Panicle

By Gillian Sze

“Succulent in its excellence, Sze’s poetry insists that cultural ‘difference’ is what can make a beautiful difference in our apprehension of the ‘beautiful.’” — George Elliott Clarke on Peeling Rambutan

In Panicle, Gillian Sze makes her readers look and, more importantly, look again. It’s a collection that challenges our notion of seeing as a passive or automatic activity by asking us to question the process of looking. The book’s first section, “Underway,” deals with the moving image and includes both poetic responses to film theory and lyrical long poems while also reimagining fairy tales. The next section, “Stagings,” takes its inspiration from the still image and explores a wide range of periods, movements, and media. Sze’s focus on the process of looking anticipates “Guillemets,” a creative translation of Roland Giguère’s 1966 chapbook, Pouvoir du Noir, which contains a series of poems accompanied by his own paintings. Sze’s approach to Giguère is two-fold: she “translates” his text, and artist Jessica Hiemstra provides a visual response to her translation. The final section, “Panicle,” continues the meditative quality of “Guillemets” in a suite of poems that ruminate on nature, desire, and history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773051048

Gillian Sze

GILLIAN SZE is the author of poetry collections, creative nonfiction and picture books. Her recent books include You Are My Favorite Color (illustrated by Niña Mata), The Night Is Deep and Wide (illustrated by Sue Todd) and My Love for You Is Always (illustrated by Michelle Lee). Her work has attained starred reviews from Quill & Quire, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Originally from Winnipeg, she now resides in Montreal, Quebec, where she teaches creative writing and literature.

Book preview

PANICLE

GILLIAN SZE

ECW Press

A misFit book

CONTENTS

I — Underway

Calligraphy (心)

Sound No 1

Precipitate

8 a.m. Ode

Like This Together

Two Sonnets

Sound No 2

February

A Poem for the Apparition of the Broken Teapot

Sound No 3

Sound No 4

Seven Takes

Nocturne

Sound No 5

Disappearing Act

II — Stagings

Parallax

Praise

Mount Royal

Against the Sky

Pique

Dawning

Panorama: Roma

Bona Fide; or, Setting the Seine on Fire

The Lotus Tree in Flower

Contact Sheet for L’Après-midi, 1977

Phantom Limbs

To the Photographer in the Countryside

Aubade

Staging Paris; or, Tableaux Vivants

Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 01/06/11

Discourse Between Stockings

To Ilse Bing, I & II

En Route

Lineage

Proof

III — Guillemets

IV — Panicle

Notes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

I

UNDERWAY

What matters is looking only at the movements.

— Yve Lomax

CALLIGRAPHY (心)

When no rule seems applicable, you must simply learn the stroke order by heart.

— Johan Björkstén

A traveller’s heart is breaking on his way.

— Du Mu

This is how the beginning sounds: an inkstick grinding against stone,

a dark circling like ancient gears. The water blackens from soot;

we paint with the burnt ashes of pine trees.

A quiet task lies before us —

to compose even before the brush touches the paper,

to know where each stroke will stay,

to (as they say) have a bamboo completed in your chest.

I wish I could show you, as I write this,

the shame at my own frailty, the thin starts that lead only to blunders

and irrecoverable nonsense, made palpable through age or drink.

To write heart in our language takes only four strokes, but so much

depends upon the first mark. The long hook tugs at the word’s centre,

holds everything together. The final three strokes resist and search for blanker spaces.

(A skilled calligrapher will tell you that they should give the impression of a sail filled by the wind.

But a poor first stroke, and the others will look like lost cotton wads tossed by the wind.)

The wind knows flaws, knows the infinite routes of everything it blows

and how nothing comes back the same way.

In calligraphy, if a stroke falters, you must begin the word all over again.

Perfection (we believe) is possible with repetition.

But the brush is in my hand and my hand grows stiffer.

The hibiscus at the window closes in the evening.

At least here at my desk I can start again and write:

This is how the beginning sounds. This is my heart. Look.

At least there is that.

SOUND NO 1

What kind of sound can you put on a film underwater — only the bubbles?

— Jean Rouch

The breaking water tucks you in as wholly and triumphantly as a baptismal gown. It is as loud as anything else that breaks when it reaches its peak: laughter, solids, the day, countries, parties, lovers, and ice. But not as loud as