David.
