river / estuaries, Julie Carr and rob mclennan
above/ground press, 2023
Another brown envelope arrives from “above/ground press” containing a couple of new chapbooks, one of which has no title on the cover. Flipping pages, I discover that it’s called “river / estuaries” authored by Julie Carr / rob mclennan. I proceed to read a few of the poems, notice that they alternate between a “river” poem and an “estuary” poem, notice that they appear to follow the “open field” form of composition, filling the width of the page with either long lines of words or else gap-filled lines. I was somewhat familiar with Julie Carr’s poetry, though had not witnessed her using this particular form, whereas rob uses it frequently, if not always. I should admit, the concept of “open field” composition, and “projective verse” has always baffled me at some level, beyond the knowledge that it was meant as an escape from the “closed form” that entailed a specific rhyme scheme, metrical or stanza pattern, and so on. It was Charles Olson, in a 1950’s essay, who wanted to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem (following the dictum of Robert Creeley that “form is never more than an extension of content”). This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content was to consist of (following the dictum of Edward Dahlberg) "one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a further perception". Olson’s essay was to become a kind of de facto manifesto for the Black Mountain poets. One of the effects of narrowing the unit of structure in the poem down to what could fit within an utterance was that the Black Mountain poets developed a distinctive style of poetic diction (e.g. "yr" for "your").
“There it is,” said Olson, sitting there, for USE.”
Well, it may have seemed obvious to him, but if you judge by the differences in style and approach between the Black Mountain poets themselves: Larry Eigner, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Paul Blackburn, Hilda Morley, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, et al, there was a lot of room for interpretation and downright deviation, especially when Olson prescribes that “each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance.” Whose breath and utterance? The poet’s? Olson was a heavy smoker, which not only affected his breath, but his delivery. Plus, he was in the habit of re-writing his poems as he read them aloud to an audience. How is this consistent with one perception directly following another if it’s subject to change on a whim?
Anyway, putting the thorny theory aside, I wondered whether the volume in my possession was a collaborative work, and if yes, what was the process employed?
I referred to the back of the book hoping to find some sort of explanation or description or author’s statement. There was nothing. I decided, might as well go to the source, and sent an email to rob, asking him for clarification. Having noticed that the “estuaries” poems contained an abundant use of commas and semi-colons (a practice I’ve noted in rob’s previous work, and something I’ll have to ask him about at a later date, as: method or madness?), I also asked whether he was responsible for these poems and Julie for the “river” poems. He told me that this was indeed the case and that the collection was a collaboration in that he wrote a response to a poem of Julie’s, then she wrote a response to his poem, and so on.
Ah, I replied, thanking him for the info and telling him that I would begin the collection again with this in mind. Then, I was suddenly struck by a further revelation that might serve as an impediment to my reading and/or appreciation of the poems. As much as I assumed that I knew what an estuary was, I was, in fact, at a loss, the word buried somewhere back in my grade ten geography class, circa 1960’s, Vancouver. I reached for my Merriam-Webster and found: “a water passage where the tide meets a river current; especially an arm of the sea at the lower end of a river. A partly enclosed coastal body of water in which river water is mixed with seawater is called an estuary. An estuary is thus defined by salinity rather than geography. Many coastal features designated by other names are in fact estuaries (for instance, Chesapeake Bay). Some of the oldest continuous civilizations have flourished in estuarine environments (for example, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Nile delta, and the Ganges delta). Cities such as London (Thames River), New York (Hudson River), and Montreal (St. Lawrence River) developed on estuaries and became important commercial centers.”
Interesting, I thought, but would this further piece of information serve me in approaching the work at hand, or only confuse matters? I confess, the reason I considered the “open field” theory and its historical context, and sought clarification of the book’s genesis in the first place, was because I was already intrigued and enjoying the poems — the movement; the ebb and flow; the shift; the accumulation and casting off of flotsam and jetsam — to stick with the images, themes, and metaphors that are explicit (and implicit) with entities such as “river” and “estuary.”
I needn’t have worried myself. A quick study of the opening two poems has me charmed and delighted, as I search where convergence and divergence serve to illuminate the collaborative process of their individual voices. Julie writes:
& the
headaches that plague you
flow backward out your skull to snag the silver maple like
barbed wire at
the pantleg of a boy.
rob responds to this in his own manner, picking up on certain images, such as: “slowly, out the left temple,” “barbed wire; a nascent clause,” “a spin of plagues ,a pantleg”, though putting these images in a different context and scattering them throughout his poem as if they’re caught in a fast-moving current.
But don’t take my word for it. Dive in. And — with respect to Charles Olson — don’t forget to breathe.
Stan Rogal lives and writes in Toronto along with his artist partner Jacquie Jacobs and their pet jackabee. His work has appeared almost magically in numerous magazines and anthologies. The author of several books, plus a handful of chapbooks (some with above/ground press). Currently seeking a new publisher: anyone??? Co-founder of Bald Ego Theatre and former coordinator of the popular Idler Pub Reading Series.
