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Chewing Water
Chewing Water continues Nelson Ball's fascinating forays into the social, into communities of humans, after spending decades writing almost exclusively about nature. While mourning, loss, and decay are featuring more heavily than ever in his poetry, friendship, hope, and love are gaining on those themes. Nelson's poems concentrate on the tiniest things, the tiniest moments: a letter of the alphabet, an expired fly, a crack in a friend's wall, the tone of a friend's voice. While these poems are brief, the spirit behind them is expansive. This book is a landmark in the growing oeuvre of a Canadian poet whose influence has only grown over the decades.
112 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2016
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July 12, 2016
Nelson Ball is a prolific Canadian poet having written over forty collections of poetry. In the past his work concentrated largely on poems about nature, although in more recent years his work has included more people and social situations. His style is minimalist and simple, but is work can be thought provoking and emotionally powerful.
Ball concentrates on examining very simple things in life, whether it be flies hovering over the tomato sauce, a chipmunk crossing the parking lot, or the motion of a squirrel’s tail. Some of his work stirs a chuckle as he refers to a girl’s “nice bum”, the tinnitus that greets him every morning, or the concentrated efforts of two ants trying to move a dead worm.
Ball’s wife Barbara Caruso who died in 2009 from cancer, was not only a close life partner but also a writing colleague and artist. He misses her dearly and she appears or is referred to in several of his poems. It is clear he still feels her presence despite the fact she no longer shares his physical life.
When I picked up this book I was intrigued by the title: Chewing Water. It is an interesting metaphor and I wondered at its provenance which soon became clear when I came to the poem with the same title. It comes from his attempt to drink after radiation treatment for a cancerous vocal cord. For several weeks he was unable to eat solid food and it would take him an hour to get down a cup of water. This was the only way he could swallow, by chewing the water, which he says seemed to help prepare his throat for the act of swallowing.
Although his poems are brief, like every poet worth his salt he can pour so much meaning into so few words. There are some I loved, some that I found abrupt and some that simply puzzled me. But as a whole I very much enjoyed this collection.
Ball concentrates on examining very simple things in life, whether it be flies hovering over the tomato sauce, a chipmunk crossing the parking lot, or the motion of a squirrel’s tail. Some of his work stirs a chuckle as he refers to a girl’s “nice bum”, the tinnitus that greets him every morning, or the concentrated efforts of two ants trying to move a dead worm.
Ball’s wife Barbara Caruso who died in 2009 from cancer, was not only a close life partner but also a writing colleague and artist. He misses her dearly and she appears or is referred to in several of his poems. It is clear he still feels her presence despite the fact she no longer shares his physical life.
When I picked up this book I was intrigued by the title: Chewing Water. It is an interesting metaphor and I wondered at its provenance which soon became clear when I came to the poem with the same title. It comes from his attempt to drink after radiation treatment for a cancerous vocal cord. For several weeks he was unable to eat solid food and it would take him an hour to get down a cup of water. This was the only way he could swallow, by chewing the water, which he says seemed to help prepare his throat for the act of swallowing.
Although his poems are brief, like every poet worth his salt he can pour so much meaning into so few words. There are some I loved, some that I found abrupt and some that simply puzzled me. But as a whole I very much enjoyed this collection.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review