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All Our Wonder Unavenged
A poet of osmosis explores the implicit relationship between matter and spirit, the interconnectedness of the universe. In his first full-length collection since 1998's Parish of the Physic Moon, Don Domanski writes with clarity of vision. He is a poet of the holiness of subtleties, a master of mindfulness and being. His writing is a form of osmosis, spirit seeping through the details of each poem, creating a marvel of metaphysics and language distilled to purest energy. Living in the moment here is synonymous with being the moment, a transformation that is stunning to inhabit. The Star Bellatrix the bride turns in a trance
red flowers fall out of her hands
endlessly into black space her desire is a hesitance her body warm as if she were dancing
spinning on a floor her partner unbeheld. Intensely moving, these fluid poems open up our perceptions of what it means to be alive in a sentient universe. "Poetry renews itself with each generation, but there is a source of poetry older than all the languages. Don Domanski writes close to this source, where autobiography is necessarily transpersonal, and the variegated finery of existent things is both secular home and sacred text. Each of his books, but especially this book, is a mirror for the inexhaustible." - Roo Borson "Each poem, beautiful, bewitching, unfolds with crystalline clarity and with a music that is both lush and subtle. Don Domanski's poems are intimate, but intimate on a grand scale. As far as I am concerned, there is no better poet writing in English." - Mark Strand Don Domanski was born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published eight books of poetry. Two of his books ( Wolf Ladder, 1991, and Stations of the Left Hand, 1994) were short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry. Published and reviewed internationally, his work has been translated into Czechoslovakian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
red flowers fall out of her hands
endlessly into black space her desire is a hesitance her body warm as if she were dancing
spinning on a floor her partner unbeheld. Intensely moving, these fluid poems open up our perceptions of what it means to be alive in a sentient universe. "Poetry renews itself with each generation, but there is a source of poetry older than all the languages. Don Domanski writes close to this source, where autobiography is necessarily transpersonal, and the variegated finery of existent things is both secular home and sacred text. Each of his books, but especially this book, is a mirror for the inexhaustible." - Roo Borson "Each poem, beautiful, bewitching, unfolds with crystalline clarity and with a music that is both lush and subtle. Don Domanski's poems are intimate, but intimate on a grand scale. As far as I am concerned, there is no better poet writing in English." - Mark Strand Don Domanski was born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published eight books of poetry. Two of his books ( Wolf Ladder, 1991, and Stations of the Left Hand, 1994) were short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry. Published and reviewed internationally, his work has been translated into Czechoslovakian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2007
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About the author
Don Domanski
20 books6 followersDon Domanski was born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax. He has published eight books of poetry, two of which were short-listed for the Governor General’s Award, and in 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry. Published and reviewed internationally, his work has been translated into Czech, Portuguese, and Spanish.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 29, 2023
The most common noun here is shadow. It makes sense because many of these poems are concerned with the liminal. Memories. Ghosts. Natural transformations. And often the power of nature over everything, which is somewhat reassuring, something of a god, though one neither benevolent nor cruel.
A few of the many delightful lines:
Let in the little strengths of the day
All those endless solitudes
The heat of an absent god
We can’t separate them with our longing
I could hear the voice/ within each drop of water
Each flake standing for the myriad things
they live well beyond our language
the scare of crows
Removing warmth from language
The universe is held in small things
The sea’s affection touching shore
A few of the many delightful lines:
Let in the little strengths of the day
All those endless solitudes
The heat of an absent god
We can’t separate them with our longing
I could hear the voice/ within each drop of water
Each flake standing for the myriad things
they live well beyond our language
the scare of crows
Removing warmth from language
The universe is held in small things
The sea’s affection touching shore
June 10, 2020
This is one beautiful book of poetry, just beautiful.
January 23, 2022
I lie beside a pond hidden by weeds
the nearest things are approaching
a hush is like a place
shining water and shining stones
homecoming is an ever-receding will
then a breeze outstretched to clouds
then a sparrow carried on a stranger's wings.
