Spending the year with new(ish) books by friends, locals, and other Canadian poets old and new. Follow along daily on Instagram.

After taking June off to get the garden going (fat lot of good that did with the absolute deluge we’ve experienced over the past few weeks) and then dealing with a flooded basement as a result of that rain, I’m back this week with the first book from Edmonton’s Kim Mannix, ‘confirm humanity.’

I feel a huge affinity for this book because it essentially deals with the same two big themes my first book did: death and birth, the death of parents and the birth of children. Her poems are coloured by a different landscape, a childhood on the prairies, and there are of course the differences of gender, but the themes, the beats, the taste of memory is all there.

Kim’s unique approach to this poetry is best illustrated by ‘Fine China’ which I featured on Tuesday. The piece is book-ended with explicit statements of the ways into and our of the poem. A common exercise in creative writing classes is to examine and discuss how a reader “gets into” a particular poem. In order for a reader to resonate with a poem, there needs to be something to resonate with. What is less discussed is how a reader “gets out” of a poem – at least it is not usually described in those terms, in terms of entry and egress, of doors. One always wants to end a poem strongly, with a surprising image, or an unexpected hook. But terming it as a way out is an approach I had not encountered before. It gave me the chance to consider endings as exits in a way I hadn’t before. Which brings us back to our themes of death and birth, beginnings and endings. Doors.

Your homework this week is to track down a copy of this book and spend some time with the poem ‘On Doomsday and Blue Jays.’ Yes, go ahead and make the joke about how the Toronto baseball team is doing this year, I’ll wait. Seriously though, what is up with their pitching? And where did Vladdy’s bat go? After that, go through this poem a couple of times. Pay attention to how Kim invites you into a conversation on her doorstep. Do not be surprised though when she gently, but firmly, closes that door, suggesting you go home and examine your life choices.

I’ll end this micro-review by telling you that Kim’s poems about parenting are particularly strong though there aren’t enough of them. Kim, give us more. I am looking forward to your next book!

This is what has been driving my creativity this week: watching that blue jay jeering in the evergreen.