• Always Now: The Collected Poems, Vol. 3 (The Collected Poems of Margaret Avison) © 2005
• The Porcupine’s Quill
• 220 pages

This is the final volume of Avison’s collection, although two more individual works followed (Momentary Dark and Listening), one before and one following her death in July, 2007. This final volume contains her most mature poetry—her best work.

I loved the increased biblical imagery and themes in these works. It was particularly interesting to read her take on Job (“Job: Word and Action”) from Not Yet But Still. There are many moments in these poems that make a believer pause to meditate.

I found these later poems easier to understand. The obscure vocabulary that riddled her early works has been traded in for more common terms that still find renewed meaning when she places them in lines.

On one hand, it’s sad to know I’ve read that last of Avison. Thankfully, she’s left a canon that can be reread and revisited for years.

• Listening: Last Poems © 2009
• McClelland & Stewart
• 80 pages

Reading Avison is meditation.

From 1960s Winter Sun right through these last poems, Avison understood the world and conveyed its meaning in a language far more powerful than mere prose. These poems bypass intellect (although there’s plenty to think about) and connect with the soul.

Avison had a knack for finding beauty in the city. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in and around her city—Toronto—that I respect her so much. She writes about trees in the city, for example (“Ever Greens”), and they cease to become so much stunted city-ornamentation. They are transfigured in her presence: they are seen for the creation they are.

She knew the Creator, and his Word empowered hers.

• On the Ground: Poems ©2004
• Graywolf Press
• 64 pages

Appreciating poetry is akin to fine wine-tasting or jazz collecting. It can seem like a mystery to the uninitiated, but a consuming passion to the lovers. I’ll be honest: my poetry acumen is woefully inadequate, but I still enjoy reading it. There were times in this book that I knew the words were important—even beautiful—even if I couldn’t explain why.

This is a book that wrestles with the grand topics of life: war, love, and religion. This book deserves to be read out loud. Even when the traditional way of understanding language disintegrates, the cadence feels somehow appropriate.

I’m afraid that’s the best review this poetry rookie can offer for this book. I enjoyed it, even if I’m unsure quite why.

• 100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) © 1995
• Dover Publications
• 101 pages

No one in their right mind would argue the worth of the poems in this volume. If you’re interested in the verse that has shaped our culture, this is a great place to start.

I learned something about myself in reading this book, though—I prefer things in their context.:

• I’d rather listen to a representative album from an artist than a best-of CD.
• I prefer Biblical Theology to Systematic Theology because it allows each author to speak in his own voice.
• I would much rather have read these poems in their original context than ripped from their homes and forced into a best-of list.

This book is great—for a compilation. My next poetry read, though, will be the collected works of Robert Frost.

• A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
  © 1998
• Counterpoint
• 216 pages

This past summer I paddled the Missinaibi River from Missinaibi Lake to Mattice. In the evenings around the campfire, I would read a poem or two from this volume.

Berry’s a farmer from Kentucky, so it might seem odd that his poems felt appropriate in the Northern Ontario wilderness, but that’s what you get with Berry. He is so connected and intimately familiar with his location, his writing transcends that place and becomes universally applicable.

This book is organized chronologically, containing poems written between 1979 and 1997. The poems at the start of the book are profound. By the end of the book, they’re sublime. I’ll leave you with one of his shortest works to whet your appetite.

The seed is in the ground.
Now may we rest in hope
While darkness does it’s work.

• Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation © 2005
• New York: W. W. Norton & Company
• 201 pages

I stumbled across this gem in Petrolia’s own Family Discount Depot. True to the store’s name, the book was marked down to $3.00. After reading it, I believe it’s worth the full list price.

Inside is 1300 years worth of Greek poetry, ranging from 700 B.C. to A.D. 600. Although the chronological range is broad, the works are all tied together by Santos’ masterful translating. The annotations are also particularly useful for understanding the poems. After a few pages in, I started read the annotation first, to deepen the experience.

This collection was especially interesting to me because it provides background to the life of Jesus. A number of poems spoke of the afterlife and the bleak (non)existence that humans were offered. That helped me to realize the radical nature of the eternal life that Paul & co. offered the Romans as the early church spread out.

One particular verse ran through my mind continually as I read this anthology:

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring’. (Acts 17:18, NRSV)

It’s good to have read some of their own poets.