Sideways

Lydia Forssander-Song is a sessional instructor in the English
Department at Trinity Western University.

Sideways is Heather Haley’s first collection of poems. They are
predominantly about women: mothers, sisters, wives, partners, adolescent
girls, working girls, gangster girls, and victims of abuse. Haley
situates the women in familiar roles in an attempt to garner sympathy
for them. The poems are all highly readable and accessible, since she
uses simple diction (even providing readers with a definition of
“isthmus” in “Maternal Instincts”: “a narrow piece of land
connecting two large bodies of water”), deals in the vernacular
(reproducing the pronunciations of her speakers, such as “Who’d a
thunk?” in “The Haymakers,” “Gangsta Girl” in “Valentine’s
Day,” and “Thar she blows!” in “Junior”), and employs a style
that is more narrative than descriptive.

Most of the poems display a preoccupation with sex and relationships
expressed in a self-deprecating tone. And her Catholic consciousness
shows up in poems like “Where Sins Are More Sinful” and “Working
Girl’s Prayer.” Alternatively, Haley’s Canadian consciousness
appears in poems such as “God’s Country” and “Urban Forest.”
“Stanley Park,” “Long Road,” and “Day-Long Hour on Killarney
Lake Trail” are poems set specifically in the Vancouver area. Apart
from “God’s Country” and “Long Road,” other poems of place
include “The Great Northwest” and “Backroads.” Apart from “The
Great Northwest,” which asks, “Who belongs here / and, who was here
first?,” another poem that exhibits her social consciousness is
“Song of the Shirt,” which is about illegal immigrant seamstresses.
All in all, Haley’s frank, conversational tone engages and welcomes
the reader.