Go Leaving Strange

Description

117 pages
$16.95
ISBN 1-55017-328-6
DDC C811'.54

Publisher

Year

2004

Contributor

Reviewed by W.J. Keith

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.

Review

Go Leaving Strange is divided into two parts, one titled “After,”
the other “The Addiction Poems.” The poems themselves are clearer
than the titles of either the book or its parts (after what? what
addiction?).

Readers of Patrick Lane’s earlier work will know what to expect:
tough, compulsively readable poems, where the generally harsh and
depressing subject matter is tempered with delicately written evocations
of the world of plants and animals. Sometimes he confines himself to a
bare record of facts without commentary, as in the opening of “Say”:
“I got out of the car and walked into the fog. / She was dead. I felt
what I felt / and there was nothing to say to them / except say, Stay in
the car.” Sometimes he offers general observations about life without
specific details, as in “Forgiveness”: “You try to forgive
yourself but it’s not much use. / It’s been lived and there’s no
way out / except for dying.”

Many of the poems in the first section are written in long, lumbering
lines, each phrase linked by “and,” without any punctuation or
division into separate sentences. This results in a strangely hypnotic
effect. One is impelled to read on—although, by the same token,
one’s responses are ultimately lulled. Lane has abandoned any concern
with poetic form or structure. Individual poems may stop suddenly or go
on and on.

I was impressed by the vividness and directness of much of the writing,
yet at the same time feel uneasy about the prolixity involved. Lane can
clearly write poems about anything and everything with equal
facility—and does. On the one hand, they are never prosaic, never seem
pointless; on the other, they lack (for me, at any rate) that
undefinable yet palpable sense of moulding and making that accompanies
major art.

Citation

Lane, Patrick., “Go Leaving Strange,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed February 15, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/15369.