Straw Cupid

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Straw Cupid is Toronto poet Karen MacCormack’s second book of verse. Her first book, Nothing by Mouth, was published in 1984.

The collection of poems contained in Straw Cupid will appeal to a very limited readership. All the poems are a disjointed collection of words interspersed with occasional images and liberally sprinkled with obscure allusions. Quotations are rampant, especially Proust and Stein, whose works no doubt suggested style to MacCormack, but also to Aphra Behn, first woman to make her living by writing, now read chiefly by literary scholars. Indeed, the allusions and quotations are predominantly literary.

These are intellectual poems, ready to amuse the literary academic who delights in puzzles. Each word of a poem encompasses considerable meaning. Clues for specific meanings are not apparent in the context given by word order, for there is no recognizable order. Each word needs to be puzzled out to discover the whole.

The subject matter is cerebral. There is no attempt to provoke an emotional response. There are no familiar milestones or guides to invite the reader into the depths of the poems. The poems are not cheery; they are not warming; they are not stimulating; they are not musical; they are not fun. They are puzzles which require a monumental effort to solve.

On one page MacCormack says: “The same words are employed by all. It is the inflection or position of any given word that contributes to the meaning the individual or unit intends to convey.” The inflections and positions she has given these words are too obscure to enhance their meanings for most readers.