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Origami Dove
The first collection of new poems in more than a decade from one of Canada's most vibrant and original writers.
With her first major collection in ten years, Susan Musgrave displays a range of form and expression that may surprise even her most faithful readers. The quiet, lapidary elegies of “Obituary of Light” are set against the furious mischief of “Random Acts of Poetry,” where the lines move with the inventive energy of a natural storyteller, while “Heroines” wrests a harsh and haunting poetry from the language of the street.
Her alertness to the absurdity in even the most heartbreaking personal crises leavens the sorrow that speaks through so many of the poems. Sadness and levity interweave. The wilderness and the penitentiary reflect one another. There’s an underlying tenderness, though, whether she is writing about family, the dispossessed, her life on Haida Gwaii, or the vagaries of love. This is Susan Musgrave in full control of her powers, writing poetry that cuts right to the bone.
With her first major collection in ten years, Susan Musgrave displays a range of form and expression that may surprise even her most faithful readers. The quiet, lapidary elegies of “Obituary of Light” are set against the furious mischief of “Random Acts of Poetry,” where the lines move with the inventive energy of a natural storyteller, while “Heroines” wrests a harsh and haunting poetry from the language of the street.
Her alertness to the absurdity in even the most heartbreaking personal crises leavens the sorrow that speaks through so many of the poems. Sadness and levity interweave. The wilderness and the penitentiary reflect one another. There’s an underlying tenderness, though, whether she is writing about family, the dispossessed, her life on Haida Gwaii, or the vagaries of love. This is Susan Musgrave in full control of her powers, writing poetry that cuts right to the bone.
128 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 2011
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47 people want to read
About the author
Susan Musgrave
78 books44 followersSusan Musgrave is a Canadian poet and children's writer. She was born in Santa Cruz, California to Canadian parents, and currently lives in British Columbia, dividing her time between Sidney and Haida Gwaii.
Musgrave was married to Stephen Reid, a writer, convicted bank robber and former member of the infamous band of thieves known as the Stopwatch Gang. Their relationship was chronicled in 1999 in the CBC series Life and Times.
She currently teaches creative writing in the University of British Columbia's Optional Residency Master of Fine Arts Program.
Recognizing a life in writing, the Writers' Trust presented Susan Musgrave with the 2014 Matt Cohen Award for her lifetime of work.
Musgrave was married to Stephen Reid, a writer, convicted bank robber and former member of the infamous band of thieves known as the Stopwatch Gang. Their relationship was chronicled in 1999 in the CBC series Life and Times.
She currently teaches creative writing in the University of British Columbia's Optional Residency Master of Fine Arts Program.
Recognizing a life in writing, the Writers' Trust presented Susan Musgrave with the 2014 Matt Cohen Award for her lifetime of work.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 7, 2022
Poetry is the language of being: the breath, the voice, the song, the speech of being. It doesn't need us. We are the ones who have need of it. p44
Poetry is not manmade; it is not pretty words; it is not something hybridized by humans on the farm of human language. Poetry is a quality or aspect of existence. It is the thinking of things. p119
both quotes from The Tree Of Meaning: Thirteen Talks by Robert Bringhurst
It is the poets task therefore, to tap into poetry and give it its unique expression. The best poetry taps into the ground of being. I am not sure if Susan Musgrave knows Bringhursts work but in this luminous collection published in 2011 she is plugged right in to that creative circuit.
The poems are organized in four sections. The first part, Madagascar Vanilla is a lament and a victory. Life continues to assert itself in the face of everything that denies it.
the hearts resolve to keep beating on; in a place of darkness; don't we stop
grief from cutting deeper, sometimes,
with our tears? p10
What sound does the wind make
if you don't name it? p18
I feel graced to have felt the snow
owl's breath upon my face, as if I no longer need
to go on breathing; I am being breathed.
Be light, I whisper to the wind...p19
Part two is entitled obituary of light: the sangan river meditations. These begin with winter and pass through the seasons in turn, in mostly short stanzas that read a bit like double haikus.
The stars stab with their cold.
The day we are born we begin
to forget everything we know
p26
Suffering is the way
we measure love, you say,
how much we have lost, how much
has been taken from us.
