{"id":10130,"date":"2013-05-16T15:47:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T10:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/to-know-differently-maureen-scott-harriss-slow-curve-out\/"},"modified":"2013-05-16T15:47:05","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T10:47:05","slug":"to-know-differently-maureen-scott-harriss-slow-curve-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/to-know-differently-maureen-scott-harriss-slow-curve-out\/","title":{"rendered":"To Know Differently: Maureen Scott Harris\u2019 Slow Curve Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maureen Scott Harris\u2019 evocative <\/span>Slow Curve Out<\/i><\/span> places us in conversation with the natural world and explores the possibilities and the apparent limitations of language to communicate with the Other. Her collection opens with \u201cWalking in Saskatchewan with Rilke,\u201d a lyric spoken from the point of view of a deeply meditative yet playful narrator who describes her failed attempt to engage Rilke in the beauty of the prairie landscape. The poem recalls Rilke\u2019s own \u201cA Walk,\u201d in which his speaker is grasped by the ineffable and changed into \u201csomething else which . . . we already are.\u201d<\/span>Harris\u2019s poem follows a similar trajectory; however, her <\/span>spiritual experience is an <\/span><\/span>embodied<\/i><\/span><\/span> communion with the land: \u201cthings surge into being, here, claim eyes, claim \/ mind, claim my very heart, beating and beating.\u201d \u201cHere\u201d refers both to the prairie landscape that \u201cclaims\u201d us (and so inverts the conventional trope of humans claiming ownership through naming) and also to the page where Harris\u2019s poem \u201csurges into being.\u201d \u201cHere\u201d is also an offering, an invitation to the land to \u201cclaim\u201d her mind and heart and so to enter her fully. The poem concludes as the speaker imaginatively transcends human-animal boundaries and becomes what Rilke suggests \u201cwe already are\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n

his silence<\/span><\/p>\n

pulsing makes me want to throw back my head <\/span><\/p>\n

and yap like any old dog, yellow fur rough with dust, <\/span><\/p>\n

skin flaking, and a flea in my ear driving me<\/span><\/p>\n

wild, so I\u2019ll run for miles, nose down on prairie<\/span><\/p>\n

scents, heart crazy with sky and wind.<\/span><\/p>\n

This motif of crossing borders between self and other to know \u201cdifferently\u201d\u2014\u201cI want three minutes in the skin of another animal\u201d\u2014as well as the recognition of the alterity these borders protect, creates a dynamic tension that permeates the text. One of Harris\u2019s strongest poems, \u201cEpistemology: The World Speaks,\u201d explores this tension by considering the limitations and possibilities of language in allowing us to understand an Other. While she recounts how a man\u2019s words \u201copened \/ a space in my head, and everything rearranged\u201d (14), her own \u201cwords fall short\u201d (39) in her interaction with nature. Despite learning the names of trees from a book, she knows that walking into a forest would still result in \u201cencounter[ing] nothing \/ I could name\u201d (14). By identifying such naming as insufficient, Harris open up a space within which \u201cthe world speaks\u201d (15) and we might listen. <\/span>Even as she delineates the shortcomings of language, however,<\/span><\/span>she reminds us that it too has a place\u2014\u201cour talk might also be to praise\u201d\u2014and invites us to \u201cchoose words with care. \/ Let our sounds play among the others\u201d (82).<\/span><\/p>\n

While <\/span>Slow Curve Out<\/i><\/span> contains primarily nature poems, she intersperses these with poems about relationships, aging and disease, violence and capitalism. Her final poem, \u201cHomecoming,\u201d concludes with the advice, \u201c[l]earn this, not \/ to despair but to vanquish despair. \/ Be astonished,\u201d and it is this astonishment that she models and then recreates for her readers throughout her collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alexis Motuz<\/b><\/span> is a PhD student in English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON. She is currently researching representations of the land in Canadian women\u2019s poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It’s a Slow Arc<\/a> Out, and a fast Arc<\/a> in<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maureen Scott Harris\u2019 evocative Slow Curve Out places us in conversation with the natural world and explores the possibilities and the apparent limitations of language to communicate with the Other. Her collection opens with \u201cWalking in Saskatchewan with Rilke,\u201d a lyric spoken from the point of view of a deeply meditative yet playful narrator who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"10172","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2033,1782],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[206],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10130"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}