Whatever It Is Plants Dream

Laurence Steven is Chairman of the English Department at Laurentian
University and author of Dissociation and Wholeness in Patrick White’s
Fiction.

This collection of object poems is based on the relationship between the
physical characteristics of plants and their names. Stevenson examines
50 plants, creating free-verse and conventional poems that attempt to
“read the braille of stem and leaf.”

It is the imagery in this collection that is Stevenson’s strength. In
poems such as “Panda Plant” and “Venus Flytrap,” the images are
the strongest: for example, the panda plant “has leaves as soft / as
crushed velvet upholstery,” whereas the head of the venus flytrap
recalls the “mascaraed lashes / of the plump whores of Italian
movies.” His best moments come from images evoked by the appearance of
each plant: aloe vera as “Fan-tailed birds, / heads stuck in sand,”
or Boston fern as “an ostrich-plumed hat from a forgotten century.”
His range is extensive. In “Carrion Flower” he develops morbid
images: “Smell of rotting meat, / bloating corpses attractive to
blowflies that pollinate their mottled kind.” Moth orchids, at the
other extreme, are “White disks of unleavened bread,” and in
“English Ivy” the words curl leisurely down the page, as the plant
might. In “Busy Lizzie” and “Lipstick Plant” his images are
distinctly not of the “garden” variety. He is in fact often
graphically sexually explicit, generating instant respect for his
honesty. Stevenson writes exactly what he thinks and feels about the
origins of the names of plants. He does not compromise his images by
limiting them to mere sexual undertone or innuendo.

It is evident that Stevenson has given much thought to these poems, and
has researched the Latin roots of their names to ensure plausible
descriptions based on the morphology of the plants. His images strive to
capture the characteristics that may be the bases of the plants’
names.

Whatever It Is Plants Dream is an intelligent view of an original
subject. The collection is interesting, innovative, refreshing, and
direct without being pessimistic or sentimental.