It doesn't matter which lake, let's say it was the Shuswap,
we gathered up the sunflower-yellow mineral because we heard
sulphur is used on match-tips and were keen to set
the whole box alight in a matchgirl dream of voices
rustling red tongues.
We melted the contents of our pockets in an old can of beans
over the barbecue; first the Libby's label, then the metal turned black,
the sulphur melting like crayons into dull grey. When it hardened,
we shucked it out of the can, as warm and unassuming
as a new meteor in the hand.
--from A Dream of Sulphur
From childhood scenes in Deep Creek to the restless migrations across Canada, A Dream of Sulphur explores the relationship between memory, language, and geography. As a grandmother battles memory loss, a Hungarian is exiled to Canada, the Tofino fishing industry collapses, or August fire in the Shuswap prompts the largest evacuation in B.C. history, the crucible image of a Libby's bean can captures the central theme of flux and the inevitable recasting of home.
Price: $19.95
Pages: 80
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Imprint: McGill-Queen's University Press
Publication Date:
28 November 2000
ISBN: 9780773519084
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
POETRY / General, POETRY / Canadian
"In Aurian Haller's poetry, the mist is part of the machinery on the West Coast, along with the hoppers and flumes, fish knives and wharves. The might behind his metaphors is earned and appropriate; developed by a toil that looks for and finds freedom in new demands, new details of the task, outlined in land, sea and air. He proves that the mountains of labour to be done have a mind behind them, and that each person can lay their hand to the tools that transform a cyclical depression of industry and emotion into a new life." George McWhirter, poet and novelist, author of Catalan Poems and Cage. "A Dream of Sulphur is a journey across an expansive geography of place, time and language - between the western interior plateaus and downtown Montreal, between generations, continents, languages. In the end, Aurian Haller's lyrical voice arrives at a place of acceptance, where words are no longer rooted in time or place, but in the heart. These are the verses of a poet who has learned to make music from the rough and the overlooked." Laisha Rosnau, Prism
