The Gladys Elegies

Beryl Baigent is a poet; her published collections include Absorbing the
Dark, Hiraeth: In Search of Celtic Origins, Triptych: Virgins, Victims,
Votives, and Mystic Animals.

Barbara Nickel explores family, women’s history, and the spiritual way
in her poetic debut. Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio’s exquisite
Child with Violin graces the cover and draws the reader into the five
long poems that make up the volume.

Part 1, The Gladys Elegies, is a sonnet sequence that presents the
lives of twin girls (Gladys and Marion) who were introduced to society
by an announcement in the New York Times in July 1931. The sisters write
the sonnets to each other, remembering their complementary roles in
fishing expeditions, their mutual feelings about a dominating father who
parted them one summer, and their final separation through death.

Part 2, Fissures, takes its background information from historical
books and from family memories about heroines. Gertrude Benham, who
ascended Mt. Fay in July 1904, was one of the first female mountaineers
in Canada; Maria of Monjou was a 16th-century Anabaptist martyr. Part 3
(Komm, Essen) contains some prose poems and delves deeply into the past
and recent history of a Saskatchewan Mennonite family. The invitation is
to “Come, Eat,” but the meal offered is not always palatable. Part
4, Different Gifts deals with nature, travel, love, and death.

The title poem of the final section, The Rosary Sonatas, draws on the
violin sonatas of Heinrich Biber, a 17th-century Austrian composer. A
sonata consists of three or four complete movements in contrasting
tempos. Nickel’s poems are also presented in this form. The first
sonata uses musical imagery as a metaphor for “The Annunciation,”
while the final one images “The Resurrection.” This poem sequence,
which won The Malahat Review’s long-poem contest in 1995, vividly
embodies Nickel’s keen understanding of classical music awareness.

This is a book for those who want to acquire wisdom as well as enjoy
the music and rhythms of Nickel’s lyrical language. A knowledge of the
intricacies of violin tuning and playing would be an asset to the
reader.