Forest Full of Rain

Martin Singleton was a poet living in Toronto.

Lala Koehn’s fourth book of poetry is divided into four sections: the first two deal with memories of prairie life, the third with love. The fourth section is concerned with magic. The content of these divisions is not absolute: the love poems, for example, contain many magical references, foreshadowing the final section. Certain symbols (tunnels, food, the sea) appear throughout, also creating a certain unity.

Koehn is an adventurer. Such poems as “The Bowl That Molds the Island” move nicely in and out of reality, which in several poems is also interwoven with fairy tales, Polish tradition, and Aztec mythology. There is little formal experimentation, apart from one quatrain and a Welsh verse-form. Flowers, witches and articles of clothing bear the weight of Koehn’s symbolism, which occasionally cracks — in one ludicrous poem her breasts (suspended by her lovers on a “hair-fine thread” above her head) carry on a dialogue.

The mingling of dialogue with poetry is frequent and sometimes successful, but all too often the blend is over-inclusive, wordy and prosaic. She functions best as a lyric poet, and the Imagist model she sometimes follows is brief and focussed enough to display her talents.

Forest Full of Rain is a book of potential, although it would greatly profit from very careful editing.