This fascinating collection of poems by an Ottawa poet explores his own life, the nature of poetry itself, and the history and future of the universe. The author, Nicola Vulpe, has a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris, and a wide selection of the poems in this book have been previously published in a variety of literary magazines, mostly in Canada, but also including The Manhattan Review in New York City.
Editions, 2025.
These poems are unusual, quite fascinating and marvellously complex. And many, like this sample, are drawn from uncommon sources. A selection from the poem titled “The Ancestors”: “They don’t eat a thing, nor do they speak / though I know what they’re thinking, / every one of them, in their rotted out heads. / You’re here and I’m not. / You’re here and I’m dust.”
It proves fascinating how Vulpe can take a small, private experience and turn it into a maxi-view of the world and the universe. He does so in the poem titled “Of the Thread,” in which he begins by recalling an early kiss with his lover: “My love, nothing stays. / That wall, those stones you pressed against / that first time you pulled me to you. / They’re gone, no longer themselves.” He turns this into a universal experience later by writing, “our galaxy, bumping across the void. / We do it too, only faster.” Then, a touch later, he adds, “Stones bleed, / the world tumbles forward, / time tumbles on, / the stones throw off their particles and bits. / Nothing stays.”
Vulpe also makes many references to famous people and characters in his poems such as Gregor Samsa, Orpheus, Icarus, Dante, Hegel and Freud. Thus, many of these poems will shine more brightly if the reader has a good memory of most of these authors and characters.
Many of the poems, or parts of the poems, also address the nature of poetry itself. As in the poem titled “Poetry, the Sublime Art,” he states: “Your poem, sulking, better than a painting. / It doesn’t need light or a frame or a wall. / You can fold a poem into your pocket, / it lives there happily, nested in the lint and crumbs.”
A few lines later, the same poem adds, “Burn the paper, the poem remains.”
Altogether, this fascinating collection is personal, or universal, or both together. For example, the title poem, “On the News That Sagittarius A* Grows Hungrier” addresses astronomers’ 2019 discovery that a black hole at the centre of our galaxy was consuming nearby matter at a rate never before seen. Vulpe compares this phenomenon to the way we ourselves on earth are consuming our own natural world. In his own description of the book, he states: “We humans now dominate every bit of this planet, every ecological niche—and yet we grow hungrier. We are our own Sagittarius A*. We have written our tragedy, and we are playing out the final scene.”
This collection is definitely worth a read.
Bios
Mark Frutkin
Mark Frutkin has published ten novels, four collections of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. In 2007, his novel, Fabrizio’s Return, won the Trillium Prize for Best Book in Ontario and the Sunburst Award. In 1988, his novel, Atmospheres Apollinaire, was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. His most recent poetry collection, Hermit Thrush, (Quattro, 2015) was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Awards, and his most recent novel was titled The Artist and the Assassin (Porcupine’s Quill). He has written numerous reviews and essays for Arc and was once its editor. [updated in 2023]