She, Kirby
Knife Fork Book, 2024
Kirby’s newest collection, She, documents the strange ways in which time passes. Each poem is a snapshot of a specific moment, the way a morning might be “gray full of dread” with “Nothing pretty on the corner,” or how a writer’s desk inspires with its “Violet buttercups periwinkle,/fiesta bud vase pink lemonade/frames purple love chunk…fuchsia/glass pickle ornament Dior #753/Suzanne’s owl pendant.” In “Where did the car go?”, the speaker notes the “basil mint thyme balcony/gone to flower clutter constant dread/fresh crisp salad or a pasta with/greens olives.” The poet also conveys a clear sense of place, writing of the “Row of ‘cottages’ along St. Nicholas/one of their favourite streets between/Irwin and St. Mary’s” and marvelling about “how such/quaintness exists but a block off Yonge.” By using such detail, by creating such a strong list of images, memories, and moments, Kirby immerses the reader in the world of She.
The pandemic plays a role in this grouping of poems, and it’s refreshing to see a poet who doesn’t simply avoid writing about it. After all, the pandemic happened, rife with its lockdowns and increased isolation, and affected all of us in terms of how we all move through the world. That period of time has refashioned us all, whether we are brave enough to formally acknowledge it or not. In “26 February 2021,” there’s a reflection on politics: “Government response/to COVID. Am I bitter?/ No. Like yourself, observant.” In “Give me a minute,” the speaker says, “Mask breathing becomes laborious/pause lower it so their nostrils have/direct air only to remember when her/mother had to do the same.” That sense of time blurring during the pandemic is also present in “Weekends never used to be,” as days slide into one other without a necessary calendared boundary.
The way time, and society, changes is also addressed artfully in She. In one poem, the title blends into the start of the piece: “She misses//future thinking/her pre-internet brain.” In “How we got [now] here” and in “To the Newly Certified Grief Counsellor Who Thought My Mother’s Visitation Was Their High School Reunion,” the speaker ponders the inane and illusionary nature of social media. This notion is further emphasized in “Last Licks,” when Kirby writes: “Everything an Event./An insta spot.” Better, She suggests, to take greater care in noting the details of the life we are living each moment—not to dull its ebbs and flows—than to worry so much about producing superficial and highly edited posts and reels. If everything these days on social media is about producing content, then what is being missed is the fleeting nature of life (and time) itself.
She is about managing to get up in the morning, to be strong enough to face the pitfalls and disappointments—to be open, fragile, but to also be tenacious and persistent. To survive. In “What’s that?” a tea bag is compared to a tumor, something bigger than what was expected, a notation to remind us of life’s very temporary nature. In “Kindness,” there is a reflection on wrongly identifying and misgendering someone who has slipped under a bus. Checked on after a fall, the speaker notes a “stranger politely mistaking me for sir.” Then, in poems like “Sun-brewed,” “Middle of nowhere [Ohio],” and again in “Last Licks,” there are references to childhood, to memories and losses that are further underlined by the death of a parent. Time loops backwards and forwards in an ancestral fashion, a vortex of grief and mindfulness—and of our own mortality, as well.
Kirby refines some of the themes and philosophical questions found in previous collections, including thoughts around searching for identity, growing into oneself, the too quick passage of time itself, as well as the desire for connection in a time that often seems so disconnected. What stands out, though—always—is the idea that we should marinate in our experiences, taking note of what makes them bright and brilliant, even through the rougher times in our lives. These poems sing not just of basic survival, but of a flourishing and kind of blooming, too, and that makes She a must-read book of poems.
Kim Fahner lives and writes
in Sudbury, Ontario. Her latest full collection of poems is Emptying the
Ocean (Frontenac House, 2022) and she's just published a poetry chapbook, Fault
Lines and Shatter Cones (Emergency Flash Mob Press, 2023). She is the First
Vice-Chair for The Writers' Union of Canada (2023-25), a member of the League
of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada.
Kim's first novel, The Donoghue Girl, will be published by Latitude 46
Publishing in Fall 2024. She may be reached via her author website at
www.kimfahner.com
