The Drunken Lovely Bird

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Newfoundland-born poet Sue Sinclair has published her verse in literary
magazines, as well as in her poetry collections Secrets of Weather &
Hope and Mortal Arguments. The Drunken Lovely Bird is her third book.

Sinclair can write with subtle, cultured whimsy. She is not the first
to animate a “Refrigerator” (film director Darren Aronofsky created
one in his film adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel Requiem for a
Dream), but her appliance is not a monstrous tempter. Instead, it is an
“eternal / roommate” that wishes to transcend its role, thinking
“of something besides the lemon / hardening at the bottom / of the
crisper.” This poet is a mature Walt Disney.

“Junkyard” comically updates Greek mythology. When “Icarus revs
his engine, getting ready / to drive over the cliff,” one senses that
mythology will repeat itself. Sublime surreality evokes a setting where
“The seagulls went on / haggling over their spoils, a rusted Chevy /
refused to return her gaze.” An author who turns Icarus into Charlie
Chaplin is allowed a churlish car.

This Atlantic-Canadian writer expertly observes Toronto. In “City
Hall, August,” children are warned “Ne touche pas ... Laisse ca!”
This quotation acknowledges that attraction’s Quebec tourists. Here
social realities are imaginatively revealed. Sinclair can project her
imaginative concerns onto others. The title character in “Jean Rhys to
Her Lover” sees “a girl under a streetlight” and wonders whom she
is going to meet.

Readers may not accept Goose Lane’s assertion that Sinclair is her
generation’s rising star, but may give her a chance to prove it.