Understander is the second collection of poems from Ottawa, Canada’s N.W. Lea. Published by Chaudiere Books, also based in Ottawa, Understander is one of the newer poetry books presented by literary critic and poet/author/critic rob mclennan and co-publisher Christine McNair.
N.W. Lea’s Understander was a surprise gift from rob a while back when he and I discussed poetry reviews and our own publications. Along with a book of his own, he included in post Lea’s small book and, once I finished the book I was reading at the time, I began it right away after flipping through it and reading the following poem:
Tastemakers
Your eerie dog
licks the blood
from my moccasins
while we sit riddled
on your porch
in the purple dark.
Now, when I mention Understander as being a small book I mean precisely that. About the size of a hand, the physical book itself is diminutive (who cares, right?) and a very good-looking publication. And the poems themselves average about 11 lines, factoring in the fourth and final section of the book which lists each poem numerically rather than assign titles as the collection presses on toward its finale.
I should also state now that I like this book, specifically for the work it encouraged out of me. It is not, however, a poetry collection I’d recommend to someone first stepping to poetry for this same reason, whereas I might suggest Collins, Tate, or Laux, poets I value for their fluctuations between observer and participant and doing so quite accessibly while maintaining force, humor, drama—whatever is the designated drive behind the piece. N.W. Lea’s second collection is a challenge, though not an intimidating one.
Understander is a book of standout lines amongst fragments and the employment of listing as technique, most of which works rather well. A fair comparison from the beginning of the book would be the poems “Ten Lines” and “Poem.”
Ten Lines
My stomach churns.
I close my eyes and see the prose.
I needed to take the edge off
and so now the edge is off.
All my cells are whispers.
Things become secretly irrelevant.
Now, I’m—…and less enthusiastic.
I finally understand nothing.
Winter is coming.
A dreaded neighbor in the night.
and then
Poem
when I hear river
I get dumber
distant city light
night-spattered
wildflowers twitchy in ditches
trees brutal with sound
“Ten Lines” (I love the line “All my cells are whispers.”) is an example of straightforward, communicative sentences that tie well together to form an accessible poem. Lea does this several times throughout the book. Poem, however (I enjoy the alliteration of “light night-spattered” and “twitchy in ditches”), represents the poet’s willingness to begin in a similar manner but then break from punctuation and what I suppose one could call a streamlined narrative in the poem, just to branch out in to glimpses, visual fragments as well as syntax. He does this quite often in Understander. And so, the challenge is to follow this predictable unpredictability and allow it, which becomes easier and more enjoyable once it’s recognized that the poet’s choices here are purposive and come across as genuinely calculated.
Of his many short poems, which range from 1-3 lines, my favorite is the following:
Postcard
just savouring
the breaking down
of the body—xo
It says so very much in so little a space. I admire this ability tremendously in writers from all mediums and genres.
As a fan of E. E. Cummings, I wrote his name in the margins of the poem “Unchanging Window,” really picking up the influence here. And if for some reason Lea has never stumbled across Cummings, let alone celebrated him, then I find this poet to be even more daring and confidently experimental.
Unchanging Window
Attention, senses: aura relegates aim.
A tired description of me disperses
throughout the morbid house—a tension census!
Come, let’s go failing, To the last
moribund ecology. We’ll never waste time.
We’ll never waste time, never
replace time. For aura regulates shame
and the wild depictions of me amass
in the reproductive forest. Unchanging
window, gather grime.
I certainly appreciate the evident playfulness with language. And while it can seem a bit obfuscated, again, the intentional dynamic of this thematic amorphousness makes it work even so. Hence, my suggestion that an old poetry dork like myself step to something like this rather than a newcomer. We want all our burgeoning poetry fans satisfied with going forward regarding all forms and styles. And so as ee cummings wasn’t and isn’t for everyone, so is Lea’s Understander a study in the complexity of art and artistic form that sets it apart from the conventional, which I appreciate even further.
Before concluding, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t share some of those “standout lines” mentioned above. The following are of my favorites:
from “Bliss”…”Inside, I wonder if every one of us was murdered?”
from “Winter Song”…”The devil in your skeleton is throwing a bash.”
from “You”…”You, God-scarred under starry night, alone,”
from “she”…”she’s the stanza that arranges itself”
from “Three Versions of Her”…”She wore the sun as a demon bone broach,”
from “Improviser”…”You beauty eater. You prepared piano jammed up and suckered into new musics.”
There is, of course, much more to this unique poetry collection. And while one doesn’t necessarily walk away from N.W. Lea’s Understander knowing the poet any less or more, not all books of poems are to be confessional and rife with direct human admission. I think without challenging artistic norms we’d he worse off as a poetry community. And so on that note, I say kudos to Lea and his second collection.
