“A Year at River Mountain”
by Michael Kenyon
Published by Thistledown Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95
ISBN 978-1-927068-04-5
Sometimes a book is a river, drawing us in. Such is A Year at River Mountain, by heralded BC writer Michael Kenyon. The
enigmatic 68-year-old narrator of Kenyon’s introspective novel is, like most of
us, trying to make sense of his life. The former stage and screen actor’s
removed himself from the manic “engine,” “blue-green anger” and “loneliness” of
the western world to seek harmony and practice acupressure in a Chinese
monastery. He writes: “I am at River Mountain because I have turned my back on
my family, history, country.” His former world included an estranged wife and
son and his professional roles; stark contrast to the valley, mountains,
temples, plum trees, bamboo forest and fellow monks that surround him now.
It sounds pacific, but there are memories to wrestle with, and desire,
and near the river beneath the monastery, nomadic tribes spar over boundaries and
hungry children go missing.
The nameless monk’s past and present converge; he has traded “monks for
players, master for director” as he goes about his daily routines of prayers,
meditation, chores (ie: sweeping leaves from the temple path so the walk to and
fro is soundless), meetings with the master, and practicing one-point
acupressure (“the mapping of stars within the human body”) on other monks and
villagers who require healing. The narrator says, “This calm collaboration. Being
solitary in community. It is all I ever really wanted.” He considers what
bowing meant in his former life, and what it means now: “Each time I am bowed
to I bow, while offstage music plays.”
Kenyon possesses a writing style all his own. It’s dreamy, hypnotic. Seemingly
random observations, asides and ideas are like stones in a river; his narrator
at once child and elder, leaping across them. The short, subtitled sections
often read like prose poems. A single section might include a memory from his
married life, the master’s tears, and the seals in Active Pass. Lush
descriptions of the weather and landscape are teased out between passages
concerning monastic life and the narrator’s relationships with his spiritual brothers
(including the blind bellringer, Frank, who lived in Illinois and “is good at
small engine repairs”); Zou Yiyuan, the wise, nomadic dwarf who becomes his new
master; and Zou Yiyuan’s beautiful, shamanic sister. There’s also the
expectation of the return of Imogen, the “blonde and waif-like” Canadian actor
who’s both chimera and “a kind of guide, pointing out this and that, this icon,
that text.”
Kenyon’s characters are never dull and dialogue is never wasted. Readers
are involved via direct address and philosophic questioning, ie: “If the world
is still does chaos rise as a kind of sensitivity?”
As the actor-turned-monk writes his life story, he asks: “How can we
tell what doesn’t matter?” Kenyon shows us that it all matters, from “Sunlight
on the trees” to “The pulse stored under the skin.”
One does not so much read this book as swim through it. I feel richer
for the tolling bells and the passionate journey.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
___________________________
“Conditional”
Written by Andrew McEwan
Published by Jackpine Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$15.00
ISBN 978-1-927035-17-7
Vancouverite Andrew McEwan’s Conditional,
a saddle-stitched chapbook, contains
two alternately playful and serious poems, or meditations. The first,
“Spreading Sheets,” takes inspiration from a quote about stratus clouds,
derived from an 1803 text called Essay on
the Modification of Clouds (by Luke Howard). In the resulting text-which alternatingly
appears on symbolically transparent vellum pages in a free verse style and on
gray cotton pages in prose poem blocks-the poet asks “what is this fog?”
Fog, here, is up for interpretation. The author alludes to Vancouver’s
“visibility issues,” and hovering mainland\mists,” to condensation from the
bathroom mirror,” and perhaps also to the fog of human thought as we wait in
queues, “cannot see the object of our mourning,” and listen to financial and
real estate market forecasts.
Or perhaps it is none of these. McEwan keeps us entertained and guessing
with disparate thoughts. “Of the animals seen today only the blanket of crows
migrating past reads as symbolic,” he writes. And in the next two lines: “A
rezoning is in progress. Everything is on sale except for the waterproof
outerwear.”
This first poem registers contemporary social chaos like sound-bites,
includes domestic and writerly habits (“In bed for days at a time, turning
dictionary pages”), and makes us think: “Routines test forgery as a method for
coping with absence.”
The second poem, “Return Policy,” is written in couplets interspersed
with retail instructions, ie: “Any purchase made by debit card\will be refunded
to the original debit card.”
I like this idea of found poetry: of taking the phrases we hear or read
so often we don’t ordinarily give them another thought (unless we need to, say,
return an appliance). It is akin to the modern art installation: it’s the
bringing together of disparate elements to create something new that warrants
admiration.
Irony is a key element in this hand-sized, limited-edition (only 75
copies) chapbook published by Saskatchewan’s Jackpine Press. “As far as the eye
can see the eye overlooks,” McEwan writes. “Proximity counterfeits
acquaintance.” I particularly enjoyed this statement: “We knew the rules
starting out, but forgot\the implications.”
McEwan has much to say in this small book, and I expect we’ll be hearing
more from him. Aside from Conditional,
he’s also authored repeater (a
finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award), and the chapbooks Input / Output and This Book
Is Depressing.
To learn more about this and Jackpine’s many other unique chapbooks, see
www.jackpinepress.com.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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