Short Journey Upriver Toward Ôishida

Stephanie McKenzie is a visiting assistant professor of English at Sir
Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is
the editor and co-publisher of However Blow the Winds: An Anthology of
Poetry and Song from Newfoundland & Labrado

Borson’s 10th book of poetry has six sections: “Summer Grass,”
“Autumn Record,” “Persimmons,” “Water Colour,” “A Bit of
History,” and “Short Journey Upriver Toward Фishida.” The latter
explains Borson’s inspiration: “I’ve read Bashф only in
translation. ... Still ... I come across familiar Chinese characters.
They seem stranded there, as if deposited by some long-since-departed
glacier. But isn’t this the feeling, which arises from poetry, the
ongoing feeling of life itself? Don’t the crows and the carp also have
this feeling?” The volume is devoted to this question.

“Summer Grass,” which contains four poems (hinting at seasons’
cycles), is most reminiscent of Bashф, wavering between a consideration
of language and the natural world: “Dialects of wind, water, /
caesuras in the grass. Rose, meadow, rue, blood-on-thorn / —whose
tapestries delight but do not love us— / why be born? (from the poem
“Summer Grass”). “Autumn Record” is self-conscious interplay
between haiku and prose until Borson infuses the two traditions into
ostensible prose pieces. “Water Colour” is composed of poems that
are individually haiku series.

“Persimmons” (like “A Bit of History” and “Short Journey
Upriver Toward Фishida”) is an extended prose anecdote whose meaning
is metaphorical: “but once the skin begins to turn translucent all
finer judgment must rely on touch.” Though this book embodies
poetry’s passion, it is as if language has also turned translucent:
“For the crane and the cormorant / it’s a place to catch fish. / Try
to meditate here / and you’ll soon be carried off. / The river has no
breath in it but it ripples” (from “Summer River”).

Short Journey Upriver Toward Фishida is not just an exercise in the
tradition of Bashф, it’s a masterpiece.