It's just not for me. I was really excited about reading this, I mean the cover and title alone. But, most of the poems were dragging or just not for me. Some of it I liked but not enough to finish the book. The poems I enjoyed the most were ones that were focused on a female character or were unique in their depiction of moments or relationships. However so many felt pretentious or snobbish to me, I don't believe that was the author's intention however that's the way some came out. It's not a right fit for me, perhaps someone else.

limpid, funny, a little mean––all signs of great poetry. favs: the diverse causes, bearhug, elimination dance, rock bottom, to a sad daughter

A beautiful collection. There is a wide variety in his poetry and I love that. I also particularly loved the prose poetry.

Mythical, enriching as you move with Ondaatje's lyrical knock of language. I can't pull me from the poem "Uswetakeiyawa"

Civilized savagery

I have recently read a lot of poetry by classic poets such as Sappho, Li Po, Tu Fu, John Keats, and Robert Browning. To read poets like these, you can get your hands on carefully annotated versions by editors who explain all the obscure references in the poems. Reading Michael Ondaatje's The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems made me realize that I've been underappreciating that luxury. There's a good deal in tCP:SP that remains mysterious to me. For instance the second poem, "Early Morning, Kingston to Ganaoque", ends with these two lines

Somewhere in those fields,
they are shaping new kinds of women

My reaction to that was "Huh? What does that have to do with the previous 15 lines?" I still don't know. They come out of nowhere.

Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka (although at the time of his birth it may have been known as Ceylon). His first eleven years he grew up in Sri Lanka. His family then moved to England, and eventually in 1962 to Canada, where he became a citizen. His poetry often has a sense of the foreign (and indeed a few of the poems in tCP:SP were written on visits to Sri Lanka). However, his poetry overall has a very Canadian feel to me, myself a Canadian immigrant of more recent vintage. Many of the poems have a very savage feel to me, and no, I don't know what I mean by that and cannot explain it.

I think my favorite poem is "Sweet Like a Crow", addressed to an eight-year-old girl. It begins with this introduction

For Hetti Corea, 8 years old

‘The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have less sense of pitch, line or rhythm’ — Paul Bowles

The poem then proceeds to treat Bowles's observation with all the seriousness it deserves, listing a long series of discordant, disagreeable sounds that Hettie's voice is allegedly like. It reminds me of the way kids joke with each other by throwing exaggerated over-the-top insults at each other. I imagine Hettie laughing out loud as Ondaatje tells her her voice is

Like a crow swimming in milk,
like a nose being hit by a mango

I would have found this very funny at the age of eight, and at the age of sixty-eight I still do.

Unfortunately, "Sweet Like a Crow" is not typical of the poems in tCP:SP. None of the others have quite this sense of fun. They are still good poetry, but in a more civilized and savage way.

Blog review.

This book explains to me why English Patient was written the way it is - Michael Ondaatje is a poet. A fucking dope poet. And while English Patient is not perfect - far from it - this collection of poems is where he truly shines.

Reading his poems, to me, is like trying to figure out the mechanics of a piece of magic - you'd have a lot of fun if you succeed, but you'd still have fun if you fail, because the magic itself is beautiful.

My favorite book of poems ever, I think--I reserve the right to change my mind someday.

I feel like I don't know enough about poetry to accurately assess this (aside from a few exceptions - Don Juan, Pale Fire if that counts - poetry is a pretty bad blind spot for me). But I liked it!

I prefer Ondaatje's prose to his poetry, which is somewhat surprising. His writing style is quite poetic, which is magical when used to tell stories, but doesn't make as much as an impact for me in his poetry. And, honestly, I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps some of it was too abstract for me? I did love some of the poems, especially the ones which were more experimental and the ones that narrated a story. Somehow the other ones, abstractly talking about places or women, didn't affect me as much (the women ones were especially sketchy in more ways than one). I really don't know quite what to make of this yet.

Ondaatje is a natural poet. His verse ranges from simple ("Griffin at NIght") to complex ("Letters and Other Worlds"). I am still unsure what to make of "Elimination Dance". Perhaps eliminating it would be a start... I definitely prefer his poetry collection Handwriting to this one.

I could spend days lying on the ground
seeing the world with the perspective of snails
stumbling the small territory of obsessions
this leaf and grain of you,
could attempt the epic
journey over your shoulder.

"hungry
for everything about the other

here we steal places to stay
as we steal time

never too proud to beg,
even if we never
see the other's grin and star again"


Michael Ondaatje's poems allow you to live in the small margins between his words. I can feel the humidity, the heat, roughness of skin, and the taste of salt and copper or whisky in them. He puts love so simply down on a page - the simplicity of it is what is most affecting.