Plans Deranged by Time: The Poetry of George Fetherling

by George Fetherling, A.F. Moritz (Editor)

The Toronto Star called him a legendary figure in Canadian writing, and indeed George Fetherling has been prolific in many genres: poetry, history, travel narrative, memoir, and cultural studies. Plans Deranged by Time is a representative selection from many of the twelve poetry collections he has published since the late 1960s. Like his novels and other fiction, many of these poems are anchored in a sense of place--often a very urban one. Filled with aphorism and sharp observation, the poems are spare of line and metaphor; they display a kind of elegant realism: loading docks, back doors of restaurants, doughnut shops with karate schools upstairs. In the introduction, A.F. Moritz places Fetherling in the modern picaresque tradition in the aftermath of Eliot and Pound, highlighting his characteristic speaker as an itinerant cosmopolitan outsider, a kind of flaneur, impoverished and keenly observant, writing from a position of communion-in-isolation. He contrasts Fetherling's contemplative intellectualism with that of the public intellectual and highlights this outsider's fellow-feeling, making the poems indirectly political.Fetherling's afterword is an anecdote-anchored exploration of what the poet sees as his two central approaches--the desire to create new codes of hearing and writing-to-heal--and how they are reflected in the collection.

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Douglas George Fetherling (born January 1, 1949) is a Canadian writer, poet, novelist, biographer, artist, and cultural commentator. One of the most prolific figures in Canadian letters, he has written or edited more than fifty books.
He previously published under the name Douglas Fetherling until 1999, and thereafter under the name George Fetherling, switching to his middle name to honor his father George, after recovering from life-saving surgery for the same medical condition that had killed his father.
One of his most popular works is Travels by Night: A Memoir, which recreates leading personalities and events in the fabled Canadian cultural renaissance of 1965–75.
Fetherling is also a visual artist. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenneth Rexroth made a statement in an essay of his that I don't seem able to pinpoint right now in any of his numerous books. As it is an observation I've always admired for its wisdom and insight, I will assume the risk of paraphrasing it as accurately as I can. He said that when African-American musicians travelled inexorably and inevitably up the Mississippi Valley from New Orleans to Chicago, they were also moving away from blues and towards jazz - in the same way that the Russian intelligentsia, following the failed revolution of 1905, abandoned naturalism for the occult. In both instances, he went on, the people involved were seeking a language they knew the police couldn't possibly understand.

- Afterword by George Fetherling, pg. 57

What is the nature of your visit?

To observe the passing seasons
on the ground and to study
geometry from above . . .

I want to see the city close up and how
it runs together in a kind of neon autumn
quiet optimism wrenched from bankruptcy sales
the miles of donut shops with karate schools upstairs
cinemas becoming bingo halls
when the people inside them
find their concentration waning

And yet I want to glide above it
for one never knows a city till one
learns it from the air
and sees how small it is and who
supports it when their lives
and what a struggle it is to linger
just a while longer in the clearing
when the forest is so near and the
aeroplanes overhead

- Border Catechism (excepts), pg. 3

* * *

For art's sake look out
stop regard the threat
of rain that hangs
in a discoloured sky
observe how blood
adds flavour
to the pavement
how the gutters
fill with rubbish
how old sensations
still obtain

Stop and take under advisement
this entire sad heritage of dreams

find some interior
means of becoming
the instrument we seek.

Wake up praying and
recall the limbs of trees
motioning through the glass
once silence became obsessive;

a hole opened up in
the darkness on this
very spot

remember?

- Telegraphic Instructions, pg. 18

* * *

There are no guarantees
that anything will last
especially when you use
these inferior materials.

Thick chemical gesso
slides onto recycled canvas
one coat horizontal
the next vertical;
as soon as one dries,
another arrives to
contradict it.

I can't stand the silence.
My ears chafe waiting
for the tune of a catchy explosion.
I am the neighbourhood dynamiter
who never knows when opportunity
might strike. One must always
be alert and heavily armed
against success and its enemies.

This is how I am.
I have no patience
with craft for its own sake
not like the old
Chinese man standing
in his garden every morning
applying more red lacquer
to his coffin.

When the surface is hard
and shiny like a beetle
he will be venerate as only
the ancient dead can be.

I will be scattered over a wide area.
Parts of me may never be found.

- Art Criticism, pg. 27-28

* * *

The grievances stopped
bleeding long ago,
have healed themselves invisibly,
but the grief lingers on
like scars on the lungs
that can't be seen on X-rays.

If I listen closely I can
hear the terrible gouging rumbles
of the glacier bearing down.

Long in the future
as the earth recounts the
story of the pain
people will still marvel
at the deep scores in the rock.

- Ice Ages, pg. 30

* * *

Facing the nightmare
of another winter encampment
starving within sight of the enemy's fires,
late-modern armies often surrendered
in October, the month when death-notices
fill so many columns in the morning papers.

We must not concede just yet
merely from being so worn down
bu carefully slowly grow the letters.
However little time remains
still we mustn't hurry: last words
should be words made to last.

'I'm leaving town until this mess
blows over.'

- Postdated, pg. 56