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The Clichéist
Amanda Lamarche's debut collection of poetry is a work of imaginative grace and power.
These poems topple the normal hierarchy of everyday concerns, promoting fears unlikely in the "normal" state of being--the fear of buttons, of dying to the wrong song, of houses built on corners--to the same stage and emotional impact as the more common (perhaps more clichéd) fears of car crashes and collapsing bridges.
The clever combination of explorations emotional and playful carries on. Technical advice for cutting down trees is juxtaposed with the development of ominous personal overtones. The title sequence takes issue with the easy laying down of language by recasting well-worn giving them back-stories, situating them in real time and real places, and reinvigorating them by providing each its own individual universe from which to draw meaning.
Amanda Lamarche's refreshing poems refuse at all the right moments to take themselves too seriously. They have the amazing ability to make readers shift from out-loud laughter to profound insight in a gasp of breath.
These poems topple the normal hierarchy of everyday concerns, promoting fears unlikely in the "normal" state of being--the fear of buttons, of dying to the wrong song, of houses built on corners--to the same stage and emotional impact as the more common (perhaps more clichéd) fears of car crashes and collapsing bridges.
The clever combination of explorations emotional and playful carries on. Technical advice for cutting down trees is juxtaposed with the development of ominous personal overtones. The title sequence takes issue with the easy laying down of language by recasting well-worn giving them back-stories, situating them in real time and real places, and reinvigorating them by providing each its own individual universe from which to draw meaning.
Amanda Lamarche's refreshing poems refuse at all the right moments to take themselves too seriously. They have the amazing ability to make readers shift from out-loud laughter to profound insight in a gasp of breath.
88 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 13, 2023
Don't trust a tree.
Trees are not friendly when you need to cut one down: Felling a tree is no easy business.
Forests are full of dread: Birch still spook me a bit. I always lose my breath when my headlights pass over a chain of them.
The Truth is Just as Meaningful as the Lie
Sleep With the Fishes
A Face Only a Mother Could Love
No Man is an Island
Clichés make good titles!
It Takes One to Know One
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
There are three groups of poems here, under the section titles "Book of Fears", "Tracks from the Mouth", and "The Clichéist".
Much to savour and enjoy throughout.
Trees are not friendly when you need to cut one down: Felling a tree is no easy business.
Forests are full of dread: Birch still spook me a bit. I always lose my breath when my headlights pass over a chain of them.
The Truth is Just as Meaningful as the Lie
Sleep With the Fishes
A Face Only a Mother Could Love
No Man is an Island
Clichés make good titles!
It Takes One to Know One
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
There are three groups of poems here, under the section titles "Book of Fears", "Tracks from the Mouth", and "The Clichéist".
Much to savour and enjoy throughout.
Read
March 25, 2017I liked the section called the Clicheist (last third of the book). Her command of space is really great in that section. Breezed through other sections, but that one made me stop and pay attention. She deftly talks about one topic while subtly pulling apart another. It's quite good.
January 24, 2022
Say what you will
or when, or how
loud. The doorknob,
the hand to the glass
handle, the bowed latch
catching will always
be the last thing said
in the cold room.
* * *
You know that sadness grows a willow.
Fear grows a birch, white-ringed and nude
in the forests. But a poplar, there is no
mud in the hear to grow a poplar. It is
of some other family. It plants itself,
does not touch the next. Each is a child
that wants to be picked up by the arms,
by whatever made it; has not spent
a day in its life looking down. A poplar
will not know a bit of what you look like.
* * *
You can make music
of anything. I am sure.
The glass in the wind,
the clay bowl with one
tiny mandarin inside,
waiting to be mouthed.
Even of silence;
the cracked violin curled tight
in the bed, its sound
asleep in the bend
of your elbow. Now knowing
what to move, I trace
your still lips until
a mouth exists. I’m sorry,
I say when you wake,
my fingers, the flutes
that were made and then broken
I’m sorry, as you,
half-remembering
you are not alone in this
room, take up my arms
like bows to your throat
when oh, it is sick to see
my own hands on you.
* * *
Falling a tree is no easy business.
There’s a shitload to consider before getting started. First,
you got to size up the tree. Which way’s it leaning?
What’s it’s weight like? How far’s the reach on the branches?
There are more things than you know deciding how
a tree will fall..
Check for complications. Cars and people should be
nowhere in sight. It’s key that the path of the tree be clear.
It needs to fall right straight to earth.
Listen up, it’s a real important thing that there be no other
trees in its path. If you cut one tree down and it gets caught
in a second tree, chances are you’ll have to cut the second too.
I don’t take it lightly.
You should cut only what you came for.
or when, or how
loud. The doorknob,
the hand to the glass
handle, the bowed latch
catching will always
be the last thing said
in the cold room.
- Fear of Doorknobs, pg. 18
* * *
You know that sadness grows a willow.
Fear grows a birch, white-ringed and nude
in the forests. But a poplar, there is no
mud in the hear to grow a poplar. It is
of some other family. It plants itself,
does not touch the next. Each is a child
that wants to be picked up by the arms,
by whatever made it; has not spent
a day in its life looking down. A poplar
will not know a bit of what you look like.
- Fear of Poplars, pg. 27
* * *
You can make music
of anything. I am sure.
The glass in the wind,
the clay bowl with one
tiny mandarin inside,
waiting to be mouthed.
Even of silence;
the cracked violin curled tight
in the bed, its sound
asleep in the bend
of your elbow. Now knowing
what to move, I trace
your still lips until
a mouth exists. I’m sorry,
I say when you wake,
my fingers, the flutes
that were made and then broken
I’m sorry, as you,
half-remembering
you are not alone in this
room, take up my arms
like bows to your throat
when oh, it is sick to see
my own hands on you.
- The Musician’s Haiku, pg. 35
* * *
Falling a tree is no easy business.
There’s a shitload to consider before getting started. First,
you got to size up the tree. Which way’s it leaning?
What’s it’s weight like? How far’s the reach on the branches?
There are more things than you know deciding how
a tree will fall..
Check for complications. Cars and people should be
nowhere in sight. It’s key that the path of the tree be clear.
It needs to fall right straight to earth.
Listen up, it’s a real important thing that there be no other
trees in its path. If you cut one tree down and it gets caught
in a second tree, chances are you’ll have to cut the second too.
I don’t take it lightly.
You should cut only what you came for.
- A Tree Falls in the Woods, pg. 53
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews