Camille Martin, R

Light is not
inevitable. Overshot it
or not yet there.
Nothing, for that
matter. In any case,
not arrived. Anything
could have been
otherwise.

Thelatest from Toronto poet and collagist Camille Martin is the poetry title, R (Toronto ON: Rogue Embroyo Press, 2023), following a list of books andchapbooks over the years, including Plastic Heaven (New Orleans:single-author issue of Fell Swoop, 1996), Magnus Loop (Tucson,Arizona: Chax Press, 1999), Rogue Embryo (New Orleans: Lavender Ink,1999), Sesame Kiosk (Elmwood CT: Potes and Poets, 2001), Codes of Public Sleep (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2007), Sonnets (Shearsman Books,2010), If Leaf, Then Arpeggio (above/ground press, 2011), Looms (Shearsman Books, 2012), Sugar Beach (above/ground press, 2013) and Blueshift Road (Rogue Embryo Press, 2021) [see my review of such here]. It isinteresting that, after a period of relative silence, she has quietly reemergedthrough self-publication, offering a first (Blueshift Road) and now thissecond full-length collection (R), since the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns.Still, with pieces that originally appeared in a handful of journals andanthologies, as well as in the chapbooks Magnus Loop and Sugar Beach,it suggests that this particular manuscript has been gestating for some time. Theone hundred and fifty pages of this collection are predominantly articulated asa sequence of short, untitled, haiku-like bursts, each carved into the centreof the page. It is almost as though these meditative bursts are attempts toachieve and articulate balance, seeking a grounding effect through this sequenceof carved sketchworks. Each poem is thoughtful, observational; settling into short-formthought and speech via playful scraps. “plastic raspberries linked with safetypins,” she writes, mid-way through the collection, “dull flavour of stewed rubies// stoplight blinking in a junkyard [.]” Each poem offers sketch and pausethrough an effect of collage, suggesting a construction similar to the imagespresented on the front and back cover: a suggestion of simultaneous image andidea, carved, clipped, collected and formed into poem-shapes that retain theircollage-simultaneity through each tightly-packed singular effect. There is anenormous amount going on in these poems, clearly.

shadow concealing
colour, colour
shedding cells