{"id":10260,"date":"2014-10-14T14:10:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T09:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/close-to-spirit-e-d-blodgetts-as-if\/"},"modified":"2023-01-06T01:27:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T20:27:38","slug":"close-to-spirit-e-d-blodgetts-as-if","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/close-to-spirit-e-d-blodgetts-as-if\/","title":{"rendered":"Close to Spirit: E. D. Blodgett\u2019s as if"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"E.<\/a>
\nE. D. Blodgett. as if. Edmonton: U of Alberta P<\/a>, 2014.
\n~Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blodgett\u2019s latest book in his Apostrophes series is two books in one. Both are contemplations of wisdom and identity. The first is a book of poetry\u2014words laid down in measure, printed on paper. Its words are made of artful language. Listen:<\/p>\n

how lightly over the earth
\nthrough seed time and all<\/p>\n

harvest have the feet
\nof those who cannot be known<\/p>\n

to us trodden in
\ntheir dance<\/p>\n

Eliot did no better in The Four Quartets, which these dance steps echo.<\/p>\n

The second book is an energy field, conjured by a reader reading that first book. Its words are not human language but the ghosts of the earth, conjured by human speech. They include (randomly), \u201cpond,\u201d \u201cfish,\u201d \u201cground,\u201d \u201ccat,\u201d and \u201cstars\u201d\u2014very basic Anglo-Saxon \u201cthings.\u201d Blodgett conjures them within the imagery of Japanese woodblock prints and the kind of poems, like haiku, poets make from them: \u201ca leaf through darkness falls \/ and close to sighing \/\/ it settles on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merwin did no better in From the Islands, which explored this ground between East and West thirty years ago.<\/p>\n

Blodgett\u2019s consciousness is fluid here. His world moves between book, reader, memory, and earth with the surety of dream. It is, however, no dream. Blodgett is engaging in a discussion of the 20th century\u2019s twin quests for a unified image and the breakdown of unification in revolution and separateness. He poses these questions in a Canadian manner. He engages the revolutionary breakthroughs we know as the 1960s with the tradition that preceded it\u2014formal, Christian, metaphysical, and seeking language for the interplay between Christian faith (and its philosophical traditions) and wilderness. The result is a post-modern modernism, one which brings forward the critical concerns of the poets D.G. Jones (I think particularly of his essays in Butterfly on Rock) and Ralph Gustafson (particularly his failed attempt at synthesis, Gradations of Grandeur). Blodgett succeeds better than they did at meshing formalist passions with deconstructivist tradition.<\/p>\n

It is a bold undertaking, this business of bridging a half-century of Canadian poetry. Blodgett does it by making each physical word leave the book of words and enter the mind through the book of energies. Listen:<\/p>\n

how birds come slowly home
\nand turn in circles round<\/p>\n

their nests calling to
\neach other the air filled<\/p>\n

with songs that sometimes pierce
\nthe dim air<\/p>\n

The birds arrive, the nests nest, the songs pierce, and the air is indeed dim. This is Blodgett\u2019s matter.<\/p>\n

Blodgett\u2019s contemplation is arranged in three sections: on image, on sight (and reading), and on spirit (which the other two lead). The discussion is wry, \u201cas if\u201d it were a book in the world\u2014and here it is, a book in the world\u2014as if the very contemplation of the world makes it so. It wears the unknowability of matter like a comfortable old shirt, worn by a man, late in his life\u2014ever more self-aware as he grows ever closer to spirit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Harold Rhenisch<\/strong> is the author of “The Spoken World” (Hagios), the forthcoming collection of ghazals “Two Minds” (Frontenac House) and 10 other volumes of poetry. He blogs daily at www.okanaganokanogan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

LISTEN: TO ARC<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E. D. Blodgett. as if. Edmonton: U of Alberta P, 2014. ~Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch   Blodgett\u2019s latest book in his Apostrophes series is two books in one. Both are contemplations of wisdom and identity. The first is a book of poetry\u2014words laid down in measure, printed on paper. Its words are made of artful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2198,"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":"10235,10029,10300,10138","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2074,1588],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[221],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260"}],"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=10260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10260"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}