Iron Mountain

By Mark Frutkin

Of one of Mark Frutkin’s previous books of verse, Poetry Canada Review said it provided "a supernatural fusion of the earthbound with the heavenly to forge the lightning of poetry." Divided into two sections, one inspired by ancient Chinese art, the other limning the ambiguities and incongruities of the contemporary human condition, Frutkin’s new volume of poetry, Iron Mountain, often presents human beings wandering in the wilderness between two abysses while still appreciating the smell of pines, the softness of the rain, the brilliance of the stars, the hum of the computer, and the jostle of the crowd on the bus.

These are poems of translucent delicacy harbouring hard truths where "A Taoist priest gulps the elixir/of immortality and blows away/in the dust,/a young Chinese girl/bumps me in the crowd/prompting a shiver/like a startled phoenix/dressed in my skin." In Frutkin’s vision the entire world is a written landscape that speaks to us of time, of change, of immutability, of radiant emptiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Sep 16, 2001
• ISBN: 9781770706262

Mark Frutkin

Mark Frutkin is an award-winning fiction author whose most recent novel, Fabrizio's Return, won the Trillium and Sunburst Awards and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada/Caribbean Region). In 2008 he published a memoir, Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush. He lives in Ottawa.

Book preview

Iron

Mountain

Also

by

Mark

Frutkin

Poetry

Opening Passages

The Alchemy of Clouds

Acts of Light

Fiction

The Growing Dawn

Atmospheres Apollinaire

Invading Tibet

In the Time of the Angry Queen

The Lion of Venice

Slow Lightning

Iron Mountain

poems by

Mark Frutkin

Porcepic Books

an imprint of

Beach Holme Publishing

Vancouver

Copyright © 2001 by Mark Frutkin

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto, Ontario.

This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, 226–2040 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 2G2. www.beachholme.bc.ca. This is a Porcepic Book.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of the British Columbia Arts Council. The publisher also acknowledges the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities.

Editor: Michael Carroll

Production and Design: Jen Hamilton

Cover Art: Landscape by Wu Jingting, from the exhibition Masterpieces of 20th Century Chinese Painting organized by the Canadian Foundation for the Preservation of Chinese Cultural and Historical Treasures and the China International Exhibition Agency.

Author Photograph: Sandra Russell

Printed and bound in Canada by Houghton Boston, Saskatoon.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Frutkin, Mark, 1948-

    Iron mountain

A Porcepic book.

ISBN 0-88878-424-4

    I. Title.

PS8561.R84I76 2001          C811’.54          C2001-911072-3

PR9199.3.F776I76 2001

To my good friend, Henry Chapin

Contents

Acknowledgements

Book I—Iron Mountain

The Journey to Shu—A Chinese Landscape

1. A Horsehair Brush

2. The Emperor Comes to the Wall

3. The Emperor’s Poem

4. Chaos

5. The Emperor Comes to the River

Mountains, Clouds

Meditation on a Mountain

Mountain and Cloud

Wang Meng’s Painting Reading in Spring Mountains

A Poem Written on Hall of Clear Mind Paper

The Emperor Floats

Disappearance

Brushstroke

Inside Gatineau Park

Chinese Shards

Chinese Exhibition

Seven Buddhas

Fragments of Heaven and Earth

The Scholar Breathes a Sigh of Relief on Failing the Civil Service Exam for the Third Time

Silkworm

Book II—Wilderness

Measuring Dust

A Drunk Addresses the Night Sky

Measuring Dust

Space

Euclid

Cubist Newspaper Driven by the Wind

Ball Bearing

Report on the End of Time

Blue Sky

Creation as Fresco Cycle

Villa-Lobos Lugs His Cello Through the Amazon Jungle

Thunder

Death of a Poet

Baudelaire’s Letter to Ancelle

Double

Creation as Fresco