Those of you who know Carolyn Clink and her work probably know her best for her science-fictional poems or her humorous verse-she is one of the most dryly funny people I know. But with this collection we come to a road not previously taken. While her innate wit and whimsy still linger, we're now led down a thorny path to some difficult places. Carolyn takes us by the hand and becomes a modern-day Virgil for versified tourists, or a smarter Orpheus in the underworld of remembrance. Better yet, one of those Fates, carding through the wool strands of life and memory. Have a care-here be not dragons, but the dragons' keeper.

There are a lot of assumptions made by critics and readers of poetry, and sadly, by poets themselves. Complicated concepts are the only ones worth writing about! Difficult ten-dollar words need to be used! Metaphors must be obscure and befuddling! And for goodness sake, if a poem can be understood on first reading, then it's obviously no good. Obfuscate, confuse and make the reader work, at all costs! Carolyn deftly avoids all these traps. What is most enjoyable about her work is the simplicity of her language; one can so easily be fooled into thinking these are easy pieces-good, but not complex enough to merit a second look, because she doesn't make you grind your teeth or sweat with effort. You couldn't be more wrong.

The thing is-in almost every poem in this collection, there are enormous ideas. Carolyn doesn't shy away from the tough stuff-marriage, aging, love, death, the fickleness of memory and life. These are some difficult things to look at, and she does it with such ease, that you're almost lulled into a sense of security. But the thing is-her poems stay with you. You'll go back and reread them, and find yourself lingering over many. It's a subtle kind of whammy that creeps up on you. And then you're suddenly caught in the quiet heartbreak of what's being said, the melancholy counterpoint that comes surging up from underneath.

Carolyn doesn't shy away from the big ideas of love and death. She has the wit and courage to go where, yes, all of us have gone before, but where so few have stopped to look, think, feel, and eventually, write down some damn fine words.

Sandra Kasturi
Toronto
March 2007

NOTES:

Appeared in the chapbook,
Snapshots
May 2007.