When I’m in the mood to read poetry, I generally stick with my old favorites: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath. I’m always looking for a good collection of contemporary poetry, but I’m picky. I don’t want a book of greeting-card rhymes, nor do I want the poems to be so complex that it’s impossible to extract any meaning. Open Slowly by Canadian poet Dayle Furlong (published by Tightrope Books) exceeded my expectations and earned a place on the shelf displaying my worn Dickinson anthology.
Open Slowly is divided into three sections. The first, Impossible Permanence, features many poems about youth and many images of nature. What I like best about Open Slowly is that the poems offer a narrative, and Furlong’s imagery is vivid.
In “Bite the Wind,” Furlong shows a little girl questioning man’s destruction of nature:
She’s quick for a seven-year-old, notions of revenge taut:
‘If you cut trees for paper,’ she says,
‘Paper will get you back and cut your fingers.’
Got it all figured out, passive paper: sly, full of cunning slits
siphoning into gentle skin. (page 14)
I love the imagery in “The Ceremony”:
First trickles, innocent fat flakes,
arrive like the unpinned strands of a winter bride’s hair
flirtatious coils wrapping themselves around branches
slyly. (page 26)
The second section, Tonic & Brevity, appears to have more sensual, harsh, and dark images. Here are my favorite lines of the poem bearing the same name, and there is a sort of beauty to them:
I’d wear pretty dresses
and meet men from big cities
but you, my rural troubadour,
are the one in the end–the one who
loves me softly. (page 37)
The harshness is evident in “You Were Here,” which opens with:
Leaves, giant tongues
veins plump–forked lightning bolts (page 39)
Here is another example of Furlong’s ability to pull you into the poem and visualize it. In “Two Graces,” she writes:
There are moments when the older woman’s confidence
flattens against her skull
like wet tissue
deodorant stains like dry onion skins cling
to the mid-section of her blouse:
she wears hurry and fear on her waist. (page 51)
The darkest poem in the collection is “Say Uncle,” in which a girl is sexually abused by her uncle.
He made many messes with her on mattresses
and was sent to prison where he lay
night after night on a single bed
–stiff as a backbone. (page 49)
The final section of the book, Litany of Desire, is about just that: desire and love. In “Wood & Nails,” Furlong writes:
On your salary we’ll never have a large house
you tell me you’ll build me one
with your own hands and you
squeeze my thighs and hover over me, an arched
roof. (page 65)
Here’s an even better example from my favorite poem in Open Slowly, “Litany of Desire”:
you will enjoy me as
blessed and savage
as I tumble head first into you
you’ll teach me how to use an ellipsis
so that nothing is left out
or unsaid between us– (page 68)
I’ve never been any good at intellectually dissecting poetry. I can’t discuss rhythm, form, or meter; I just know what I like when I hear it. I love to read poetry aloud, and in Open Slowly, the words are simple, sensual, and beautiful. I have no idea what Furlong’s inspiration was for these poems or what she wanted readers to take from her words, but I had no problem coming up with my own interpretation. Open Slowly is contemporary poetry at its finest, accessible to the average reader while still providing much to ponder.
Disclosure: I received a copy of Open Slowly from Tightrope Books for review purposes. I am an Amazon associate.
© 2008 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
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