Recesses in the Heart: The Thera Poems

Martin Singleton was a poet living in Toronto.

This is the first book published at blewointmentpress at their new Toronto address, and it does them proud. Recesses is the fifth book from a very accomplished poet who seems to get better with each one.

Recesses is a collection of 24 poems ranging from three lines to three pages. The book is unpaginated and the poems untitled, suggesting the timelessness of life in the Greek island of Thera, that “coveted space where /the heart’s ache ends.” There are few poets that are Whiteman’s equal in writing both frankly and beautifully about sex: there is in Recesses a deep spirituality throughout, and the poems about love make it manifest. A sense of mortality is also celebrated: “let us embrace all /things which die.” The incredible beauty and daily events of Thera are depicted in both short Imagist poems and longer meditative lyrics. Whiteman’s humour is often barbed (“the /twentieth century belongs /to the mathematicians”), and there is a devastatingly sardonic short poem about “Joe Tourist.” Poetry, the “volcano coming to the /surface,” forms another important strand: Whiteman says of words, “we strain to hear their music,” but later realizes “love is the ease /you have to /walk in a land /without language,” and this exploration and growth are typical of his thought well-served by his craft. Henry Miller, the Greek poet Seferis, Lawrence Durrell, and Frank Davy are evoked, but never in a pretentious way; Whiteman, writing with skill, maturity, and love, has earned his place among them.