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Abandon
A strong debut collection from Montreal poet Oana Avasilichioaei, Abandon is filled with the richness of a country’s history. The poet melds the legends of Romania with its new reality in her vivid and insightful poetry. Dragons rub shoulders with Mountaineers with bad teeth. Women wash carpets in the river, and builders wall women into Monasteries. This is a rich collection and a very promising new voice in Canadian poetry.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
First published November 20, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 21, 2022
My father sold out apartment to a son and his dead mother.
Haphazard furniture, unemptied boxes, paintings
wrapped in brown paper littered the rooms.
In the hallway I thought I saw her coffin.
From the street I watch the seventh floor:
an empty balcony, two windows veiled
by yellowed paper fourteen years old.
My father's father sold their house to a quarrelling neighbour.
In the yard, instead of the grapevine and shed
with its trap door and cellar full of wine, pavement
and a red gazebo.
Beneath, are barrels and the plasticine
I hid as a child, growing dust?
My mother's mother didn't sell her house.
After she died the walls weakened, the ceiling became a risk.
My mother's sister, Tatiana, tore it down;
in the emptied space
she planted a small garden.
* * *
Linden flowers from a stand in the piața
Her apartment odour-brimming.
Linden spread on old newspaper.
Linden yellowing in the shadow of an open door.
And her staring at the door.
And her not stepping through it.
* * *
This is still a land of peasants.
I am a peasant for writing this.
The country is a pimp, its citizens whores.
The country is a whore, its citizens pimps.
Car fumes, a lack of dead ends, and too many
hands callused by stinging nettle
drive me back to her apartment, her cocoon
where on a shelf, between books and china cups
Tatiana keeps grey, pointed rocks to remind
her of her favourite mountain peaks.
I scuttle back, a thief, to a bathtub full of water
to wash all countries from my clothes.
Shall I sent this letter home, that mythical place?
Blanket entire wheat fields with it?
To solid alleys I take
on bare feet, nothing
beneath my skirt
bu a wish to begin
* * *
my flesh piled on this rubble of books
fills me like sin
dismantled, a breach in the dim light
I am half peasant half queen
ablaze on a hunt for my own mythology
the moon yells
high tide dominates my inside
seasons hold me prisoner
with gauze
and morning doubles over
on the floor hysterical with laughter
its hand clutch at its heaving belly
one finger fast on the umbilical cord
from its eyes, a stream of birth fluid
floods this rubbled flesh
leaving in its wake an echoing roar
* * *
back again within these walls, a sky instead of the wood roof
rain-beaten hooks where swords used to hang
his throne canopied in shred of rotted silk
the royal goblet absent
in a museum where no one stands
these vain walls echo the wordlessness of a suckling babe
unremarkable yarns
and above all my unbelievable voyage
secrets clatter on metal stairways joining the walls
and I illegitimate disclosed among them
am losing my looks
do I offend you?
Haphazard furniture, unemptied boxes, paintings
wrapped in brown paper littered the rooms.
In the hallway I thought I saw her coffin.
From the street I watch the seventh floor:
an empty balcony, two windows veiled
by yellowed paper fourteen years old.
My father's father sold their house to a quarrelling neighbour.
In the yard, instead of the grapevine and shed
with its trap door and cellar full of wine, pavement
and a red gazebo.
Beneath, are barrels and the plasticine
I hid as a child, growing dust?
My mother's mother didn't sell her house.
After she died the walls weakened, the ceiling became a risk.
My mother's sister, Tatiana, tore it down;
in the emptied space
she planted a small garden.
- Relics, pg. 26
* * *
Linden flowers from a stand in the piața
Her apartment odour-brimming.
Linden spread on old newspaper.
Linden yellowing in the shadow of an open door.
And her staring at the door.
And her not stepping through it.
- Tatiana, pg. 33
* * *
This is still a land of peasants.
I am a peasant for writing this.
The country is a pimp, its citizens whores.
The country is a whore, its citizens pimps.
Car fumes, a lack of dead ends, and too many
hands callused by stinging nettle
drive me back to her apartment, her cocoon
where on a shelf, between books and china cups
Tatiana keeps grey, pointed rocks to remind
her of her favourite mountain peaks.
I scuttle back, a thief, to a bathtub full of water
to wash all countries from my clothes.
Shall I sent this letter home, that mythical place?
Blanket entire wheat fields with it?
To solid alleys I take
on bare feet, nothing
beneath my skirt
bu a wish to begin
- Dear one, pg. 50
* * *
my flesh piled on this rubble of books
fills me like sin
dismantled, a breach in the dim light
I am half peasant half queen
ablaze on a hunt for my own mythology
the moon yells
high tide dominates my inside
seasons hold me prisoner
with gauze
and morning doubles over
on the floor hysterical with laughter
its hand clutch at its heaving belly
one finger fast on the umbilical cord
from its eyes, a stream of birth fluid
floods this rubbled flesh
leaving in its wake an echoing roar
- Dragoness, pg. 62
* * *
back again within these walls, a sky instead of the wood roof
rain-beaten hooks where swords used to hang
his throne canopied in shred of rotted silk
the royal goblet absent
in a museum where no one stands
these vain walls echo the wordlessness of a suckling babe
unremarkable yarns
and above all my unbelievable voyage
secrets clatter on metal stairways joining the walls
and I illegitimate disclosed among them
am losing my looks
do I offend you?
- Going home, pg. 70
April 23, 2024
More of a 3.5, rounded up.
The first half was definitely a 4 star, and the second half, more of a 3, so it averages out.
Something about the first half was more visceral, more tangible and more compelling. I was also more interested in the perspective of the first-half speaker, and I’m not sure I got as good of a sense of the second-half speaker. Nevertheless, a strong collection built on an interesting concept.
The first half was definitely a 4 star, and the second half, more of a 3, so it averages out.
Something about the first half was more visceral, more tangible and more compelling. I was also more interested in the perspective of the first-half speaker, and I’m not sure I got as good of a sense of the second-half speaker. Nevertheless, a strong collection built on an interesting concept.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews