Memoirs of an Almost Expedition

Beryl Baigent is a poet; her published collections include Absorbing the
Dark, Hiraeth: In Search of Celtic Origins, Triptych: Virgins, Victims,
Votives, and Mystic Animals.

Memoirs of an Almost Expedition is Winnipeg poet Barbara Schott’s
first book, although her poetry has appeared in such magazines as Arc,
Prairie Fire, and Contemporary Verse II, and her chapbook, The Waterlily
Pickers, was published by Turnstone Press.

Schott is a frequent visitor to the Orient, a connection reflected in
the titles of some of her poems (“China Beach,” “Da Nang 747,”
and “Hiroshige’s Joy”) and, more importantly, in the images of
water that flow, drip, course, and collect in tidal pools in her work.
Water is an image of wu wei (effortless effort/noninterference) and of
the Tao (Way) in oriental philosophy. Schott’s use of water imagery
suggests that she is in search of her spiritual path and aspires to
become one with the flow of life. “What I want,” she emphasizes,
“is /a river of my own.” For Schott, “water speaks its silence,”
and she confides, “at night I am water / reflecting dark.”

In her best moments, Schott writes flowing lyrics: “I’ve eaten the
speckled / eggs of quail / walked across stone floors / inlaid with the
shape / assumed for stars. / I stole the stillness of the water /
imagined fish and lilies / lotus rising high above.” She also invents
interesting phrases by dislocating clichés, as in “she wrestles him
to within an inch of his ideas.” There are times, however, when
lyricism is replaced by obscurity aided by lack of punctuation,
capitalization, and transitional words. This may be instant
communication of the type we are being forced into through Internet and
e-mail, but to be named “poetry” one might expect a love of language
that embraces the connecting links between words.

Perhaps the unpoetic pieces reflect the poet’s admission that
“[t]he sound of running / water terrorizes [her].” Yet, in poems
that express sexual love, the male is imaged in sun and “Northern
Lights” and birds, while she is “named for / or after a lake.”

Instead of weathervanes with “wings folded,” Schott prefers
“sails on the heart.” If she continues to let her heart sail and go
with the flow, her poetry will continue to carry the reader along in the
current of her outpouring.