I keep looking out my window
as if there is anywhere left to go. p34
Part three is Random Acts of Poetry, longer poems often combining biographical occasions with a bit of history, a bit of mysticism and magic and quite a bit of self deprecating, sober humour and a sharp appreciation for the nuances of existence.
By the time I reach the Sumerians
I have grown weary of our suffering,
we who have stood on tiptoe gazing
across eons, while the mole-cricket
makes a doleful chirping on the wind. pp69
The poems in the final section were drawn from the life stories of 6 women living in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, documented by Clarkes Lincoln in the photographic Heroines: The Photographs of Lincoln Clarkes/ There are no gentle winds here, only stagnant memories of violence and loss and the occasional hurricane to ruffle the placid acceptance of their addiction. Musgrave manages to convey, in the stark prose poems a tenderness that wraps itself around the sense of resignation that permeates the mood.
The only thing I ever wanted
was to be held, it's what we all want.
Is that asking too much? p111
Poetry is not manmade; it is not pretty words; it is not something hybridized by humans on the farm of human language. Poetry is a quality or aspect of existence. It is the thinking of things. p119
both quotes from The Tree Of Meaning: Thirteen Talks by Robert Bringhurst
It is the poets task therefore, to tap into poetry and give it its unique expression. The best poetry taps into the ground of being. I am not sure if Susan Musgrave knows Bringhursts work but in this luminous collection published in 2011 she is plugged right in to that creative circuit.
The poems are organized in four sections. The first part, Madagascar Vanilla is a lament and a victory. Life continues to assert itself in the face of everything that denies it.
the hearts resolve to keep beating on; in a place of darkness; don't we stop
grief from cutting deeper, sometimes,
with our tears? p10
What sound does the wind make
if you don't name it? p18
I feel graced to have felt the snow
owl's breath upon my face, as if I no longer need
to go on breathing; I am being breathed.
Be light, I whisper to the wind...p19
Part two is entitled obituary of light: the sangan river meditations. These begin with winter and pass through the seasons in turn, in mostly short stanzas that read a bit like double haikus.
The stars stab with their cold.
The day we are born we begin
to forget everything we know
p26
Suffering is the way
we measure love, you say,
how much we have lost, how much
has been taken from us.
I keep looking out my window
as if there is anywhere left to go. p34
Part three is Random Acts of Poetry, longer poems often combining biographical occasions with a bit of history, a bit of mysticism and magic and quite a bit of self deprecating, sober humour and a sharp appreciation for the nuances of existence.
By the time I reach the Sumerians
I have grown weary of our suffering,
we who have stood on tiptoe gazing
across eons, while the mole-cricket
makes a doleful chirping on the wind. pp69
The poems in the final section were drawn from the life stories of 6 women living in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, documented by Clarkes Lincoln in the photographic Heroines: The Photographs of Lincoln Clarkes/ There are no gentle winds here, only stagnant memories of violence and loss and the occasional hurricane to ruffle the placid acceptance of their addiction. Musgrave manages to convey, in the stark prose poems a tenderness that wraps itself around the sense of resignation that permeates the mood.
The only thing I ever wanted
was to be held, it's what we all want.
Is that asking too much? p111
January 17, 2012
I've come to Susan Musgrave late. She'd written a lot of poetry prior to Origami Dove. I missed it and now, riding the sweep of the present, will have to reach back to try and reel in some of it because she writes a muscular verse I don't want to miss.
In a section of Origami Dove called "Obituary of Light" she writes a series of nature poems about the seasons. I especially like this kind of meditative verse in which the poet is sensitive to the ancient and reliable flow of nature around her, in this case enhanced by including in them someone she cares for. They're lovely.
The section called "Heroines" is an uncompromising look at life on the street, a life in drugs, and a life of love you can't depend on as easily as you do the turn of the seasons. Heroin and heroine are best combined in the poem "Her-Row-In," one which carries very well the voices of these women. These are poems galvanized more through emotion than image. Her women only want to survive. One haunting poem concerns the notion that not only do these women have a dirty habit but they themselves are a dirty habit men can't kick. Users and used. This is gritty, unforgettable poetry. It gets in your teeth and you can feel it grinding there just as it grinds the mind. These are the voices of women strung out, hung out by their addiction to drugs and to life.
