Point No Point: Poems

by Jane Munro

Point No Point ’s title comes from a landform — an actual point on the west coast of Vancouver Island, which seems, when approached from the other side, to be no point at all — and it alerts us to the fact that Jane Munro’s poems are situated in a deep sense. They live in situ in the way they inhabit their native place, intimate with its mists, its mosses and lichens, with the salmonberry and false lily-of-the-valley of their ecosystem. They are also situated temporally, evoking sharply etched memories, visions, and a real-time visit to her father’s boatyard, a dream visit with her mother from a time before the poet was conceived, a flashback to the sixties rendered in extreme close-up. By their musical attunement and the acuity of the focus, they demonstrate how such deep situation may come about, how we might bring language to the task of living in a way which is fully present. In the long culminating poem, “Moving to a Colder Climate,” Munro brings all these elements into play, summoning her father’s bold obstreperous ghost to be present as a new house is built — situated — in this language. Her gifts as a poet — acuity, candour, musicality — make Point No Point a work of unforgettable witness.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

in a fifties Pontiac
kissing the man I’d marry –
wet December night
the privacy
of a rain-splattered windshield –
taking off
his glasses, his pupils huge

as buffalo on a
prairie – the dark lens
of a species
we squandered – the past’s long gaze
fixing us

- Our History, pg. 9

* * *

One morning, about five,
she burst on the red rug –
a slender woman in a sleeveless white blouse
twisted sideways, one arm over her head.
Exhausted, she looked
Heartsick, younger than I’d ever seen her,
About the age she would have been when she conceived me.

I knelt beside her, weeping
and rubbing her back, my fingers
bumping down her spine,
forehead pressing her shoulder –
the soapy smell of her skin. Oh, my
disconsolate mother,
not much older than my daughters.

Of course she’d come, I thought, she’s so intuitive –
and anguished – having conceived me
as someone I’ve yet to become.

- Visitation, pg. 18

* * *

such a sunlit sky
 the blue of wild flax
sky’s pool
 flower after flower
 gone as mornings go
so much blue behind me
- Flax, pg. 25

* * *

he plays
the piano
like it’s an animal
he’s figuring
to touch
its haunch, its tail something
it still chases
not straight, no chart, plays
like he’s got a hunch
there’s something
he will do
it likes

- Monk, pg. 48

* * *

in the dark
before another day
feeling my way down the hall

surf below the house
a hum
from the refrigerator

hand following the bookcase
bare toes
tapping for the edge of a step

that the heart
never fails to complete its journey
like the sun

- Duration, pg. 58

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going to purchase this collection of poems. It is lyrical and beautifully composed.