Partial Fog Lessening
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PARTIAL FOG LESSENING by Ben Griffin Master of Arts, Keele University, England, 2004 Bachelor of Arts, Keele University, England, 2003 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate Academic Unit of English Supervisor: Ross Leckie, PhD, English Examining Board: Stephen Schryer, PhD, English Gary Waite, PhD, History This thesis is accepted by the Dean of Graduate Studies THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK May, 2010 © Ben Griffin 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87635-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87635-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada Abstract Partial Fog Lessening is a collection of poetry concerned with making the unfamiliar familiar. The poetry creatively maps my negotiation of place and articulates my creative investigations into my role as an immigrant to New Brunswick and Canada. The collection uses a series of lenses — love, nature, commerce, contemporary culture, family, loss — through which to sharpen my perception of cultural difference and accurately express an authentic sense of my experience and personal identity. New Brunswick becomes the locus of meaning for each of these independent fragments of my existence, establishing a sense of tonal continuity that unifies the sometimes disparate and conflicting voices that echo through the work. ii Acknowledgement Thanks must go to the University of New Brunswick, and John Ball in particular, for providing the financial support that made this move to Canada possible. Without John's diligence and enduring support during the application process, our transition to New Brunswick and a new life in Canada would have been difficult, if not impossible. Thanks also to my supervisor Ross Leckie, whose perceptive and engaging readings of these poems helped to improve much of this collection, and to Demetres Tryphonopoulos for enabling me to clarify a central notion of how this collection operates. Likewise, attention should be drawn to the influence of my friend and colleague, April Ripley, whose skill, sensitivity and intelligence when analysing poetry is bettered only by her own beautiful work. The professionalism, hard work and good humour of Theresa Keenan and Janet Noiles in the English Office has been a great help throughout the course of this degree. Thanks to my friends within the English department: I wish you all good luck and success for the future. Thanks finally to my wonderful partner, Helen: your love, kindness and good nature make me a better person, and better able to write with the integrity I hope this collection articulates. iii Table of Contents Abstract it Acknowledgements Hi Table of Contents iv The winter did it 1 Uses for a hard-copy dictionary in the age of the internet 2 Alden 3 McAdam ice rink in winter, 1930 4 Old man at the hockey game 5 1 6 Preparation for a wood chopping contest 7 Grapefruit 8 Moose 9 Route 3 10 Fall in New Brunswick, 2009 11 New Brunswick Evocation 12 As we read Neruda 13 Your return from work 15 A lady in her nineties plays piano 16 Ode to the firefly 17 If we go camping 20 When did smoke learn to fly? 21 Cat wading through snow 23 Farm 24 II 25 What I hear at 3am on Christmas eve 26 Let the windows be 28 Winter postcards 29 Mince pies 31 A clear day in Switzerland 33 Airplane boneyard 34 The age of discernment 35 III 36 Fragment in winter 37 First glimpse of a firefly 38 Fish racing ahead of a freezing river 39 The year they cancelled Halloween on the Miramichi 40 Macheda 42 The problem with an empty court 44 Breathe 45 What do I remember 10 years after the fact? 47 A poet reads, moving from one poem to the next 50 iv To the spider on the window frame, 3rd floor 52 In the eye of the dog 53 Domestic 54 IV 55 V 56 Leaf Collection 57 Flannel sheets 58 Vitaly Kaloyev 60 Warming 65 Our New York 67 Alleyway 68 VI 69 Postcard from the back of the washing machine 70 My Uncle John 71 Afterword 73 Works cited and consulted 93 Curriculum Vitae v 1 The winter did it Watch it fall. Watch snow drift through the seedy orange glow of a street-lamp and dress like white ash on the pimpled ice of a freeze/thaw winter. It's night-light sophistry, Christmas guessed into being by the collapse of a pregnant cloud. Watch me fall. (Didn't you always?) Blood pumped like oil in the rooted purple heart of a bruised knee. See dog shit curled like marzipan and brushed with white gold at the foot of our steps. (Did 1 mention the bullet I whittled from wood . Oak swollen in the choked barrel of a gun) Breathe. Can you taste the metal in the snow on your tongue? Baltic carbon laced in the cradled nebulae of flaked ice. Feel the weight of the dam up-river, pressing deer into the ground. Sound the word in your mouth: Mac - Ta - Quae. Listen: Buy heavy sweaters and anti-slip boots. Gather kindling in the cold, your fingers raw with the splintered ingress of wood. Did you hear the static shock of for on flannel as the cat ran across the bed? Fervent heart beating amber-like; atom arc of blue in the dark. 2 Uses for a hard-copy dictionary in the age of the internet Kindling. Burn the words you hate and keep warm. Lethal weapon. Murder never felt so poetic. Historical artefact. Be the first to own mankind's newest relic. Toilet paper. Excrete and be neat, for the paper's replete. Cat bed. Teach them the meaning of the word "Narcolepsy". Pillow. Sleep yourself clever. Home to a very small bomb. Terrorism with a message. Paper planes. Who's laughing when you're winging poetic darts down Main Street? Imaginary friend. The best read buddy you'll never introduce. Lover. If she accuses you of being unable to read her..... Origami. Not very good? Select and crease the pages to leave helpful clues. 3 Alden Nova Scotia Moonshine on a Carleton county night, baptist mothers praying under guide of firelight. And there is Alden on the bridge: drunken parabola of man and bike sliding over asphalt loose with sand, expletives showered from his mouth like a farmer slinging seed from the hip. Heavy leather boots stained with the wet snow of early winter pound the pedals of his iron bike in broad indiscriminate arcs of lactic, swollen legs. McAdam ice rink in winter, 1930 Groaned from the chimneys of sleepers that heave over the border to the percussive thrum of iron, fine particles of drifting soot settle as a crust on the ice overnight; a crisp stubble of atomised coal that roots the steel kindle of a sharpened blade cruising underfoot. The first skate of the day, gilding a figure eight into the sedimentary membrane of the coal- black breath of night. 5 Old man at the hockey game I noticed you first during the presentation, the slow haul of a jubilant flag from ice to roof, as you massaged your knee persistently. You took no notice of the klaxon sounding, or the half-embarrassed cast of players who decorated the ice before the first puck dropped: Silhouettes of muscle skating through the searchlight as you tapped at your knee and shifted side-to-side on the wooden seat. You did not clap in adulation as the trophy descended from the rafters, sheathed in celebratory velvet, lush above the hard white of pre-game ice. Perhaps you've seen it all before, I thought, until the puck allowed the net to shimmer in the light, and you just rubbed your knee in silent supplication to the fire in that joint. 6 I Blue light and wind amongst the fruit stands; the rustle of wax paper cradling two mangoes.