The He We Knew

By Merle Nudelman

Courageous and astute, this collection of poems, written in varied styles, explores the emotional upheavals caused by the estrangement of a son. Weaving together complex layers of personal history, these poems capture the poet's personal journey in trying to understand how these things happen in families and the process towards reconciliation. {Guernica Editions}

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guernica
• Release date: Jan 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781550715040

Merle Nudelman

Merle Nudelman is an award-winning poet, educator, and lawyer. She has published four books of poetry: Borrowed Light (2003), We, the Women (2006), The He We Knew (2010), and True as Moonlight (2014). Her first collection, Borrowed Light, won the 2004 Canadian Jewish Book Award for Poetry. Her poetry has been published in literary journals, anthologies, and zines. Her essays appear in Poetic Inquiries of Reflection and Renewal (2017) and in Poetic Inquiry: Enchantment of Place (forthcoming). She teaches memoir and poetry writing and gives workshops on healing through writing. She lives in Toronto.

Book preview

MERLE NUDELMAN

THE HE WE KNEW

 ESSENTIAL POETS SERIES 165

GUERNICA

TORONTO • BUFFALO • BERKELEY • LANCASTER (U.K.) 2010

Contents

Tell Me, What is Home?

Fate

Starved Psalms

Who We Were

The Evil Eye

Backward Journey

Lost/Found

The Living Start Recalling the Future

Spice Melody

Poem After Reading Neruda

On a February Corner near Bay and Queen

Grocery Shopping

Essence of an Orange

While Studying Justice and Order

Family Secrets

Night Spells

Already She’s Locked Away Much of the Good

Counter-Conversation

Worry Laundry Quartet

On the Lake

About Money

Locking/Unlocking

The Totem Forest

Suddenly the Old Photograph

Scuffed Case Informed by Proofs of Passage

Estrangement

The Sun Umbrella

Emptiness

Where I Place Love

Leave-taking

Unborn Spirit

In Flight

Birth Announcement

Fluorescent Hope

Is it safe

The Poet

Melody Not to Be Sung in My House

Green Funereal Wishes

Blank Pages

Birth Pains

The Other Side

Colour Blind

Strands of Light

These are the days when birds come back

Love’s House

Woman-Song

Razing Sorrow’s House

The Wanderer

Acknowledgements

For Michael

with love and admiration

The lines you draw around you are straight and thin.

I abandon you to your sensibilities, move in other rooms

where windows open and music plays.

Malca Litovitz

Tell Me, What is Home?

In the starting room

in the heart of the place

a frayed trunk packed with frayed dreams

stairs spiralling…

Our story is a snow trail.

Beyond the drapes

I remember the stars circling.

As