The Pearl King and Other Poems

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

Catherine Greenwood’s first volume of poetry is a striking find. The
collection is divided into three sections—The Pearl King, North
Atlantic Drift, and The Abacus That Counts Time.

The opening poem, “Proem: Imitation Is the Sincerest Form,” draws
attention to the often false divides that separate the “authentic”
from the “imitation,” giving a magical and historical feel to the
first section. Greenwood has an amazing vocabulary and she has
researched her subject matter well.

There is significant variation of form, such as in her miniature
screenplay, “Postscript: Pearl Island, a Noh Drama.” Greenwood also
handles prose poetry, the influences of haiku, and the sonnet, such as
in “Pearl Farmer’s Wife”: “When he touches me his hands / smell
of salt, of honeyed bait, // still damp with the work of sowing / flesh.
I accuse him of being / in love with an oyster.” There is something of
Ondaatje’s “The Cinnamon Peeler” here, too, something sensuous,
magically real. The numerous epigraphs that introduce the poems in the
first section are fun, often provocative, and quite beautiful, though
the occasional one is reminiscent of a Hallmark card: “When life hands
you a bitter pill, / swallow a pearl of wisdom.”

After the first section, the second is a bit of a let down. It is not
simply a change in subject matter that disappoints but a loss of the
brilliant control of rhythms that dominates the pearl sequence. Though
the reader should be delighted by “The Stillbirth,” one wonders why
“Baltasound” and “North Atlantic Drift” were chosen to head the
new section. The last poem in the book, “String of Pearls,” returns
the reader to the beginning “bead by glistening bead.”