Lesley Choyce’s latest collection of poetry includes
pieces both anecdotal and philosophical. All
Alone at the End of the World gives readers the sense that they are not
alone at all, but sitting with an experienced storyteller who leverages his
unique voice to make the poetry fly off of the page. Using wit and sharp
diction, the speaker spins tales of the mundane into larger-than-life
adventures that ensnare the attention of the readership.
Choyce has the capacity to create tangible imagery,
vividly translating his lived experiences onto the page. Readers feel their
hearts race while reading “Black and White Cat on Oxford Street,” a poem that
is not profound in the subject that it treats, but which powerfully creates fear and
then relief:
The cat is, I swear
in flight,
its trajectory taking it
straight into the grill of
my car
when suddenly
it understands the density
of its disaster,
angels grabbing at its
claws midflight,
flipping it backwards
onto the safe hard comfort
of the curb (19)
With technical prowess, Choyce uses line breaks and enjambment to generate suspense, while alliteration highlights the main events of his colloquial story. The poet’s retelling makes an extraordinary poem out of an ordinary event.
With technical prowess, Choyce uses line breaks and enjambment to generate suspense, while alliteration highlights the main events of his colloquial story. The poet’s retelling makes an extraordinary poem out of an ordinary event.
All Alone at the
End of the World transports readers to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then takes them around the world. Building on themes
of the universal, Choyce’s book is infused with philosophical poems that pull
his readership out of their current surroundings, and invite them to join him
on his journey of self-reflection. For example, he recognizes the complexity of
identity in “Contradictions”:
This poem is not helping
To solve the threadbare
mystery
of me, however,
and my desire to be here
and now
but also scattered
everywhere
and anywhere at once.
This is an ambitious poem
going nowhere. (21)
Building
on a common issue, the speaker’s inability to solve the “mystery / of me” conjures
a sense of empathy from readers. Mirroring the role of a mentor speaking to an
acolyte, Choyce’s narrative relays a message reminiscent of Rainer Maria Rilke’s
Letters to a Young Poet: “. . . be
patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms
and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue” (34-35). The playful
tone creates the sense that the speaker accepts that his desire is unsolvable,
even before stating that the poem is going nowhere; Choyce embraces his
contradictions, and inspires others to do the same.
Choyce’s All Alone
at the End of the World finds beauty in seemingly monotonous aspects of
life and encourages readers to look for splendors often taken for granted.
Works Cited
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Trans. MD
Herter Norton. New York: WW Norton &
Co., 1993. Print.
by Benjamin Lord, with input from Monica Grasse, Sharisse LeBrun and Molly Strickland
by Benjamin Lord, with input from Monica Grasse, Sharisse LeBrun and Molly Strickland
