Souwesto Home

by James Reaney

From James Reaney, three-times Governor General's Award winner, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, member of the Order of Canada, comes the first new book of poetry since Performance Poems (1993).

The poems in "Souwesto Home" are fresh, youthful meditations on such diverse subjects as the Little Lakes near Stratford, Ontario, the flora of Elgin County, the Donnelly feud, lichens, a Department Store Jesus, and so on. The collection ranges widely in tone and technique, from the lyrical to the satirical, from the direct and straightforward to the linguistically playful. As ever, Reaney's signature voice, his inimitable combination of sophistication and child-like simplicity, may be heard in every line. Like his contemporaries, P.K. Page, Margaret Avison and Colleen Thibaudeau (his wife), he has lost nothing of his poetic prowess to advancing years.

I know a book that opens up people
And reads them,
Spreads them out, pleat by pleat,
Till they see as far up as up,
Till they see farther far than down.
It makes so sharp their eyes
That East or West
They can spot Nobody coming up the Road.

From "Brush Strokes Decorating a Fan"

"Souwesto Home" includes some of James Reaney's own drawings.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2005

About the author

James Crerar Reaney, OC FRSC was a Canadian poet, playwright, librettist, and professor. Reaney won Canada's highest literary award, the Governor General's Award, three times and received the Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama for both his poetry and his drama.

Reviews

[Eric]

I wanted to enjoy and be enthusiastic about this collection of poems. I read the book twice but nothing in here really endeared itself to me or struck me as important to take note of. I was, and am, disappointed.

[Daniel Perry]

Unfortunately, few of these poems reached me. Some were too clearly trying to be intellectual exercises, while others were too clearly indulgences. "Don Quixot de la Verismo" is the most memorable for me, flipping the classic scene on its head and laughing a little at the possibility the poet is mistaking giants for (mere) windmills. I enjoyed the portrait in "Janitor" as well, elevating the generally invisible school caretaker to a position more important than the principal and teachers supposedly driving the education of our hero. In all, though, the many images of Southwestern Ontario life and history didn't add up to much more than themselves, and I found the collection to be a letdown.

[Louis Cabri]

"I feel as if I’ve been seeing centred lines become – am I alone in this? – a popular way to formally signal on the World Wide Web that a text is poetry or poetic...." (http://journals.sfu.ca/poeticfront/in...)

Sadly, Souwesto Home is an example of same in print.