All the God-Sized Fruit

Shawna Lemay

McGill-Queen's University Press 1999

Review: paulo da costa

Lemay has entered the Canadian poetry publishing with a mature and accomplished book while casting her eye on several world renowned painters and their paintings.

Observe her sure hand through a poem on Rachel Ruysch's painting, Flowers in a Vase.

(…)Perhaps she wanted to paint the bodies of gods/ in white gauzy robes, damp, billowing./ An unsuitable subject for a woman./ She wanted to paint her own unsuitable body/ the delicate rivers stretched into her belly/ the purple tributaries on her ankles./ She wanted to paint life and death and love,/ great tragedies, battle scenes, myths,/ the terrible weakness of beauty,/ a doe in a mint green clearing,/ wild flowers in a field without end.

Her freshly mixed words slowly spill upon the page, leave their mark in the mind's eye. It is without surprise that All the God-Sized Fruit has garnered the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award 2000 and the Stephan G. Stephanson Award 1999.

The book is engaging, her voice assured, her critical eye aware of the darker implications behind the suffusing light emanating from the glossy oil on a canvas.

You also find moments of clever and inspired play in her long poem on the painter Rosa Bonheur (…) Another time i said to Nathalie/ i am afraid i am using you/ and she said/ oh and laughed, said/ you may muse me all you like, Rosa,/ we shall muse each other. (…)

Also of note is the beautiful work done by the publisher. A smaller than usual size for a Canadian poetry book yet a wonderful book to hold in one's hand or to toss in a coat pocket for a read in the park.

©paulodacosta

©paulodacosta