Headstand

Jean Free, a library consultant, was an elementary-school teacher and
librarian in Whitby, Ontario.

Headstand is Malyon’s first published book of poetry, although her
work has appeared in Cross-Canada Writers’ Magazine, Quarry, Poetry
Canada, and other magazines, and a collection of her stories will be
published in 1991. Headstand contains more than 40 poems many of which
were written in response to creative works by Alex Colville, Irving
Layton, or Buddy Holly. Malyon’s poems are personal, sometimes
amusing, and often reminiscent of past events in her life; they
frequently end with an unexpected twist.

Women who have had biopsies for breast cancer will identify with
“Considering Surgery,” in which Malyon movingly recalls her emotions
during a mammogram, visits with a gynecologist, and finally returns to
her family. In “Old Woman’s Pantoum,” she helps the reader
understand what it is like to be elderly and alone in a nursing home.
She writes of memories of her mother’s garden as she views a painting
of a bouquet of irises, and confesses in “There is only one poem”
that “i hide inside my poem / where no one can find me.”

Headstand, with its upside-down world-cover and its elegant, spare
writing, is a memorable book for adult poetry readers. Malyon has
captured brief scenes from very personal, universal experiences and made
her readers feel them as well.