The Yoni Rocks

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

In this second book in The Shadow Trilogy (the first, The Compass,
appeared in 1993), Stephen Morrissey writes a form of confessional
poetry in which some of the major experiences within his life are
presented and elaborated as representative of more general human
patterns. In The Compass we found poems portraying the breakup of a
marriage, a resultant period of loss and emptiness, and then a series of
love-poems documenting the beginnings of a new relationship.

The Yoni Rocks follows a similar pattern, though the details are less
clear-cut. The second section, “The Heart of the Goddess,” alludes
to an anthropological work with the same title quoted as epigraph, and
the cover—a reproduction of a drawing of the prehistoric statuette
known as the Venus of Willendorf—underscores the relation between a
particular instance and a pervasive human myth.

The plan is ambitious, and the book contains many moments of pathos and
perception. But the ultimate criterion is the quality of the verse, and
here I have to register reservations. Morrissey habitually writes a
short free-verse line generally containing two or three stressed
syllables, as in the following almost-random sample: “I stood in the
kitchen / last evening when you were / upstairs sick in bed, / returned
to the years before / you arrived when I aimed / to escape myself, / the
gestures of hopelessness, / supper on a plate on my knee” The
distinction between prose and verse seems minimal here. One feels that
such writing could go on indefinitely, and most of the poems read much
like this. I miss a poetic and linguistic variety within the book. On
the page, Morrissey’s poems look like those of Bronwen Wallace, and
their personal, intimate tone is similar. But the movement of
Wallace’s poems is tightly controlled, and delicate emotional changes
are embodied within the verse-cadence. We read Wallace for the poetry as
well as for the content; I do not find this in Morrissey. His scope is
admirable, but as yet his reach tends to exceed his grasp.