How We Move Through Time: Lisa Robertson's 3 Summers
Lisa Robertson's new book, 3 Summers (Coach House Books, 2016) is reviewed by rob mclennan, who notes that "[t]his is not the first time Robertson has explored the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius’s only known work," De rerum natura. In Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip (Coach House, 2009), she wrote about "creation . . . humanity; our propensity for naming (language); faith, or ‘the long science of submission’ as the poetry puts it; fear; love (familial, sexual, metaphysical) and the ‘liquid rope’ that attaches all of these: that of knowledge," to quote Emily Critchley, as mclennan does. More:
3 Summers is composed in eleven poem-sections, utilizing variations on the collage/fragment, including numerous pieces as short sketches – “The Seam,” “Toxins,” “On Form,” “On Physical Real Beginning and What Happens Next,” “The Middle,” “A Coat,” “Rivers,” “Party,” “Third Summer,” “An Awning” and “Rose” – and opens with this short untitled poem-fragment:
a minimum of sensible time a minimum of thinkable time a time smaller than the minimum a time smaller than the minimum of thinkable time a minimum of continuous thinkable time a time smaller than the minimum of sensible time a minimum of continuous sensible time3 Summers, then, could be considered an extension to Magenta Soul Whip, writing out similar threads of the semantic, familial, theoretical and metaphysical: writing out the pure, complicated and sprawling facts and fancies of being, even as each section wraps itself around a singular idea. “I want a pause in vocation.” she writes, as part of the poem/section “On Physical Real Beginning and What Happens Next.” 3 Summers is also temporally grounded, being fixed in time and moving through it, and remain the central concern of the entire collection: how we move through time, with thoughts on ageing, the recriminations of lost time and musings on how much might remain.
Find the full review at rob mclennan's blog.