Ethan Vilu : Poisonous If Eaten Raw, by Alyda Faber

Poisonous If Eaten Raw, Alyda Faber
Goose Lane Editions, 2021

 

 

 

Alyda Faber’s second full-length collection is a series of experimental portrait poems, dedicated to and ultimately concerned with the poet’s late mother. Through the use of a wide variety of imaginatively developed analogies, Faber meditates upon generational trauma, the profound difficulties of her mother’s life and the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship. As a thematically unified book, Poisonous If Eaten Raw is distinguished from many similarly conceived projects by its unflinching focus and inexhaustible commitment to its subject matter.  Though some of the included pieces deal explicitly with reflections on works of visual art (one stand-out poem situates the mother within Vincent van Gogh’s The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital), the entire text can in a larger sense be seen as a work of continuous ekphrasis – an explication of a subject, vivid and yet radically ineffable, from which the poet cannot turn away.

The gravity of Poisonous If Eaten Raw’s task is immediately conveyed in the book’s opening pages, and from there the work does not let up at any point. “Portrait of My Mother as a Funnel Spider,” the first poem in the text, introduces the book’s central concerns with a masterfully sustained sense of pacing: “Abandoned to cluster flies and spiders / since mother died, flaps of floral wallpaper sag / in my old bedroom; the mattress, still the same / after forty years, swallows me into a trench.”. Thematic layers are gradually introduced as the book progresses: the mother’s history as an immigrant, her decades spent in an abusive, terrorizing marriage; her often adversarial relationship with the external world and her profound interior life as made legible through prayer and religiosity. The overall portrait which Faber creates is both unadorned and yet firmly grounded in an ardent, admirable empathy.

At a poetic level, Faber’s work is exquisite. The pieces in Poisonous If Eaten Raw are crafted with extraordinary ability. One of the book’s most remarkable elements is a profusion of succinct and yet fully realized images – “Her eyes / mortgaged to a love that drives / the rain through open windows.” (from “Portrait of My Mother as the Duke of Kent”) is a potent example. One of my favorite parts of the book (indeed, one of the best things I’ve read in some time) is this section from “Camperdown Elm”:

Contorted branches sport
casual spring jewellery,
clusters of pale green oval coins.
No glitter, they shrivel or fall
without much fuss. Summer
leaves, dishpan hands. Late autumn
foliage: muted lamps in grey rain.

The amount of terrain covered in this brief set of lines, and the utter vividness of the images, strikes me as being exceptional. Throughout the book, one finds natural beauty, domestic moments (sometimes peaceful, often harrowing), fantastic scenes from the works of Joseph Beuys and Salvador Dali, and all manner of other phenomena, poetically rendered with palpable attention and rigour.

Beyond this level of construction, Faber also displays expertise in terms of her poems’ sonic qualities. Understated and yet affecting use of alliteration, assonance, and deftly placed rhymes infuse Poisonous If Eaten Raw with a sense of wholehearted care, and reflect the poet’s commitment to the book’s conceptual premise. Lines like “Garden an aquarium in dull rain, / hydrangea heads bow, bee balm / and pink phlox sink towards the lawn.” (from “Portrait of My Mother on the Kitchen Window”) make the difficult look easy, linking lush, compelling sounds over the course of each poem in the text. That Faber is able to sustain this quality through the variety of emotional resonances which make up the collection is impressive.

As a book which is wholly concerned with some of the most central, vulnerable elements of the human experience – the life and death of a loved one, and the drive to truly understand another human being – Poisonous If Eaten Raw is a product of real courage, and an unequivocal success. Faber’s formal brilliance, clarity, and compassion have resulted in a text which has the potential to provide solace and insight to anyone who reads it. It is a formidable achievement, and a book to which I will definitely return. 

 

 

 

Ethan Vilu is a poet and editor from Calgary, Alberta. Their longsheet A Decision Re: Zurich was published by The Blasted Tree in 2020. Ethan currently serves as both poetry editor and circulation manager for filling Station. Beyond writing and editing, they have recently been learning how to control distance with a pitching wedge.