Year Zero by Brian Henderson

Brian Henderson is a Canadian poet that was a big inspiration to me in the early years of me seriously writing any poetry and it’s kind of scary to me to think that the last time I read his work was over a decade ago. I read his collections Sharawadji and Nerve Language, and this time around I’ve jumped to one of Henderson’s mid-career collections, Year Zero. One of the things I’ve found inspiring in Henderson’s poetry collections is their unconventional nature; one of the first poems of his that I read is presented, essentially, as two poems in a side-by-side conversation and I remember seeing him as an experimenter to follow.

Year Zero is perhaps not as experimental as some of Henderson’s later works, but still had quite a bit to latch onto in terms of imagery and insight. There’s a metaphysical bent to a number of the poems that finds meaning in the environment. In the opening poem, “Shadow Lake,” Henderson describes in a brief ten lines, a dark lake: “That lake / with its language of swallowed things” (11). This idea of a lake swallowing detritus and making it a language, communicating through that which it absorbs rather than what it expels is an interesting inversion. It also evokes a mournful tone in its final stanza: “The air is rich with unfinishedness // Things want to be free / impossibly / without having to be lost” (11). The meditative register presents a compelling juxtaposition. The incomplete is presented as richness—it makes me think of Karl Jaspers’ existential philosophy that posits possibility as the ultimate identity of something. Here, what is absent is what gives the air its richness. But Henderson also highlights a depressing reality: that being free entails also being lost; the liberatory and the elegiac operate in tandem.

I think it’s worth noting just how many of these poems are written in dedication. Indeed, the afterword of the text orbits a number of deaths. Henderson describes the manuscript not as an elegy but instead “cut glass, folding water, streaming wind” (59). He goes on to describe the complications of dedicating the book to particular people before noting that he “felt how impossible even multiple dedications were, since the relationships were of such differing textures” (59). He notes that the dedications would “all be cracking off in different directions, felt wrong, and would overburden the book, like a tombstone even though, perhaps even especially because, they are at the heart of it—not their names, but them” (59). This sadness, this sense of loss, does seem to permeate through the text.

“In the Old Garden,” for example, begins with the lines “You have hardly begun the poem /  the voice says, and yet /  many people have already died” (14). There’s a tension in the need for immediacy—if we don’t write it now, it means more people will die. At the same time, there’s a richness and endlessness to the work: “We open even a word like a book / I try to say” (14). If every word is a book, then every book is infinite. The line continues, though into a kind of futility: “but how does this help, / when in the living / every lit vein runs to the golden stigmas of the heart” (14). The reflective poem continues with the idea that the body and the word are connected and “Perhaps the only real word is /  the one the body speaks /  as a whole life” (14). We see Henderson grappling with existential and linguistic themes here, as elsewhere, and it does seem to speak in the writerly register I find so resonant.

Throughout the collection, we also see a return to the idea of the incomplete, the unfinished. As in the first poem where the air is rich with unfinishedness, “There is a Kind of Music” also connects to the idea: “There is a kind of music / an unfinished music / to this constantly moving house / an opening and closing of breath / like a tide of shadows” (29). The piece once more gestures towards a spaciousness and emptiness filled with something not quite done. The unfinished music acts as a kind of furniture. The emphasis for the speaker of the poem is placed on listening for the house’s noises “and on not hearing it” (29). The poem becomes even more existential, referencing the idea of “Death [as] a stagger in the rhythm” (29). The stanzas then speed through a life and “We come all this way to lose ourselves finally / and it’s family we find ourselves doing it in” (29). The poem becomes another meditation on language, “another language / an island the music moves / sweeps as if it had hands / and nearly comforts” (29). There’s a tension here between the power and futility of language. At the same time that language can sweep things away, it only “nearly comforts” — there’s an incompleteness even in this edifying feature of the human experience.

I have to admit that a number of Henderson’s poems are difficult to parse. They are expansive in their scope and, sometimes, it is hard to see how the pieces are connected. The focus is not as immediately obvious as some more imagistic poems. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy them, but it’s clear that to fully appreciate these poems, it requires time and patience.

