Qualicum Beach, 2014. Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd
Shot Glass Journal, who have published some of my short poems in previous issues, have just published my poem 'Qualicum Beach' in their latest issue.
I wrote this poem last year after visiting Vancouver Island's Qualicum Beach, a small town a few hours from where I grew up. Like much of the Island scenery, Qualicum Beach and the surrounding areas are stunningly beautiful. And the ocean does indeed bring a very special type of solace.
I read your poem and was flummoxed -- how is it possible for actual quality poems like this to be written in these current times? I read the poems of Adam Zagajewski, and Yves Bonnefoy isn't dead yet. High quality stuff. So it's always a pleasant shock to come across a poem by someone else whose work doesn't suck.
ReplyDeleteI felt a kind of Wallace Stevens-ish dark ecstasy before your own great waters of mystery. Your lines are transporting, in a similar manner to Mahler's music.
Thank you so much, Tim - your words really mean a lot!
DeleteTo write a poem that transports a reader is all I can ask for - and being mentioned in the same breath with Adam Zagajewski and Wallace Stevens is beyond high praise!
When I first read your poem, the first thing that struck me was the vague melancholy which often assails me when in the proximity of a northern sea. But then, on a second, then third and fourth reading, I was filled with amazement at what YOU had actually written, rather than what I at first read into it, and had managed to pack so wondrously into just a very few lines. It's a real tour de force.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Mark. I think that getting both your thoughts/feelings, and my own, out of the poem is a real compliment to it... I hope you're well...
DeleteThis poem is both evocative and beautiful Clarissa. It's like peeking into your mind through a trick mirror, a picture within a picture.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gabrielle! I had hoped it would be sort of small-scale and large-scale at the same time so I'm glad you saw it that way.
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