Hanging Fire

Aпda Warah is a psychologist in Sudbury, Ontario.

One would need more than a third ear to hear Webb’s innumerable voices
and inflections—voices of love and compassion, of rage and contempt,
of helplessness and confusion. No word could have captured this book’s
webs of meanings, images, and motions better than “Hanging Fire.”
The book left me stretched between bliss and fire. Its richness demanded
all my senses and my intuition.

Fire—a raging passion for life—ignites the poems, taking many forms
and intensities. Initially held back and repressed, it soon walks in
“red hot spikes,” pursuing meanings. Later it hangs in the
air—fragments of quartz-firebugs (spendid!). And elsewhere we observe
“mystical fire’s wild mandala orange and gold.” Walking fire,
hanging fire, raging fire. Delight, purification, change.

This book has three sections: “Tour de Force,” “Hanging Fire,”
and “Scattered Effects.” The poems in each section, especially the
last, don’t seem to revolve around common themes. Some themes are well
known, such as the grim side of modern science/life: animal abuse in
research, facelessness, artificiality. In more than one poem, the poet
screams for voiceless lab animals, and quite a few poems are devoted to
special people, such as revolutionaries and strugglers against
oppression. A few less profound pieces, like “Bronwen’s Earrings,”
provide the book with some delightful lightness. Exquisite descriptions
of archetypal états d’вme (e.g., “Unbearable Lightness”) scatter
throughout the book.

Webb freely uses two writing (or breathing) styles. At times her poems
flow graciously and harmoniously (e.g., “Evensong,” “Pepper
Tree,” “Thinking Cap”), but often they have a staccato tone that
leaves one on the edge. Still, I enjoyed most of this book’s 145
poems.