* * *
I know a wood where each leaf is the distance between two dark
towns, where each branch contains what is granted to kingdoms
and I know the wind that carries all of that away. I know a tree in
that wood and a stone in that wood, because we have sat for long
hours and together we have the energy of a shaken man, the
energy I wouldn't have, seated just be myself. I know a house at
the edge of that wood, a small house with a woman whose heart
is saddened in slow motion, broken in places the blood doesn't
know. I've heard her weeping through the crickets and the vetch,
because they carry what is hidden out into the world. I've heard
the sound of silk in her throat when she struggles for words, and
the sound of firelight spreading across water when she sleeping.
I've seen her up close and I've seen her far away, and I've seen her
hands adjust that distance with a motion. She wrote this small
poem in her small house, but she doesn't know. She wrote it with
whatever is akin to breathing, sighs and breath against the panes,
the fog that rolls out of that original ocean fathoms down in the
body. I know those waters, the covering waves, the fish that carry
the language through. We come from there with our words and
our deeds, all the fin-trailings of what is left unspoken. The light
down there is like a small house lit by a candle, just enough
brightness to read by, to write by with invisible ink, enough glow
to allow for the soul to go further than the fingertips, to bend over
the answers and hesitate, and to pick up the pen which isn't there.
* * *
the bride turns in a trance
red flowers fall out of her hands
endlessly into black space
her desire is a hesitance
her body warm as if she were dancing
spinning on a floor her partner unbeheld.
* * *
when I make a campfire the forest learns
of my poverty my penury here on earth
the match flares and it's like going home
after trying to find your place in the world
and failing miserably
I sit waiting for night it nears through
the verge down on all fours
and familiar with no one but God
it comes slowly through the trees
like a black dog turning its hear from side to side
like a seeing-eye dog without its ownder
still showing blindness a way through the world.
the nearest things are approaching
a hush is like a place
shining water and shining stones
homecoming is an ever-receding will
then a breeze outstretched to clouds
then a sparrow carried on a stranger's wings.
- Mere, pg. 33
* * *
I know a wood where each leaf is the distance between two dark
towns, where each branch contains what is granted to kingdoms
and I know the wind that carries all of that away. I know a tree in
that wood and a stone in that wood, because we have sat for long
hours and together we have the energy of a shaken man, the
energy I wouldn't have, seated just be myself. I know a house at
the edge of that wood, a small house with a woman whose heart
is saddened in slow motion, broken in places the blood doesn't
know. I've heard her weeping through the crickets and the vetch,
because they carry what is hidden out into the world. I've heard
the sound of silk in her throat when she struggles for words, and
the sound of firelight spreading across water when she sleeping.
I've seen her up close and I've seen her far away, and I've seen her
hands adjust that distance with a motion. She wrote this small
poem in her small house, but she doesn't know. She wrote it with
whatever is akin to breathing, sighs and breath against the panes,
the fog that rolls out of that original ocean fathoms down in the
body. I know those waters, the covering waves, the fish that carry
the language through. We come from there with our words and
our deeds, all the fin-trailings of what is left unspoken. The light
down there is like a small house lit by a candle, just enough
brightness to read by, to write by with invisible ink, enough glow
to allow for the soul to go further than the fingertips, to bend over
the answers and hesitate, and to pick up the pen which isn't there.
- Untitled with Invisible Ink, pg. 35
* * *
the bride turns in a trance
red flowers fall out of her hands
endlessly into black space
her desire is a hesitance
her body warm as if she were dancing
spinning on a floor her partner unbeheld.
- The Star Bellatrix, pg. 65
* * *
when I make a campfire the forest learns
of my poverty my penury here on earth
the match flares and it's like going home
after trying to find your place in the world
and failing miserably
I sit waiting for night it nears through
the verge down on all fours
and familiar with no one but God
it comes slowly through the trees
like a black dog turning its hear from side to side
like a seeing-eye dog without its ownder
still showing blindness a way through the world.
- Campfire, pg. 99
April 4, 2025
Oh my …. who could ever conjure words to speak of Don’s words?! I return to this collection again and again, especially in grief when I’m more open - always discovering new depths and mystery. Much gratitude for Don Domanski who goes on speaking from beyond.
January 16, 2025
I sometimes struggle with “getting into” a full book of poetry, but that was absolutely not the case with this collection. Transfixing, haunting, and gorgeously-captivating.
October 9, 2014
Brilliant.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews