Partnered with the Sun

David E. Kemp is head of the Drama Department at Queen’s University.

Born in Moncton, N.B., Pope has spent most of her life in the small
towns and countryside of Nova Scotia. The fact that she is a paint and
fabric artist, whose work has been exhibited in Halifax, Toronto, and
Vancouver, is immediately apparent in her disciplined and tightly
crafted poems and her almost unnerving visual sense. Her work concerns
itself with the power of natural forces and their cycles, the
distinctive acts of the earth’s creatures, and the struggles of
individuals.

Section 1 of this collection (“Planetary Dance”) deals with the
natural world: flowers cry to the sun for heat, spiders examine their
webs, a bird sings to a cat, a bee dances, a silkworm spins a cocoon,
and, more fancifully, the phoenix enters the flames. Through these
mainly natural occurrences, we examine our own existence and find new
facets of meaning.

Section 2 (“The Frozen Moment”) contains the collection’s most
disciplined and economical work. Through single-image poems, similar to
Japanese haiku, Pope catches intense moments of loneliness, splendor,
and wonder within this most rigorous structure of work and form.

For this reviewer, however, the most impressive section is the third
(“The Heart Laid Bare”), in which the poet celebrates the
individual’s quest and the experience of planetary wholeness. There
are strong classical allusions to such figure as Artemis and Persephone,
and a delightful duet of poems featuring Héloпse and Abelard. My own
particular favorites in this section deal with a snowman and the cartoon
character Mr. Magoo.

These poems allow witches, birds, snowmen, and stones voices of their
own; they are accessible, thought-provoking, and self-revealing—a
delight to read.