2 April Reviews: Riley, Begamundre

Light as Lightness, then Neon
The second pair of books in Frontenac’s eclectic Quartet 2006

Guiding us through countries including India, Canada, Bali, marriage and folklore, Ven Begamudre redefines what we think of as the boundaries of place in The Lightness Which is Our World, Seen From Afar.

Cross-cultural echoes resonate and meld for Begamundre with the ease and contemplative grace of ripples meeting halfway across a pond. Continents experience new Pangaea – France, Switzerland and Mumbai made neighbours by the common thread of Begamundre’s interpretative tour. In 2: Kanton Bern, from the Itineraries section, the poet observes:

“...I become aware
the Swiss keep dogs
the way they keep time – moving,
mechanical, leashed.
I’m baffled by myself.”

Yet, as in Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, one who is more traveler than tourist is also too familiar with the universality of sadness, and cannot go unaffected by it. In 5: In Florence, at the Pension Pitti Palace, Its Final Season, Begamundre observes:

“I don’t want to become a bore:
I feel I care too much.”

Exotic creatures are made mystical by their unlikely abilities to poke furred or feathered heads into seemingly normal human circumstances, flagging our attention towards unusual and transcendent aspects of human relationships. The activities of parakeets, crocodiles, cobras and people are equally fantastic. From 9: Ombaththu, a poem in the opening sequence:

“Is this how she saw him, resenting
her need? He urges the cobra towards him. He thinks, When it leaves to rejoin its kind, I will warn it of the sun.”

In the third section, Tourist Quota, Begamundre takes us off the edges of mapped India to visit the statue of Lord Bahubali in Shravan Belgola. Begamundre juxtapositions Canada:

“On the map of
Saskatchewan linger places that barely exist.”

Begamundre weaves bright threads of experience into the rich tapestry of his verse, dyed berry and rust by the organic colour palate only available to one who has actually been there. A fantastic debut.


* * *

To make an impact, the singer-songwriter of a rock band must use all she’s got. Ali Riley, formerly of Sacred Heart of Elvis injects this principle into poetry’s bluest vein with Tear Down, her second collection from Frontenac House.
Tear Down chooses narrative tactics and assumes conversational tones to connect with her audience on a comfortable, personal level – before gleefully tearing them up how only a good ol’ fashioned rockabilly show usually can.
Personal-made-political insights into gender differences share binding with reminiscences of gritty glory days at The National Hotel:

“all these ghosts will haunt the coming condos
as sure as the bones of ancestors
still taunt the covered wagons”

Razed into four strong sections of poems, “My Sister, Guard Your Veil: 7 Easy Pieces” contains opening poem For Each Man-Eater a Lady Killer, getting down to the grit of beginnings:

“a tough rose
blooms anyway
steeped in Jericho sand

I painted bat wings on my eyes
I crushed He-man spine
I kicked at the sky”

So begin the adventures of Undelicate Woman, an action figure in her own right. Next, Riley re-invents modern female archetypes in prose poetry: Snow White, Courteney Love and Saint Teresa all have it coming. Section two, The Boyfriend Sutras: 108 Performances also shows no mercy:

“don’t talk to me about Revolution
the pine-scented Che that hangs
from your rear-view mirror
can’t camouflage the smell of cold feet”
- from A Honey Mistake

The Dwelling Places includes The National Hotel and other pieces reminiscing little-documented underground history and its unprotected historic sites. House of Chango, Limbo Pad, Symptom Hall, a place called The Murder House as well as dreamscapes join these eclectic real estate listings.
The final, title section examines the tenants of such places and symptoms of the way we live, or lived. From Unspeakable:

“the video years made us brittle
rewound and rewatched
til the mention of what we feel
sounds dead”

Referencing such unlikely bedfellows as Kafka and Patti Smith, Zarathustra and Godspeed You Black Emperor, St. John and The Silver Jews, Ali Riley, reliable trafficker of the sweet unexpected, is a writer who will not be pinned down – nor her art jabbed through with common expectation to hang in the canon’s glass case. These are poems alive and pulsing as desire.