On Nights Like This

Nora Drutz was a Toronto-based freelance writer.

On Nights Like This is Marianne Bluger’s second book of poetry; her first, The Thumbless Man Is At The Piano, was published by Three Trees (Toronto) in 1981. I haven’t been able to find a thing written about this poet; I don’t know why. From a reading of this latest book alone, she seems to be a promising writer, one quite worthy of being reviewed. On Nights Like This is a fine book — gentle, reflective, full of quiet wisdom and metaphysical speculation on the nature of life and death. Throughout the book the reader is made constantly aware of man’s mortality. Nothing attains permanence; nothing and no one can be depended on. “I’ve seen solid houses /vanish in smoke. Very old /that sacrificial joke. The burns /are bruises of mist and cherished /tears just common rain. /It is justice and so /it will happen again... I hate what is so mindless /there is no sadness to it, and /would rather a terrible stillness /reigned over the lake of the dead.” But through her experiences of joy and pain, she never allows herself to fall into cynicism. She rejoices in the now, the simple and elemental things; the family, the home, the renewal of spring, a baby lamb.

There is an otherworldly, dreamy quality to much of her work. Sometimes she moves between a mythic past and present-day reality by employing metaphors reminiscent of classical literature. “A green glass plate, /a peach silk cocktail dress, /every home and every one /you love, the realest /things in themselves /shift and then collapse /in a soft tumbling-down. /Just minutes ago, a tower sank /and the wave that leapt /is already tame. Now a shimmering /only laps his foot. And /the boy plays his flute /by the blue water; plays /a wild liquid chant of joy /that everything made shall break.” But she employs this imagery with skill. It works. It is not the dead weight that some Canadian poets drag around with them in the hope of saying something significant.

The language is spare, taut; nothing is superfluous. The writing never descends into platitudes, prosaicness, or banality. A book quietly and simply written, full of eternal truths and worth reading.