THE SHAPE OF DISAPPEARING LETTERS, Marty Gervais
Mosaic Press, 2026
WHEN YOU’RE DOWN ON YOUR KNEES IN A FIELD CALLED FOREVER,
John B. Lee
Mosaic Press, 2026
Marty Gervais and John B. Lee have been friends forever. Their prominence as poets here in Southwest Ontario and throughout much of Canada has flourished like their bond in a decades-long association through writing. They have shared the stage on numerous occasions, completed many reading road trips together and have formed, quintessentially, a brotherhood by the book. And they have garnered a faithful following of readers and other writers who have been drawn to their genius and the generosity of their wise counsel as editors and publishers.
It is fitting that, this year, Mosaic Press has released a collection of poetry by each of these talented and influential artists, a celebration of sorts and, for each of them, an invitation to explore themes of generational memory and lessons learned. And as with everything they do, Gervais and Lee do not disappoint.
In THE SHAPE OF DISAPPEARING LETTERS, Marty Gervais tackles his own physical limitations with deeply moving, personal poems. We are asked to bear witness to the subject of his macular degeneration and eventual blindness. These poems are tough, bittersweet but, in many ways, uplifting and inspirational.
With vision problems detected early in his youth, Gervais recalls a visit to the optometrist that is revelatory:
Barely five and I didn’t see
the point of all these letters and
asked what kind of language this was
The doctor frowned and said
“Just read what you see…please”
I struggled to make neither head nor tail
of this alphabetic scrabble and asked again,
“Is there supposed to be some kind of story here?”
The poet’s enormous challenge is a shared, hereditary experience, as we learn of his own father’s trials and tribulations:
But each morning, despite failing eyes
he worked his way down the stairs
to a cheerless basement room to stand
and paint till he heard my mother
call him back for lunch
The anguish of impaired
vision does not impede nor diminish the artist in either of them. His father’s avocation
was visual art; for Marty Gervais, it is photography. And as we have come to
know, the call of the camera has long complimented his poetic writing and spawned
several successful stand-alone books of images. At this stage in his life, Gervais leans greatly
on his photographic talent, not as a crutch but as a useful tool to feed his
journalist’s curiosity and to enhance the nature and the essence of his prolific
artistry:
I work the camera’s aperture ring
brightening the viewfinder, awaiting
the muted click to say I’m in focus
and the picture is ready
His images are sharp, his
memory focused. What Gervais shares with his readers is not aimed to draw pity
nor to declare his own remorse. These poems are a testament to the profound
wonder and awe he finds in the simple things that we all take for granted and that
will for him, in time, disappear sadly and permanently. And despite this turn
of events, he rejoices in the light that will remain.
And so, too, John B. Lee,
writes with reverence regarding everyday influences in his life, the things he
has seen and experienced and what has shaped his understanding of the sweet
moments and mysteries of his world. As
you read WHEN YOU’RE DOWN ON YOUR KNEES IN A FIELD CALLED FOREVER, you may
think that you have discovered a prophet, a latter-day Tiresias, strong in
language and forceful in moral sentiment:
I missed the closing of the church
the last liturgy
of the millennium
before the building died
into another purpose
in the market place
the final homily
its moral
taken from the torn-out pages
of the death of God
The last vestiges of the
farm-boy life he once knew is eroding, as farms vanish and agricultural hamlets
dwindle. And so, he laments,
all that is left for the citizens
of the village of my youth
where i went to school
it seems, is the last
unlasting community of
the graveyard
though even there
the pigeon-chested earth
caves in
almost enough to swallow
the names
of all and every single one
of the once-loved dead
an inbreath
of green ground
over the broken ribs
of the fallen-in oak
and old wood coffins
whereby and wherefore
the common crush of time
levels every Lazarus
Like any remarkable storyteller, Lee threads a narrative element in his poetry. But there is often a didactic component as well, something to be gleaned, a lucid message, a prized take-away. His work is rich with childhood memories of a hard-working farm family, the land fertile with cash crops, the wide-open spaces teeming with adventures and possibilities for a young daydreamer. And with all of that comes the ensuing realization that charmed youth gives way to a sobering epiphany-- that the best times remain vivid, picture-perfect reminiscences that we harbour in our hearts while longing for a repeat performance.
And so, with an
imaginative child’s determination, an afternoon in an idyllic setting is meant
to be
off to the barns or
out to the fields or
back to the woodlot
or down the lane
to lay siege on the cornstalks
finding the worth
of a windfallen branch
how one was a musket
another a sword
in swashbuckler shadow
of broken-back fences
i’d follow the ambient light
to the shelter of heaven
and read my way home
by the stars
and oh, what story i was
what a maker of widows
what a hero of storms
That emphatic assertion bears repeating for its simplicity and its truth. Says John B. Lee, “…and oh, what story I was…”.
He may perhaps have to share that declaration with his friend, Marty Gervais, with a slight variance: “what story they both were”. May their story continue.
Peter Hrastovec is the current poet laureate for the City of Windsor (Ontario). His most recent chapbook is Limbo Moon, published by Woodbridge Farm Books.
