Common Magic

Nora Drutz was a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Bronwen Wallace is no stranger to the Canadian poetry scene. She won the 1984 Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Poetry for her second work, Sign of the Former Tenant. Common Magic is her third work.

Bronwen Wallace is a very accessible poet, letting us into her thoughts and perceptions in an easy flowing narrative. In Common Magic, Wallace has followed the thematic patterns of her earlier works, beginning with childhood memories and ending with middle adulthood. Her need for permanence, for a sense of belonging, leads her to delve into the past through memory — memories of grandparents, parents, friends, relationships, landscapes. “A need like that loneliness /which makes us return again and again /to the places we’ve shared /...searching for revelations /in the blank faces of remembered houses.”

The first five poems deal with childhood: vivid memories of the old Ontario farm country, the first meeting of her grandmother and grandfather, etc. The poet moves from past to present and back again, questioning her need for permanence, searching for a magical revelation that will explain the human condition. The remainder of the poems deal mainly with woman’s conditions: relations with other women, with husband, lover, children; employment; wife abuse. Wallace displays anger here, but it is never aggressive, more a kind of world weariness. The book ends with pregnancy, something that only a woman can experience, with a love that binds all things together. “...they are bound by this birth forever / to the lives of other women, to a love / that roots itself as deeply / as our need for the earth.”

This is a book that on first reading may appear somewhat superficial, due to the conversational style, which can get a bit rambling. Rereading reveals the many complex truths, and it also rewards the reader with some interesting metaphorical structures.