Even the Fawn Has Wings

Roger Nash is a professor of philosophy at Laurentian University and the
author of Night Flying.

Cherie Geauvreau’s first collection of poems encompasses a wide
variety of themes. There are several outstanding poems. “wedding
snapshots” captures, in the thrusting movement of its short phrases,
the energy and physical passion of a young sailor at his wedding.
“straw doll” testifies to the monumental exhaustion one feels when
attending a dying mother—an exhaustion in which one seems
simultaneously both at the beginning and at the end of one’s own life.
“shut your hole” zestfully explores sexual ambiguity, while
“twentysome” celebrates lesbian passion with urgency and gusto.

Less successful is “child of mine,” which fails to convey a
distinct impression of the child, or of what is wondrous in her
“bright split worlds.” Other poems are marred by a similar lack of
clarity. For instance, what connections is the reader to make between a
“tide pool,” a “gas stove,” and an undisclosed “she” in the
poem “icon”? Too many of the poems read like fragments in a private
diary that is intelligible only to the writer. Geauvreau has more to
learn about the small-scale workings of language, on which poetic sense
ultimately depends.