Marilyn Bowering's green

green (2007) is, by my count, Marilyn Bowering's fifteenth book of poetry, two of which were nominated for the Governor General's Award.

Bowering has stated in the header to her blog, "Slow Books", that "It's become rare, though, for me to find books I haven't read that I want to read all the way through from beginning to end. Most books dissapoint [sic] after 80 or so pages."

The patience!

Here are some curious citations from her latest sure to make any contemporary poet green with envy.



"I listen to the trees:

what do they say
but green green?

At last I understand Lorca!" (p. 6)



"Remove this dress
and beneath that

the underdress
and beneath it

whatever you find --
I don't need it.

Then the skin,
layer by layer,

all bands of muscle,
and tissue -- whatever it contains --

lay it aside --
I need no protection:" (p. 12)



"The moon is round, like a lover's nipples --" (p. 35)



"What remains of the night?
Dark." (p. 36)



"It's better when I don't think" (p. 42)



"I'm wired end to end -- a flock of migrating birds

has found a short cut -- me -- to the other birds:
or maybe I'm empty space, a rare non-habitant,

the world's easement? Hello, hello -- do I know
any of you?" (p. 48)



"when I die, the day I lie down,
it will be with the poetry of night
layering the grass, swamping the lamplit windows

and beginning to come alive again,
like a stopped train
lifting its head
to contemplate a miracle." (p. 59)



"Ouch! everything hurts:

especially my eyes, near evening,
when the world is roaring pointlessly." (p. 62)



"Everything is as important as everything else:" (p. 64)



"I've taken off my clothes.
I want this to be natural. Put away your
camcorder.
Before I feel you sizzling in me,
I have to know your absence. Its presence
by absence, if you know what I mean." (p. 67)



"I'm naked: I'm full of ideas: I'm about to swim
out the window, graze in the grass
and sky,
move contrary to Nature. I don't know
what to do
with this passage of my soul through the night." (p. 67)



"My family -- mostly dead --
my lovers -- what can I say?" (p. 69)



"to live is to
think about the mysticism of cars" (p. 72)