Insular Position

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

This, Whitter’s first book, is a series of connected poems that
follows the turbulent rise, climax, and fall of a co-dependent
relationship between a drug-addicted man and the woman who loves him, as
seen through her “insular position.” It is a very personal and
intimate collection of contemporary poetry. Whitter uses shape poems and
free verse to emphasize the intensity of the emotions of co-dependency
that she explores: “i wake / carrying your smell / between my hands /
like fire.” She also weaves into her collection two passages by Kahlil
Gibran, carrying his message of redemption through love. However, the
result is a sad story whose uncommon experiences are at times very
difficult to relate to. It succeeds more as a warning of the dangers of
life in the fast lane of drugs and alcohol than as a connected series of
poems.

The book centres on the difficulties encountered when the co-dependency
turns negative. The woman struggles to accept the brutal reality of her
lover’s drug addiction, and their lives become so intertwined that she
cannot separate herself from him when bad turns to worse. She is
ultimately left alone, when he is finally imprisoned. In a cover note,
freelance editor Maria Downie calls attention to the “graphic and
brutally honest” quality of Whitter’s work. Whitter is clearly
disclosing herself (despite the title), but perhaps more for personal
therapy than for the enlightenment of her readers.