Musgrave writes the language of the street and the language of the lake. Both are reflective, it's just that one is the metal of the street, the other the tender shimmer of air and water. Only a strong poet like Musgrave could write both so well.
In a section of Origami Dove called "Obituary of Light" she writes a series of nature poems about the seasons. I especially like this kind of meditative verse in which the poet is sensitive to the ancient and reliable flow of nature around her, in this case enhanced by including in them someone she cares for. They're lovely.
The section called "Heroines" is an uncompromising look at life on the street, a life in drugs, and a life of love you can't depend on as easily as you do the turn of the seasons. Heroin and heroine are best combined in the poem "Her-Row-In," one which carries very well the voices of these women. These are poems galvanized more through emotion than image. Her women only want to survive. One haunting poem concerns the notion that not only do these women have a dirty habit but they themselves are a dirty habit men can't kick. Users and used. This is gritty, unforgettable poetry. It gets in your teeth and you can feel it grinding there just as it grinds the mind. These are the voices of women strung out, hung out by their addiction to drugs and to life.
Musgrave writes the language of the street and the language of the lake. Both are reflective, it's just that one is the metal of the street, the other the tender shimmer of air and water. Only a strong poet like Musgrave could write both so well.
June 8, 2021
I like the book because Musgrave has got her own style and way of expression that is unique to her. The pieces feel like short stories, they're very straight to the point and they're also sometimes satirical. There's no room for interpretation and if you like that kind of easy going read, then I would recommend.
My favorite pieces were the ones that started with a question. I thought that was clever and effective. That last section of the book is intense and possibly even triggering if you didn't know to expect it.
As a whole, it's a versatile collection and she tackles a lot of subjects both mundane and important. I liked it because I appreciated her unique style.
My favorite pieces were the ones that started with a question. I thought that was clever and effective. That last section of the book is intense and possibly even triggering if you didn't know to expect it.
As a whole, it's a versatile collection and she tackles a lot of subjects both mundane and important. I liked it because I appreciated her unique style.
February 4, 2021
The last section is positively harrowing. Read the notes as a postscript to gain insight about the author's intentions and thought process. What a wide and varied collection, though! Highly recommended with the caveat about the final portion being triggering. My copy was bought used after having been discarded by a public library.
April 19, 2025
Gorgeous collection of poems that touch on all aspects of life with humour, humility, wisdom, and a kind of fearlessness that can only come from holding an experience out in front of you and trying to find words for it. Beautiful.
Read
May 5, 2011Origami Dove is the first poetry collection by Canadian author Susan Musgrave in over ten years. It is divided into four section, and the first portion, "Madagascar vanilla", focuses on loss and love, particularly when it comes to a husband and father who suffers from heroine addiction. In "The Room Where They Found You" Musgrave writes "I believed in everything: the hope / in you, your brokenness". The poems are about lost hope and about grieving, they are powerful and tragic. These poems, like the coroner in"The Coroner at the Taverna", seek beauty but instead find something slightly poisoned, for as Musgrave writes:
"And beauty is what he seeks
though how you know beauty when you see it
is the question he asks each time he cuts
open a young body and fins something
beautiful but malignant inside."
The title poem, "Origami Dove" is a goodbye to a father as he lies dying, but also a testament to the loneliness and emptiness of the world, ending on the somber note: "I see how true / loneliness has become when he takes up with me / and walks me through the world I have always / called my home. Only in the darkness I see now/ it has never been home." Musgrave's poetry is part grief, part longing, but always straightforward and beautiful. Almost impossibly after the dark words that begin Origami Dove, the first section ends on a note of hope with "Understanding the Sky" in which Musgrave finishes, "The going / doesn't get any easier, but by any name / I'd miss the wind too much to be / parted from this life for even one hard winter." It is a life of pain and loss, but it is one in which Musgrave manages to find beauty anyway.
