Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now gathers many of the poems from Daphne Marlatt’s 1972 Vancouver Poems, somewhat revised or in some cases substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s incessant deconstruction and reconstruction, its quick transformations both on the ground and in urban imagining.
Vancouver Poems were a young woman’s take on a young, West Coast port city as it surfaced to her gaze in the late 1960s. In these “re-visions,” it remains verbal snapshots, running associations, sounding locales and their passers-through within a shifting context of remembered history, terrain, and sensory experience. Phrases break open in successive instants of perception, moving outward to observation and inward to linguistic play. Irony shifts tonal levels and traces the effects of imported colonial culture paving over local indigenous cultures.
“Liquidities” (from liquid assets, cash): the slower, more introspective rhythms of the city some forty years ago speed up in this new series as wordplay intensifies to verbal collision. Images traffic faster, with quicker jumps through milieu and temporal strata. Forest terrain transforms to high-rise architecture. On edge, littoral, surfacing through the litter it leaves, the city’s genius wavers in and out of focus through its tidal marks of corporate progress and enduring poverty.
“Everything Marlatt has published is instinct with caring, intelligence, and a feel for technical innovation.”
– Ken Adachi
“Marlatt’s language conveys a rich sensuality, a sensibility honed to a fine edge.”
– Judith Fitzgerald
Daphne Marlatt was at the centre of the West Coast poetry movement of the 1960s, studying at UBC and with many of Donald Allen’s New American Poets, most notably Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan. Her writing includes prose narratives on the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver and of Steveston and several poetry books. In early 2006, she was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of a lifetime of distinguished service to Canadian culture.
…in 1972. Check it out! Want to read more? Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now gathers many of the … substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s …
…in an hour to hear Daphne Marlatt read from Liquidities and other works to celebrate the library’s …
…in the Novel category, and Marlatt’s Liquidities and Del Bucchia’s Coping with Emotions and …
…latest book of poetry published with Talon is Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now , and she chose a …
…review of Daphne Marlatt’s latest book of poetry, Liquidities (Talonbooks, 2013). We republish this review by …
…Daphne Marlatt reads from Liquidities , which launched in Vancouver in April. The full …
…Janes, To the Barricades by Stephen Collis, and Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now by Daphne Marlatt. …
…To the Barricades and Daphne Marlatt’s Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now , with both echoing … the commune is reconvened in Vancouver’s streets. Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now gathers many of the … substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s …
…Daphne Marlatt reading from her new book of poems Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now at the Western … substantially revised, and follows them with “Liquidities,” a series of recent poems about Vancouver’s …
…pleased to announce that Daphne Marlatt’s Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now will be appearing …