Boxing the Compass

by Richard Greene

A poetry collection of mid-life reassessments that also makes room for the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, tone-deaf church choirs, the last of the Newfoundland whalers, and vividly remembered Portuguese fishermen. Spiritually searching and intellectually rich, Richard Greene’s third book —which ranges from intimate to ironic to satiric —shuns easy answers in poems of unfashionable eloquence comprised of colloquial textures, clear-eyed narratives, political subtexts, and no-nonsense introspection.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

99 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2009

About the author

Richard Thomas Greene is a Canadian poet and biographer whose book Boxing the Compass won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry at the 2010 Governor General's Awards. Greene received his BA in English at Memorial University in 1983, and took his doctorate as a Rothermere Fellow at Oxford University in 1991. He returned to Memorial University to teach English before joining the University Of Toronto at Mississauga in 1995, as a member of the English and Drama department. Married to pianist Marianne Marusic and father to four children, he resides in Cobourg, Ontario.

Greene first distinguished himself as a teacher and a critic with his book Mary Leapor: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Women's Poetry, published in 1993. In addition to 18th-century poetry, it was with scholarly works on Dame Edith Sitwell and Graham Greene that Greene broke through to greater renown and a wide general readership. He enjoyed international success in 2007 with Graham Greene: A Life in Letters - a biography constructed out of the novelist's own words. His recent biography, Edith Sitwell: Avant-garde Poet, English Genius is an attempt to revive the reputation of a neglected writer.

Greene is primarily known in Canada as a poet. His first collection, Republic of Solitude: Poems 1984-1994 drew little attention from reviewers when published in Newfoundland in 1994. However, it contains poems such as "Utopia" that have been often anthologized. His second collection, Crossing the Straits, was published by the St. Thomas Poetry Series of Toronto in 2004. Richard Greene's third collection of poems, Boxing the Compass, describes the journeys Greene made by Greyhound and Amtrak while visiting archives of Graham Greene's letters. It eventually won him the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.

Richard Greene currently teaches Creative Writing and British literature at the University of Toronto.

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Greene seems drawn to the sea. He writes about whalers and blue water fisherman. Since he's Canadian living near Toronto, his compass points east to the shores of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. The people who populate his poems row in dories. They lean into sharp winds on slippery decks. But Greene's compass also points south. In the longest poem in the book, "Over the Border," he describes a long trip by train and bus to Austin and Washington, D. C. His verse in this section is mostly descriptive with flashes of allusion to people like Lady Bird Johnson or Thomas Wolfe and to sites like the World War II Memorial. Not lyrical at all, this section is more like illustrative narrative. He ends at the Lincoln Memorial noting the end of a winter which has left leaves rotting in the reflecting pool. Some ducks, he writes, casually insist "on what comes next." I'd say it depends on which way his compass points. Hopefully it'll help him find inspiration.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Boxing the Compass, Greene's voice reminds me, at times, of Whitman—a fairly sensitive, gentle-hearted white man. His subjects often veer far more religious than Whitman. At times l appreciated his willingness to show his spiritual vulnerability, but at other times I felt like he expected me to understand—like he assumed I was a Christian too.

[Ariel Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in Dave Margoshes' Dimensions of an Orchard, Richard Greene's latest collection is a re-examination of ways of being in the world, of love and spirituality and decline.

Boxing the Compass (Vehicule Press, 80 pages, $16), which won the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry, spans 20 of the Cobourg, Ont., poet and prof's life.

Given that it includes poems from his two previous titles, Boxing the Compass could almost be dubbed a selected-poems. But you'd never know unless you'd read the acknowledgements.

Which is to say that the seams holding together these poems - the learning process inherent in 20 years of thinking and writing - don't show.

And that is, in and of itself, a neat trick.

Particularly good are the poems about Greene's father living and dying, which provide a specific mortality amidst slightly more formal poems about Christian martyrs and meditations on place.

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interview coming soon!

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some strong poetry here - especially the long poem "Over the Border." Won the GG award.

[Scott Toderash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half way through that really long poem I realized that I was going to like it after all. Not sure if it was me or the poem that took a while to catch on to that.