The second part of the collection, "Obituary of Light" contains one long poem divided into four portions by seasons and then into many parts "The Sangan River Meditations" continues the hint of hope provided at the end of the first section. In the first portion, "Winter", remarking on a moment of snowflakes melting on children's tongues, Musgrave writes "joy is there, in everything, and even / when we can't see it." Use of the wind appears throughout the collection, showing up in "Spring" where once again it provides a kind of hope, the openness of possibility, "how boundless is the pure / wind circling our lives." Still, although there is a hint of hope, Musgrave's outlook remains bleak, in "Summer" she writes "Suffering is the way / we measure love" and if that is the case, Origami Dove is a collection full of love. It is a love betrayed but it is a love all the same, for in "Fall" she writes:
"I loved you
with a fierceness we save for those
who can breaks us in all the broken places.
Never mind the lies, the promises
you couldn't keep."
The section itself ends with the lines, "We are the broken / heart of this world.", the exact sentiment that Musgrave's poetry captures, broken, but full of heart.
The third part of the collection is "Random Acts of Poetry", in which even with the title Musgrave begins to show her sense of humour, re-enforced in "Ice Age Lingerie" where she writes of a dream in which she is "wearing ice-age lingerie, oblivious / to the effects of global warming." The poem "Rest Area: No Loitering and Other Signs of the Times" is distinctly Canadian with a satiric bite that often had me chuckling under my breath, including such gems as "Americans say no to drugs; Canadians say / no thank you." and "My new philosophy for the millennium: / dread one day at a time." After such a bleak first half of the collection, Musgrave's humour is surprising, though still dark, describing going through airport security in "No Hablo Ingles" she refers to the inspectors as "The false-sense-of-security / guards". This section in particular, is one that would sound incredible read out lout, a spoken word poetic humour, with its commentary on politics and love.
The final section is called "Heroines" is about heroin addiction and prostitution and getting clean and selling your body. It is rough and gritty and blunt and powerfully raw. One poem is entitled "Question: Have you been hurt by men, have you been raped?", to which Musgrave replies:
"I've been raped, yes,
but what hurts worse is the way
they look at you afterwards
when they refuse to pay
as if you're the one dirty habit
they can't break."
While in another "Question" poem she writes, "the only / desire left in me is the desire / to make the best of it." It is an empowering collection, because Musgrave still expresses hope in the poems despite a narrator who grew up being abused by her foster father and now sells her body to other men. The poems themselves are based on the lives of six heroin-addicted prostitutes and originally portions of them were used as a voice-over in an art documentary film on the topic called Heroines. Although these poems are very powerful, they don't have the same confessional appeal I found in the first two portions of the collection.
Overall, Origami Dove is a bleak but beautiful collection with an unexpected hint of humour my only hope is that we don't have to wait another ten years for Musgrave's next book of poetry.
"And beauty is what he seeks
though how you know beauty when you see it
is the question he asks each time he cuts
open a young body and fins something
beautiful but malignant inside."
The title poem, "Origami Dove" is a goodbye to a father as he lies dying, but also a testament to the loneliness and emptiness of the world, ending on the somber note: "I see how true / loneliness has become when he takes up with me / and walks me through the world I have always / called my home. Only in the darkness I see now/ it has never been home." Musgrave's poetry is part grief, part longing, but always straightforward and beautiful. Almost impossibly after the dark words that begin Origami Dove, the first section ends on a note of hope with "Understanding the Sky" in which Musgrave finishes, "The going / doesn't get any easier, but by any name / I'd miss the wind too much to be / parted from this life for even one hard winter." It is a life of pain and loss, but it is one in which Musgrave manages to find beauty anyway.
The second part of the collection, "Obituary of Light" contains one long poem divided into four portions by seasons and then into many parts "The Sangan River Meditations" continues the hint of hope provided at the end of the first section. In the first portion, "Winter", remarking on a moment of snowflakes melting on children's tongues, Musgrave writes "joy is there, in everything, and even / when we can't see it." Use of the wind appears throughout the collection, showing up in "Spring" where once again it provides a kind of hope, the openness of possibility, "how boundless is the pure / wind circling our lives." Still, although there is a hint of hope, Musgrave's outlook remains bleak, in "Summer" she writes "Suffering is the way / we measure love" and if that is the case, Origami Dove is a collection full of love. It is a love betrayed but it is a love all the same, for in "Fall" she writes:
"I loved you
with a fierceness we save for those
who can breaks us in all the broken places.
