The Field Next to Love

Allison Sivak is a librarian in the Science and Technology Library at
the University of Alberta.

Marilyn Gear Pilling grew up on a farm and depicts farm life as it was
in the mid-20th century. It follows, then, that many of these poems are
also about memory, history, and family. The author appears to be working
toward an artistic reconciliation of sorts, with the past and with
individual family members; several poems concern the poet’s difficult
relationship with her father: “there was not one thing right about you
/ [...] / I spoke to you as she did / like the serf in the history book,
foot / upraised who had nothing to kick but his dog.” The poet hints
at the difficulty of such a process in “The Field Next to Love”:
“[...] She was blood, she was kin, / she was above all / familiar, and
in me, familiar occupies the field / next to love.” Pilling has a
subtle turn of phrase and light touch that make the poems a pleasure to
read.

The author does not completely avoid nostalgia for rural life—for
example, writing a tribute to the house dumbwaiter. Another poem,
“Journey” (selected for broadcast on CBC Radio), is a lovely
depiction of the evening walk taken by a brother and sister to transport
the milk from barn to house. The language in the piece is highly
evocative and incorporates all the senses: “[...] they walk the line
between day / and night, the cattle dark shapes against last light /
scatter of grasshoppers, tremolo of / crickets, vibrato honk of a frog /
just as they cross the log bridge, / [...] / flavour of creek, black
muck / and wild mint, rail fence / slippery wet against bare legs.”

Several poems explore the danger and mystery of both childhood and farm
life, covering subjects as diverse as bulls, parents, wringer washing
machines, and the fear of falling into the outhouse hole: “below, the
feral pull / of that world.” Pilling has written a funny, strange, and
moving book.