That said, Henderson does not shy away from the imagistic. For example, the poem “The Hummingbird” is replete with specific images. The poem starts with the idea that “green lanterns of leaves cling / to their lifelines, / ragged with storm light” (45). Meanwhile, “The lake crashes over / lake-made dykes of the marsh / slewing sand / back over blades of yellow iris” (45). The scene unfolds in more rich detail, slowly introducing characters, an ambiguous ‘you’ and an ambiguous ‘I.’ ‘You’ is described as being undermined like the water maple by “incremental dynamite of surf” and toppling into the wet lap of a green torch being thrown away in slow motion. The ‘I’ of the poem reflects: “I have nothing if not this / forever unravelling shore” (45). I love that line because I love boundaries blurring and here the unravelling shore presents an image of flux, the “line between water and water” (45). This is the foundation for where the speaker stands. That image of tumult and instability and excess feels like an appropriate image for capturing a state of mind, consistent with how the speaker is “no longer sure / what direction forward represents” (45). Meanwhile, nature has a way: “Maple fruit torque through the wind, / propellers of future raining down” (45). I like that image; it brings back a childhood memory of watching the maple keys drift, but here the image is inverted as reflective of the future.

“Earth Ward” cycles through a number of these key motifs, as well. The poem starts with the idea of the “unfinished,” this time in the form of an unfinished “centre [that] still gathers / to scatter” (49). Henderson again returns to the idea of the incomplete and the unstable. I love the onomatopoeiac line that follows: “Bees unzip the tropic of afternoon” (49). It evokes Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”—the center gathers to scatter, everything is unfinished, the world is being unzipped, coming apart. The poem then goes on to describe the “weaving heat lines” and “the ear thinks space” (49). It’s an image of summer and that sensory confusion of wavy lines on the road and the buzzsaw of summer. The poem later takes an odd turn where it is August and the speaker is “listening, listening / at the door of your house, / my ear to taut skin” (49). It suggests the house to be a living entity (indeed, Henderson describes “your human hearth”) but then once again shifts to the idea of an ear on “the wild of the heart” (49) and describes thinking as growing like a bud into wood into bone. This growth and solidifying of thinking is personified through naturalistic imagery. Like in some of the other poems I see as representative, there’s an insertion and identification of the speaker with a natural phenomenon.

This summer poem stands in contrast with a cold one: “February: Flash Point.” The role of memory is once again foregrounded: “the air / a continuous flash that forgets / everything it once knew” (44). The emptiness in the air is this time a more active forgetting. February is presented as a time of transformation: a forgetting of the old, and “like weather, you move over within yourself, / an adoration, and disown the / shapes you blow through” (44). I feel like I calcify throughout winter, so it’s interesting to suggest a freshness and newness in the height of a frozen season. Henderson continues, “You are gestating incandescence / whose shadow shortens / to that telling moment I can tell and / tell, and say nothing of” (44). I’m not quite sure how to process these lines. The idea of an incandescence growing inside sounds like an optimistic shift within the self. That said, “whose shadow shortens” reads ambiguously to me. The incandescence and the shadow seem to be in tension with one another. Like other references to language, the ‘I’ of the poem suggests additional telling and telling—more words—and yet “say nothing of” implies an inability to communicate. Ultimately, there is “strewing the ash of snow, a drift of selves / in the tiny creases of your landscape” (44). I love that idea of a number of selves drifting together. Especially when considering the uniqueness of snowflakes, here there is the suggestion that they are all components of a similar self. It’s a collective identity and “you are filled to your season / with others” (44). The image of snow drifting together and blending feels authentic to who we are as people: collective selves loosely linked together, and the poem leads to an engaging final two lines. We are filled to our seasons with others “welcoming us to the eye / of the blizzard” (44). This amalgamation is a lovely end to the piece, an optimism about what I consider the cruellest month.

Ultimately, Henderson’s poems are rich with perspective and layered with meaning. His core themes engage me: language, space, emptiness, change, amorphousness. There are a handful of poems that I felt I could latch onto, though I admit I was hoping for some more experimental pieces. These are all poems that take time. It’s not the easily accessible work of some other modern poets; it’s the work of someone thinking deeply and considering carefully how these words can create meaning or gesture beyond themselves. As readers, we have to consider his words just as carefully in order to latch on. Year Zero is a reminder that poetry is at its best when it’s slow.

Happy slow reading!

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones

  About a month ago, I went to see a screening of the documentary The Librarians. The documentary is about the ways right-wing and white supremacist organizations have been infiltrating public and school library meetings to censor voices, especially those of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and people of colour. I have a wild anecdote about the screening of the documentary, but I’ll save that for another time.

For now, I’ll focus on That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones. Jones features somewhat prominently throughout the documentary, and her memoir goes into some more detail about her experience as a librarian in America. Following a meeting at her public library board meeting where she spoke against censorship, she was viciously attacked online.

The attacks cast aspersions on her character and her career, despite the fact that she is a highly accomplished and decorated librarian. The attacks against her ranged from calling her a pedophile to death threats to insulting memes that circulated throughout the community. Even close friends were swayed, posting things like “I guess you never really know someone”. Jones discusses the devastating impact of online harassment on her life and the way she had to navigate her day-to-day life in response. 

The book has essentially three threads that Jones weaves together. The first is discussion of her personal life and career, including how her family responded to the attacks. The second thread is about her lawsuits in which she sued Ryan Thames and Michael Lunsford for defamation (she’s suing for one dollar and an apology). The third major thread is about the ongoing censorship war and the rise of right wing politics and the way and the reason white supremacists are trying to destroy libraries. I find the threads interesting in that order, moving from the specific to the systemic.

Jones’ storytelling is effective and accessible. It feels personable, conversational even. My main critique with the text is that, structurally, it hops around, which leads to some intermittent repetition. The book is largely chronological, with some time jumps or flashbacks. Part of me wonders if a more distinct vision for each chapter might have been more effective in the advocacy part of the book. The book is at its best when going beyond the personal into the more systemic factors, which I would have liked to see more of.

One example is the discussion of the lawsuit. Jones gives a rage-inducing account of being in court and not being listened to. In addition to the misinformation, Jones did not get to voice her concerns, and her initial suit was dismissed because she was classed as a public figure. Hearing about her lawsuit, I couldn’t help but wonder how similar cases have been addressed across the United States. I think getting into the grittier details of the legal fight would be engaging when considering the broader trends of online defamation and political attacks against public workers.

Of course, the most interesting layer to me is the way that politics has influenced public and school libraries. The debate around “appropriate” books hits close to home because I’ve faced a fair amount of controversy in the public education system. Some books get challenged for outdated perspectives while others get challenged for being “too woke.” What I find really compelling and sinister is the way right wing money funds and empowers people to challenge librarians. In particular, any books that feature queer relationships or are anti-racist in nature get challenged wholesale; lists and lists of books are sent out to right wing adherents to challenge. Groups like Moms for Liberty, while claiming to be grassroots, are actually funded by wealthy conservative donors and PACs. Jones touches on this, but that’s the kind of controversy I wanted to see more of. The story has the capacity to demystify the ways organizations like this operate and challenge the normalization of book bans.

That Librarian is a journey of one librarian navigating challenges to one of our most foundational institutions—libraries—and one of our most foundational habits as a species—reading. While I wish the text was a little more incisive about the trend of politics trying to ban books and the legal measures people can take in response, it’s a compelling and inspirational personal story. I hope it gives the courage to librarians and other public figures across North America to fight the good fight.

Keep reading and keep fighting!

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men is a novel of borders. From the standpoint of genre, Cormac McCarthy plants himself at the border of Western and noir and pastoral. The novel also borders explicit violence while being, at times, understatedly reserved—same goes for its sentence structures: the dialogue is terse, brief; the narration provides clause after clause sewn together. All these stylistic choices run parallel to the novel’s setting: the border between Texas and Mexico, where a drug deal has gone horribly wrong.

Our protagonist, Llewellyn Moss, is out in the desert and stumbles across a heroin deal gone bad, one littered with dead bodies and a briefcase left behind full of cold hard cash. Llewellyn claims the case and takes it home to his skeptical wife, whom he keeps in the dark about his situation. To be fair, he’s completely truthful about the bag being full of money, but his dynamic with his wife assures that she will not believe him.

Unfortunately for Llewellyn, he has entered into a network of forces that far exceed his capacities. There are cartel members at war with each other, bounty hunters, and police that are trying to decipher what the heck is happening with all these dead bodies. One of my gripes with the text is that so many of the characters feel interchangeable. The terseness of the characters’ speech, for example, emphasized their wit but not their personalities. Each could be each—that is, except for the novel’s villain.

Bought to life in the film adaptation by Javier Bardem, Anton Chigurh is a truly iconic villain. In the text, his piercing blue eyes reflect a cold universe as he slaughters his way through Texas and beyond. Chigurh tracks down his pray and uses a cattle gun to murder people for as little as needing their car. His calculated and measured approach is sinister, but the text runs the risk of glorifying his ultraviolence by making him the character from whom we get the most insight into the novel’s core themes.

There are a few critical moments with Chigurh that serve the novel’s core themes. There is a moment when Chigurh initiates a gas station attendant into a coin toss game. He flips the coin and asks for the man to call it. The man protests because the stakes have not been made clear to him—he has nothing to gain. McCarthy is masterful in crafting the suspense of the scene, because we know that the man is betting on his life—and I think at some level he understands, too. Chigurh explains the genesis of the coin and the twenty years it took to get to that moment. Essentially, the scene is a reflection on fate. The past latches on and makes the moment inevitable—nearly. The only “choice” is left to chance for the man: a fateful 50/50. One of the reasons Chigurh is so compelling is because he, unlike the other characters in the book, seems to have a clear vision of how the world operates (more on this later). By giving him the chance to articulate his philosophy, he is given special priority in the reader’s mind, despite his horrific violence.

The other stand-out Chigurh murder-spree scene is when he kills Llewellyn’s wife. For a bit of a background, Llewellyn is provided the opportunity to return the money. Chigurh promises to kill him, but to let his wife live. Llewellyn is killed, somewhat randomly, at the hands of the cartel, undermining Chigurh as the agent of fatalism. Nonetheless, Chigurh arrives at Carla Jean’s house and tells her about his promise to kill her. Carla Jean protests, noting that Chigurh himself made the promise and that he could give up his mission. His rigidity assures her: no, the choice was already made.

The title of No Country for Old Men points towards the difference in philosophies at play. Chigurh reflects a precise, specific code for living. The world has rules, standards, and consequences, even if they’re partly determined by chance. What’s strange is that the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, seems to have an affinity for Chigurh’s philosophy, even if he won’t acknowledge it. There’s a passage where Ed Tom explains how everything is changing and the younger generation no longer subscribes to conventions and so on. It’s as though he longs for the certainty and predictability of Chigurh’s philosophy.

This odd tension helps to explain, perhaps, Ed Tom’s obsession with—and inaction toward—Chigurh. Ed Tom cannot understand the logic of the villain’s chaos. He continually floats towards him but whenever he gets close, he shies away. In a moment of pursuit, Ed Tom seems to pull back, fearing his own death.

No Country for Old Men is unlike most books I read, especially in the realm of literary fiction. There are lengthy action sequences and pages of senseless slaughter. I initially found it a little challenging to get immersed—-there’s a lot of description of the desert and a play-by-play of the action. As the plot advances, I found myself more invested, if still a little confused about the interchangeable cast of characters. I wish there was a little more personality or experimentation with ‘voice’ for the characters, but the random anarchy of McCarthy’s world keeps the story running; there’s a moment when Chigurh is in a car accident and it could be what brings him down—except, he’s too clever. Following Chigurh murdering Carla Jean, I felt the story essentially had done what it needed to, but then Ed Tom provides a lengthy reflection that has the narrative peter out. 

Generally…I liked it! Happy reading!