Chris Marks currently lives in Moose Factory where he works as a teacher with native students. This volume of his collected works has been in process for a number of years. An avid sports fan,Chris is a devotee of golf and swimming, and of course, poetry.
Previously published in the Canadian Literary Review and the newsletter of St. John the Divine (Scarborough), these poems, unveiled at small readings over the years are now all presented for all to enjoy.
His clear poetic voice, his unique view of the circumstances of life and events makes this a most enjoyable, very accessible book of poetry without losing the depth that all good poetry aspires to unveil.
Clearly a new Northern Ontario gem.
"There are poems in this first section of Chris Marks' volume which are worth sitting up with and re-reading for the pleasure of listening to a voice determined to rise above Marsyas' cry of pain. ...the bid for freedom to sing his song, to resume a dance in time, are all impressive and dignified. & there are wonderful moments when reading is completed with that fleeting sense of freedom and wholeness which art provides; a movement towards "joy / and the breath of light", to an order protected against "the constant menace of wings in the night."
"I think the tempo of the song rises in "Accident Report" so that in the end the sadness, infestations, frailities, guilts and dementias are kept in control by an affirmation of the beauty and liberty of naked utterance, and by the sheer resolve to pick up tools and continue working. [Marks] is trying to bring human existence into a fuller life, as Seamus Heaney says, and the excitement and transformation he seeks in the company of his nude muse are finding a "heartvoice" to string the evergreens with light and to combat the lachrymas rerum."
Maurice Elliott
York University.
ISBN: 1-894747-38-0 | WMPub# 1034 | 6" x 9" | 168 page chapbook | $14.95 CDN
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Table of Contents
Ends and Beginnings
10 Introduction
12 Ends and Beginnings
13 Postscript
14 Exile
15 Vision
16 Delinquent in Paradise
17 This Property Condemned
18 Alfred Jarry's Sunday Ride
20 Caliban Bound
21 An Unhappy Friend
22 Storm
23 Outing
24 A Sleeper's Diary (or the prick of conscience)
25 Farewell Blues
26 Absentee
27 Escape
28 Christmas Poem for Cherylv
30 Oh God No Not Another Suicidev
31 Feminism and the State of the Art
32 Do Not Read This Poem
34 Advice on Departure (after Bukowski)
36 Living Together
36 A Prayer for Understanding and Equal Rights
37 Spring
38 First Love
39 Elegy
40 Adopt the Days like Children
41 Miscellany
42 Prison Song
43 Minimum Wage
44 Still Too Early to Tell
45 On Moral Responsibility (or That's Entertainment)
45 Ambiguity
46 For a Rival Poet
47 Trial and Error
48 Rebel
49 An Afterthought At My Father's Funeral
50 September 7, 1984
51 Valedictory
52 Something of Creation
Accident Report
53 Magic
54 If You Are Offended by Nudity Do Not Enter
55 Starstruck
56 Conversation with a Lady
57 A Liege
58 Ice Cream and Hubris
59 Sighting (or And Up There Uh the Clouds)
60 A Conversation
61 After Celine
62 Aspiration
63 From a Distant Place
64 Somnolent at Mother's House
65 Accident Report
68 Quoth I Quoth He
69 Ecce Homo
70 What the Zen Critic Told Me About My Poetry
70 Just Before He Hit Me
71 Labour of Love (Or Look Ma No Hands)
72 Early Evening Poem (For Susie)
73 The Man I Imagined I Saw
73 For One Without Hope
74 Dialogue
76 Note
76 Wet Dream
77 Twin Brothers
78 Fragment
80 Discovery
82 Episode from the Story of Man
84 My Sister's Children
84 Credo Quia Ineptum
85 An Embarrassment
86 Doctor Psyche's Complaint
88 How Was It?
89 Eleutherios
90 Summer '91
92 Listenv
93 Eucharist
94 Advertisement For My Next Book
96 A Poet Rallies His Troops
99 Name Dropping
100 Breakthrough
101 Via Positiva
102 A Question of Psychology
104 Has Anybody Seen
105 Segue
106 If Only
108 Coming Through Slaughter
110 Lesson #47
112 Fantasy in Green
114 Endgame
118 Morningside Park
119 The Muse's Departure
120 A Time for Everything (Or How He Prays to Be Released from Another Alien Cul-de Sac)
122 The Workers Are Few
123 The Gift
Crossing the Border: Poems Written in Moose Factory
127 Harpies
128 For Tamara
129 Taking Refuge
130 Crossing the Border
131 Hope
132 A Failure
134 Industry
135 In Progress
137 A Touch of Zen in Moose Factory
138 Panentheism
140 To Begin With
141 Same Time Same Place Tonight
142 Deconstructing Chris
144 File under a Notable Local Event
145 In Thanks
146 Surprise in Moose Factory (or Guidance from Beyond)
147 On the Path
148 A Valediction
150 Christmas 2005
151 Delayed Flight
152 In Transit
154 What Have We Done
155 Weekday Morning (or Not to Mention I Need the Money)
156 Writing
157 Another Power Outage in Moose Factory
158 An Experiment
159 The Flower of Practice
160 Voice in a Sling
161 Clarinet Concerto
161 On the Benefits of Spiritual Exercise
162 Joseph
163 A Grace
164 Palm Sunday
165 No Luck Today
166 Five A.M. (Aubade)
167 The Day after Easter
