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In the gutting shed: Poems
- GenresPoetry
71 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
2 people want to read
About the author
W.D. Valgardson
23 books16 followersWilliam Dempsey Valgardson (born 7 May 1939) is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and poet. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Gimli, Manitoba, he completed his BA at United College, BEd at the University of Manitoba, and his MFA at the University of Iowa. He was a long-time professor of writing at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
His writing often focuses on cultural differences and involve irony and symbolism. His short stories involve normal people in normal situations, yet under certain circumstances, lead unusual and surprising lives.
Valgardson has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for The Girl With the Botticelli Face (1992) and the Books in Canada First Novel Award for Gentle Sinners (1980). His short story, "Bloodflowers", was included in Best American Short Stories 1971.
His writing often focuses on cultural differences and involve irony and symbolism. His short stories involve normal people in normal situations, yet under certain circumstances, lead unusual and surprising lives.
Valgardson has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for The Girl With the Botticelli Face (1992) and the Books in Canada First Novel Award for Gentle Sinners (1980). His short story, "Bloodflowers", was included in Best American Short Stories 1971.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 15, 2016
This collection charmed me. Perhaps because, at least lately, I am convinced that we all live in (and out) our own strange cities. As it is in "A Broken Shell"[:]
A broken shell
on a sand beach
is one sea gull
swimming in smaller circles
on the last pool of open water,
refusing to live anywhere
but on the edge of winter.
That seagull is a stalk
of accidental corn
waving limp arms
on bare prairie,
a farm lost among dark hills,
a child lost in dark water,
a man on a crowded street
in a strange city."
We morph through landscapes, we try this thing of "attuning to _____" when really, we have just jostled some syllables and it was atonement we wanted all along. We duck out of muted possibilities which have, in going dumb, gone malignant also.
This collection is as full of intrusion as it is of abandonment and both are modes of violation. When Valgardson says "Hedges are forests grown impotent", it's hard not to remember the cuttings away, the scalings back -- the minor and major impotencies that come with aging.
In spite of these, there may be hope yet.The particular-ness of individual desolation may be the final and single most unifying force. So when the search for the drown ice fisherman completes, "The pole is withdrawn from the depths, / Its tears of the moment frozen to be released later / In the days of the sun." (From Cat Train)
A broken shell
on a sand beach
is one sea gull
swimming in smaller circles
on the last pool of open water,
refusing to live anywhere
but on the edge of winter.
That seagull is a stalk
of accidental corn
waving limp arms
on bare prairie,
a farm lost among dark hills,
a child lost in dark water,
a man on a crowded street
in a strange city."
We morph through landscapes, we try this thing of "attuning to _____" when really, we have just jostled some syllables and it was atonement we wanted all along. We duck out of muted possibilities which have, in going dumb, gone malignant also.
This collection is as full of intrusion as it is of abandonment and both are modes of violation. When Valgardson says "Hedges are forests grown impotent", it's hard not to remember the cuttings away, the scalings back -- the minor and major impotencies that come with aging.
In spite of these, there may be hope yet.The particular-ness of individual desolation may be the final and single most unifying force. So when the search for the drown ice fisherman completes, "The pole is withdrawn from the depths, / Its tears of the moment frozen to be released later / In the days of the sun." (From Cat Train)
Displaying 1 of 1 review