{"id":10608,"date":"2018-11-28T16:36:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T11:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/even-if-theyre-not-what-you-would-have-wanted-ian-williams-2\/"},"modified":"2023-02-14T01:41:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T20:41:56","slug":"even-if-theyre-not-what-you-would-have-wanted-ian-williams-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/even-if-theyre-not-what-you-would-have-wanted-ian-williams-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Even If They\u2019re Not What You Would Have Wanted: Ian Williams editor of The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2018<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

This book is a package containing finely crafted gifts. Take it as such.<\/p>\n

Do not read the citations first. They are none of your business yet. Read Ian Williams\u2019 astute introduction, then the poems. Come back when you\u2019re soaked in their sweat and blood. Do not compare notes until after the battle. After the battle, it is, thankfully, too late.<\/p>\n

First, the international shortlist, with four poets from south of the border:<\/p>\n

Tongo Eisen-Martin\u2019s poems from Heaven Is All Goodbyes<\/em> strike fast. Read them slowly. Reread them. Slow. There is so much meaning here, but how much empathy you have will depend on circumstance. My white woman\u2019s tears tried to wash away the ink before I processed what had caused them. These poems of society-inflicted pain may break something in you. You needed it broken. From \u201cI have to talk to myself differently now\u201d:<\/p>\n

worried about the walls
\nI forgot the ceiling was closing in on me too.<\/p>\n

Whether or not you\u2019re familiar with Susan Howe\u2019s three decades of poetry and art, this sample from Debths<\/em> will echo for you. If you\u2019re into Howe\u2019s approach (genre-busting, visually rich, fragmented yet layered, floating yet tied to everything before) to extracting meaning, her meanings here are exactly the sort you\u2019ll get into. Whether she won in the 2018 Griffin international category as a career award or for Debths<\/em> itself, it was a respectable choice.<\/p>\n

Natalie Shapero\u2019s poems from Hard Child <\/em>offer a lesson in lyric\u2019s potential. You could use it to teach (or learn) technique, from end stop to assonance to the power of punctuation. Her content is a stereotypical American professor\u2019s, mulling in high language the weights of first-world problems. Here, the opening of \u201cTen What\u201d:<\/p>\n

The camera adds ten what, I can\u2019t remember.
\nBut the threat\u2019s enough to make me stay
\naway. I don\u2019t want any more of what I have.<\/p>\n

Layli Long Soldier\u2019s poems from Whereas<\/em> remind us that these same techniques and skill can be reclaimed and set on fire to signal a new poetics of story\u2014one that illuminates the past and kindles a revolution of perspective in the reader. Her poetry may well be the future of history.<\/p>\n

The first of three shortlisted Canadian poets, and the 2018 winner, is Billy-Ray Belcourt. Read everything of his. Repeat. Belcourt is young, but he\u2019s way ahead of you. His poetry here from This Wound is a World<\/em> is immaculate, his thoughts will break the shell that\u2019s built around your heart. If you are prone to jealousy over skill, book time with your therapist now. From \u201cWe Were Never Meant to Break Like This\u201d:<\/p>\n

4. i am so sad that i burrow into the absence of every boy who has
\nheld me.<\/p>\n

Aisha Sasha John\u2019s poems from I have to live.<\/em> will remind you what a sharp poetic tool tone can be. John delivers visceral brutality along the knife edge of clarity. Ignore the jury\u2019s citation; her usage is far from \u201ccasual,\u201d it\u2019s crystallizing.<\/p>\n

Much of the work sampled from Donato Mancini\u2019s Same Diff <\/em>is complex, thought-provoking found poetry, emphasizing variations in translations and human perspectives. It\u2019s an appropriate note to end this earnest compendium of modern poetic styles.<\/p>\n

I have to give kudos to typesetter Laura Brady. Her work to maintain the wildly diverse fonts and layout from seven original books in one framework is heroic.<\/p>\n

The rich diversity of poetic styles and subjects in this collection is impressive. The resulting shortlist and book may not be what you would have chosen, but it\u2019s a dazzling gift nonetheless.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AJ Dolman <\/strong>is the author of Lost Enough<\/em> (Morning Rain Publishing, 2017), a collection of short stories. She is a contributing editor for Arc Poetry Magazine<\/em>, and co-editor of Motherhood in Precarious Times <\/em>(Demeter Press, 2018), an anthology of non-fiction, essays and poetry. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies throughout North America. Follow her on Twitter @ajdolman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ARC<\/a> HITS THE HEART HARD.
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prizes and shortlists were not your decision. Let that go. It\u2019s too late to reconsider anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2883,"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":"10423,10645,10680,10505","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1410,1602],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[189],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3120,3130,3090],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608"}],"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=10608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10608"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}