Completed Field Notes: The Long Poems of Robert Kroetsch

by Robert Kroetsch, Fred Wah (Introduction)

A series of diary entries. Marginalia from Pausanias's description of Greece. A nineteenth century ledger. Postcards from China. What do these ostensibly unrelated things have in common? Little or nothing, except when transformed into verse by Robert Kroetsch, one of Canada's most accomplished writers. Completed Field Notes showcases 20 of Kroetsch's long poems, spanning some 15 years of creative activity.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Robert Kroetsch was a Canadian novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer. He taught for many years at the University of Manitoba. Kroetsch spent multiple years in Vancouver, British Columbia before returning to Winnipeg where he continued to write. In 2004 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

[mwpm]

This collection is divided into three parts: I. Field Notes, II. Advice to My Friends, III. Country & Western.

I. Field Notes contains eight long poems: "The Ledger", "Seed Catalogue", How I joined the Seal Herd, The Sad Phoenician, The Silent Poet Sequence, The Winnipeg Zoo, Sketches of a Lemon, and The Criminal Intensities of Love as Paradise

II. Advice to My Friends contains eight long poems: "Advice to My Friends", "Mile Zero", "Letters to Salonika", "Postcard from China", "Delphi: Commentary", "The Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof", "Sounding the Name", and "The Poet's Mother".

III. Country & Western contains three long poems: "Excepts from the Real World", "Spending the Morning on the Beach", and "After Paradise".

From "The Ledger"...

c. "one who is permanently or constantly in a place; a resident. Obs."

"Old Gottlieb Haag was a man verging on 80 years of age. As a young man he had emigrated from Germany to America to seek his fortune and better his condition in the New World. Leaving Rotterdam in a sailing ship bound for New York, after a tedious and tempestuous voyage in which his ship was frequenly blown half-way back to Europe, he finally landed on the shores of the New World. Here all his fortune lay before him."

(Das ist doch nicht möglich!)

- pg. 16

From "Seed Catalogue"...

1.

No. 176 - Copenhagen Market Cabbage: "This new introduction, strictly speaking, is in every respect a thoroughbred, a cabbage of highest pedigree, and is creating considerable flurry among professional gardeners all over the world."

We took the storm windows/off
the south side of the house
and put them on the hotbed.
Then it was spring. Or, no:
then winter was ending.

"I wish to say we had lovely success
this summer with the seed purchased
of you. We had the finest Sweet
Corn in the country, the Cabbage
were dandy."
- W.W. Lyon, South Junction, Man.

My mother said:
Did you wash your ears?
You could grow cabbages
in those ears.

Winter was ending.
This is what happened:
we were harrowing he garden.
You've got to understand this:
I was sitting on the horse.
The horse was standing still.
I fell off.

- pg. 32

From "Letters to Salonika...

Form. I want to talk to you about the relationship of the
erotic to form. But I fall silent. I receive a letter from
you and it's so old that you are already someone else, the
letter is out of joint with the reality that I imagine. A
problem in form, a dislocation that is real.

I dream, and the tooth
broken

first, archaic
be

undone.

- June 17, pg. 155

From "Excerpts from the Real World"...

You say that in your view everything is poetry. Then you go skiing with your mother while I spend the afternoon trying to put the scales back onto the fish.

- 11/1/85, pg. 223

[Conrad Leibel]

Maybe my favourite book of poetry

[Delvina Greig]

The Canadian master of the long poem.

[Erika Mathieu]

Masterful

[Amanda]

this is an amazing and fun collection of different styles, much wit, excellent word play

[Olivia Brisebois]

I read this for class, very interesting to read. But, I still don't think I like poetry much