Never mind the lies, the promises
you couldn't keep."
The section itself ends with the lines, "We are the broken / heart of this world.", the exact sentiment that Musgrave's poetry captures, broken, but full of heart.
The third part of the collection is "Random Acts of Poetry", in which even with the title Musgrave begins to show her sense of humour, re-enforced in "Ice Age Lingerie" where she writes of a dream in which she is "wearing ice-age lingerie, oblivious / to the effects of global warming." The poem "Rest Area: No Loitering and Other Signs of the Times" is distinctly Canadian with a satiric bite that often had me chuckling under my breath, including such gems as "Americans say no to drugs; Canadians say / no thank you." and "My new philosophy for the millennium: / dread one day at a time." After such a bleak first half of the collection, Musgrave's humour is surprising, though still dark, describing going through airport security in "No Hablo Ingles" she refers to the inspectors as "The false-sense-of-security / guards". This section in particular, is one that would sound incredible read out lout, a spoken word poetic humour, with its commentary on politics and love.
The final section is called "Heroines" is about heroin addiction and prostitution and getting clean and selling your body. It is rough and gritty and blunt and powerfully raw. One poem is entitled "Question: Have you been hurt by men, have you been raped?", to which Musgrave replies:
"I've been raped, yes,
but what hurts worse is the way
they look at you afterwards
when they refuse to pay
as if you're the one dirty habit
they can't break."
While in another "Question" poem she writes, "the only / desire left in me is the desire / to make the best of it." It is an empowering collection, because Musgrave still expresses hope in the poems despite a narrator who grew up being abused by her foster father and now sells her body to other men. The poems themselves are based on the lives of six heroin-addicted prostitutes and originally portions of them were used as a voice-over in an art documentary film on the topic called Heroines. Although these poems are very powerful, they don't have the same confessional appeal I found in the first two portions of the collection.
Overall, Origami Dove is a bleak but beautiful collection with an unexpected hint of humour my only hope is that we don't have to wait another ten years for Musgrave's next book of poetry.
April 26, 2012
What can one say about the amazing Susan Musgrave. Her work is so well crafted and heartfelt. There is a light and a dark side to her work. This is her first major collection in ten years and honestly it has been worth the wait. One section of this book is entitled Obituary of Light - The Sangan River Meditations. It is hard to choose passages to share because there are so many beautiful passages. For example from :Spring (i) In another life , this place was my home.
I feel the rising of forgotten knowledge
like a spring from hidden aquifers under the earth.
To glimpse your own nature is to come home
like the rainfall that turns to mist before touching the earth
then rises once again to praise the sky.(p.27)
This is only part of a beautifully written piece and there is so much more. Musgrave is able to write of nature both wild and human. In the fourth and final part of this volume she takes us to a dark side of human nature. The sequence is entitled 'Heroines' and was published as "Mother's Day behind the West Hotel". The poems were drawn from the life stories of six women, heroin-addicted prostitutes, from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In Canada we are so fortunate to have poets such as Musgrave who are excavators of the human heart and are not afraid to shine a light into dark places. At the same time they show us the beauty and the wonders of the world. Once again I am inspired as both a writer and a reader.
July 25, 2011
My main source of criticism for this collection would be putting Heroines at the end, only because it's so strong and powerfully sad that I wish something had come after so I wasn't left feeling like I've been kicked in the stomach. Musgrave's poetry is everything I aspire to as a poet, and then some.
Here are some of my favourite lines:
Shouldn't it be "Christians are like tea-bags?"
I could never be a heroin addict because I can't stand doing the same thing day after day.
Try to describe a fist a split second before it hits your lip
And when you're not wanted that way from the beginning it keeps raining inside you forever.
I'd like them to see me as a dancer who can't remember the steps, a singer whose voice has left her, a woman whose heart has grown as empty as every naked hotel room she's ever tried to check out of.
