The Trees Just Moved into a Season of Other Shapes

Mary Jane Starr was with the National Library of Canada in Ottawa.

This is Jane Munro’s second volume of poetry following the publication of Daughters in 1982. Some of the poems in this collection have appeared previously in various Canadian literary magazines. The work is divided into five sections which differ significantly in style and focus.

The first section, Birds, comprises three poems. The free-form, sparse nature of these poems is suggestive of flight and the third, “Nest Egg,” is leavened with gentle humour and word play. The second section is one long poem, “Creek Bed,” which takes a meandering look at the mother-daughter relationship. The analogy between creek and mother is enlivened by litanies of natural occurring objects. As Windows Shape Light is the third section, with a dozen poems about love and loving. The fourth section, 14,600 Carrots, includes the poem “Immigrant” from which the title of the collection as a whole is drawn. Lastly, the section Ganga contains four poems set in India, using its rivers to reflect life and culture in that country.

Throughout the work, the poems are infused with a sense of discovery, exploration, analysis, and mild alienation. A pervasive theme is that of restlessness, of not fitting in or belonging, in either the past or the present. While Jane Munro goes some distance in seeking understanding, the search is described in terms more personal than universal and thus, the poet’s expressions of her findings do not strike a chord of generalized response.