The Distance of a Shout: Selected Poems

I was captured from the first poem which describes looking at old family photographs on slides and the memories of the people captured in them. “These are the fragments I have of them,” Ondaatje writes. “These are their fragments, all I remember, wanting more knowledge of them.” Loving old photographs myself, what he captures in these lines gave me chills.

There is a poem remembering the moving of an outhouse, another about an auction. He writes about his jazz and lovers, family members and friends. Memories of his childhood in Sri Lanka, his time in Ontario. These poems alone are richly rewarding. But several others hit me personally.

In the long poem Tin Roof, written in Hawaii, he addresses Rilke and his Duino Elegies, then show more referencing the Letters to a Young Poet he notes that for him “this solitude brings no wisdom.” He ends, “I wanted poetry to be walnuts/in their green cases/but now it is the sea/and we let it drown us,/and we fly to it released/by giant catapults/of pain loneliness deceit and vanity.”

Later, I am stunned to recognize a poem referential to one of my favorite poems, The Exile’s Letter by Rihaku, translated by Ezra Pound. I felt something spark while reading The River Neighbor, but Pacific Letter was obvious from the first line, “Now I remember….” and continues at “All this comes to an end.”

I miss your company.
Things we clung to
remain on the horizon
so be become the loon
on his journey
to confused depth and privacy.

At such times–no talking
no concludsions in the heart.

I buy postage
seal this

and send it a thousand miles, thinking.

from Pacific Letter by Michael Ondaatje

I love this.

These are poems to return to over and over, richer with every reading.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. show less