Steffi Tad-y, Notes from the Ward

 

You Who The Earth Was For
After Jean Valentine 

You fleeing war, carryinga rooster with your shaky hand.
You trained to pummel,never the first to wince or flinch. 

You who plant theirsadness into dirt.
You whose questions haveno gentle answers. 

You who cook too close tothe stove.
You at the table, missingthe one. 

You whose loss comes withwordlessness.
You beside the rubble,out to build again. 

You in the backseat beingloved.
You running towardswater.

Thesecond full-length collection by Manila, Phillipines-born Vancouver-based poet Steffi Tad-y, following From the Shoreline (Guelph ON: Gordon Hill Press, 2022)[see my review of such here] is Notes from the Ward (Gordon Hill Press,2025), a book composed, the back cover offers, as a “collection of poetryexploring bipolar disorder and psychotic break through lived experience and apoet’s eye.” Through sharp, first-person lyrics, Tad-y offers a variation onthe declarative point-form, providing a precision across difficult subjectmatter, writing phrases that accumulate across her lyric stretches. Thefoundation of Tad-y’s lyric clarity holds each line in place, even through descriptionsof untethering; a lyric one might hold on to, for dear life. In the poem “Mangroves,”as she writes: “Back in the truck with Dad & Uncle. I tell them how thetrees are / skin & sanctuary to the coast, protection against the onslaught/ of storms. // My father places his hand on the headrest of my uncle in the /driver seat and says, Families can be mangroves too.”

Whatholds the collection together as a coherent unit are the dozen numbered titlepoems throughout, gathering her thoughts in a space that blends both attemptingto heal and the challenges of existing in such a physical and mental space. As “Notesfrom the Ward #3,” a poem subtitled “After Ocean Vuong’s ‘Reasons forStaying’,” begins: “Think of the next thirty years, mother asked. // The magnoliatree at Oben Street still a pleasant memory. // Of the book, black with deepblue letters, music despite my lack / of understanding.” Tad-y offers lyricdeclarations underneath titles set as umbrellas, suggesting and directing andhinting at the context of lines that blend direct with the indirect; her poemsprovide a tone of attempting clarity through these poems, these ward-notes,seeking both as documentary and process. While working through Tad-y’s poems, I’mreminded how, in his novel Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex? (translatedby David Homel; Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1994), Dany Laferrière wrotethat he composed his first novel—referencing his debut, How to Make Love to a Negro (Without Getting Tired) (translated by David Homel; Coach HousePress, 1987)—“to save his life.” Or, as the poem “Hold on,” set near the end ofthis new collection, begins:

Everyone has something.

This is yours.