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    The Lost Letters
    The Lost Letters
    The Lost Letters
    Ebook106 pages39 minutes

    The Lost Letters

    By Catherine Greenwood

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    About this ebook

    Atmospherically light and stylistically expansive – poems that regard our givens as a gift.

    Don McKay's description of The Pearl King and Other Poems, Catherine Greenwood's wonderful first book, also apply to The Lost Letters: 'With discerning wit and a large range of styles and voices, she holds up each subject for contemplation as though it were a pearl. . . .'

    At the centre of The Lost Letters is a sequence of radically diverse poems based on the story of Heloise and Abelard, truly lovers in a dangerous time, the twelfth century. The raw material is heavy, tension between flesh and spirit being the serious issue carried forward from the twelfth century into the twenty-first. But Greenwood's deft and delicate handling of scenarios of love requited but balked becomes a perceptive reading – extraordinarily inventive and constantly surprising – of contemporary secular society.

    The Lost Letters creates a world of wonder tinged with sadness on behalf of so much that goes unnoticed, whether it's a bin of severed sows' ears, a lizard tethered by its tail who severs it by self-amputation, or a down-and-out old schoolmate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrick Books
    Release dateSep 15, 2013
    ISBN9781771313605
    The Lost Letters
    Author

    Catherine Greenwood

    Catherine Greenwood's poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies; her first book, The Pearl King and Others (Brick Books, 2004),was a Kiriyama Prize notable book. She works for British Columbia's Ministry of Justice in Victoria, where she lives with her husband, the writer Steve Noyes.

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      Book preview

      The Lost Letters - Catherine Greenwood

      THE LOST LETTERS

      The Lost Letters

      Brick Books

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Greenwood, Catherine, 1960–, author

      


      The lost letters / Catherine Greenwood.

      Poems.

      ISBN 978-1-77131-360-5

      1. Héloïse, 1101–1164--Poetry. 2. Abelard, Peter, 1079–1142--Poetry. I. Title.

      PS8613.R445L68 2013     C811'6     C2013-904021-8

      We acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program.

      The author photo was taken by Jennifer Conklin.

      The print edition of the book is set in Minion Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and released in 1990 by Adobe Systems.

      Print design and layout by Cheryl Dipede.

      Printed and bound by Sunville Printco Inc.

      Brick Books

      431 Boler Road, Box 20081

      London, Ontario N6K 4G6

      www.brickbooks.ca

      ABOUT THIS BOOK

      Nominated for the 2014 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (BC Book Prizes)

      Atmospherically light and stylistically expansive – poems that regard our givens as a gift.

      Don McKay’s description of The Pearl King and Other Poems, Catherine Greenwood’s wonderful first book, also applies to The Lost Letters: With discerning wit and a large range of styles and voices, she holds up each subject for contemplation as though it were a pearl. . . .

      At the centre of The Lost Letters is a sequence of radically diverse poems based on the story of Heloise and Abelard, truly lovers in a dangerous time, the twelfth century. The raw material is heavy, tension between flesh and spirit being the serious issue carried forward from the twelfth century into the twenty-first. But Greenwood’s deft and delicate handling of scenarios of love requited but balked becomes a perceptive reading – extraordinarily inventive and constantly surprising – of contemporary secular society.

      The Lost Letters creates a world of wonder tinged with sadness on behalf of so much that goes unnoticed, whether it’s a bin of severed sows’ ears, a lizard tethered by its tail who severs it by self-amputation, or a down-and-out old schoolmate.

      At Last . . .

      CONTENTS

      I

      FROM THE HYMNAL

      Monk Love Blues

      II

      TURTLE SOUP

      Two Blue Elephants

      The Natural History of the Hamster

      Lizard

      Mule (Black-Tailed) Deer

      Silver-Haired Bat Caught in a Ceiling Fan

      Faith

      Mermaid Appeal

      If Life Hands You Turtles, Make Turtle Soup

      Bushtit’s Nest

      Web

      Ring-Necked Pheasant

      Wasp’s Nest

      Sows’ Ears

      III

      DEAR PETER

      Riddle for Two Voices Staged in a Confessional Stall

      Prequel

      Fragment 19

      Singalong Sound of Music

      Dusk

      Fragment 52

      Same Story, Different Day

      Olive Branch

      Fragment 73

      Yes and No

      Fragment 91

      Astrolabe

      Detail

      Fragment 147

      Another Day in the Scriptorium

      Epitaph for the Last of the RedHot Lovers

      IV

      THE LOST LETTERS

      Ivory

      Rotary Dial Telephone

      Company Town

      Blue Pumps

      Charity

      The Texada Queen

      The Jar

      NOTES

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

      I

      FROM THE HYMNAL

      And as most of these songs told of our love, they soon

      made me widely known and roused the envy of many

      women against me.

      —Heloise to Abelard, Letter 1

      MONK LOVE BLUES

      Got a little thing

      I call the Monk Love Blues.

      Heloise and Abelard –

      this kinda thing ain’t new.

      See, when I say monk

      I ain’t talkin Thelonius.

      The monk love

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