P.S. In the section Random Acts of Poetry there's a poem about one of my best friends, performing an outrageous act of trespassing.
Here are some of my favourite lines:
Shouldn't it be "Christians are like tea-bags?"
I could never be a heroin addict because I can't stand doing the same thing day after day.
Try to describe a fist a split second before it hits your lip
And when you're not wanted that way from the beginning it keeps raining inside you forever.
I'd like them to see me as a dancer who can't remember the steps, a singer whose voice has left her, a woman whose heart has grown as empty as every naked hotel room she's ever tried to check out of.
P.S. In the section Random Acts of Poetry there's a poem about one of my best friends, performing an outrageous act of trespassing.
May 18, 2011
Susan Musgrave's Origami Dove (McClelland & Stewart, 128 pages, $19) shares The Wrecking Light's coppery reek and surprising range of registers.
The Vancouver Island poet's first major collection in 10 years has four radically different sections: sad/wise love poems, spare nature poems, raucous efforts, and a sequence on women from Vancouver's downtown east side.
Which is to say, enough tragedy to break your goddamn heart. But also enough craft to parse it for her readers.
A good example is "Winter", where the narrator attempts to bury a frozen wren:
"As I push through earth locked in sorrow, / in ice, find a hollow between rocks / where her body will lie, a winter wren lights / on the handle of my shovel."
To sum: these poems might be bitter pills but they're coated with artisanal chocolate and gold leaf.
The Vancouver Island poet's first major collection in 10 years has four radically different sections: sad/wise love poems, spare nature poems, raucous efforts, and a sequence on women from Vancouver's downtown east side.
Which is to say, enough tragedy to break your goddamn heart. But also enough craft to parse it for her readers.
A good example is "Winter", where the narrator attempts to bury a frozen wren:
"As I push through earth locked in sorrow, / in ice, find a hollow between rocks / where her body will lie, a winter wren lights / on the handle of my shovel."
To sum: these poems might be bitter pills but they're coated with artisanal chocolate and gold leaf.
September 13, 2012
I really enjoyed the 'Heroines' sequence to this book -- it is worth the read for that sequence alone. 'Heroines' is also part of a documentary film by photographer Lincoln Clarkes titled 'Heroines: A Photographic Obsession' about the women of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Both the film and Susan Musgrave's sequence of poems are very powerful --she is able to give the women a voice without being exploitative -- (esp after I have heard so many Canadian poets take on the voice of the 'prostitute' or the 'stripper' and completely misunderstand -- so much to the point that it is almost like the writer is 'using' their version of a prostitute as if it were a prostitute!) Anyway, there is a great deal of truth in that series of poems, and for that, I would recommend this book.
July 1, 2012
Many of these poems have appeared before, according to the credits, but I hadn't read any of them. I'm not a poet and am not experienced in critiquing poetry but I know what moves me and these poems do. Especially the ones in part four, "Heroines," which Musgrave did as a "script," of sorts for a documentary about heroin-addicted prostitutes from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They hit me like a punch to the gut. Other poems are likewise powerful and/or darkly or wryly funny, qualities that characterize other works of Musgrave that I've read. We're fortunate to have such an original talent in our midst.
January 11, 2015
As far as "dark poetry" goes this was perhaps the darkest collection i have read so far, especially the fourth section of this book - "Heroines" - with a very complicated back story behind it. The darkness is the very strength of this collection and the reason why i loved it so much. I loved the dark humour, the fact that this book made me chuckle or mumble "That's so true" under my breath while reading it. This is the kind of poetry I love and would recommend to anyone. It's raw and real with all of its unfiltered pain. It's honest and at times confused by the issues of life. It's spectacular and unforgettable.
July 9, 2011
Fucking amazing. *And* it features a poem that includes the poetic antics of my friend and mentor Adrienne Gruber. Doesn't get much better than this.
December 9, 2015
Susan Musgrave's poetry always excites, enlightens and challenges. A distinctive and unforgettable voice
December 28, 2014
Just an amazing book of poetic truths and raw beauty. Just lovely!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews