Sharon Berg reviews Robert Priest‘s latest title “If I Didn’t Love the River”, ECW Press, 2022
There are times when I feel I’ve known Robert Priest since my own beginnings as a writer. The truth is I first met him in Toronto’s poetry community during my early 20s and I’d already made my own commitment to writing. Still, his work always feels like an introduction to a close friend. I believe his poetry, music, plays, and novels for children work the same way for most people. It’s in the immediacy of his voice, but it’s also the way he lays out his razor sharp perceptions. He seems to have an instinct for what’s on the minds of anyone and everyone, somehow tapping into a larger, gestalt consciousness.
The poems in If I Didn’t Love the River are very much in the vein of letters to the gestalt mind, and very much in tune with the earth and our relationship to her through both our shared human experiences and a rejection of harmful corporate deeds. Above all, this book is like a long love letter to all that Robert holds precious and worthy.
It has nothing to do with rivers but I see the river staying and going and I remember that love leaves and remains (Love Has Nothing To Do, p. 1)
The emotional spin of his verse ranges from love to distaste, he writes in both free verse and traditional forms, and his topics are either hugely uplifting or deeply disturbing. One has to note how easily his use of forms seems to disappear, how readily we accept that the internal rhythm and rhyme of his verse as a background for his manner of speech.
Robert has a clear vision of the villains who perpetuate poverty and pile new wrongs on top of centuries-old wrongs in the modern world. Yet, he can rock us to calm in the embrace of his lyrics, calling up a multitude of angels. He offers us both his irreverence and his piety, exhibiting his own special brand of bravery when he offers a lusty interpretation of the universe:
There’s nothing so titillating to suddenly see as the bottoms of the stars To gaze up under stellar dresses into dark funk and catch them winking as they stride see them twinkling in and out of sight the pornographic lens angled high for just a glimpse of between-thigh nebulae (Keyhole Telescopic, p. 63)
This is the same Robert Priest who made a huge impression in the musical world, decades ago, when he wrote a sarcastic tune that quoted Nancy Reagan’s reference to “a little gun” she kept under her pillow. In this book, he continues to poke fun at those who have grabbed power while boldly revealing the thoughts and conversations we’ve all experienced as something so intimate it cannot be talked about. Robert renders the intimacies between partners in poetry as they’ve never – or at least rarely – been done before. He speaks to this idea of spilling what should not be told (They Won’t Stay In, p. 14), almost as if the power to remain silent has escaped him. Certainly, this is not new territory for him, as I remember hearing him read a poem in public, in the 1980s, which talked about a bean shaped spill of period-blood on the sheets after love-making. In this book, he reveals even the intimate request from his partner to remain inside her after they’ve both come (Between a Tender and a Tender Place, p.4).
Robert’s work is both daring and delicate, beautiful and sometimes beastly in its truth telling. I know something of that urge for truth telling myself. It wells up and cannot be ignored or silenced. It even insists on telling all of the truths at once, though others would caution it might make the author look poorly in the light of day. Robert speaks plainly in If I Didn’t Love the River of his own struggle with mental illness.
Like wave and water I’d move on and stay — while sun reflections warp, distort, and clash But in a maelstrom waves by waves are dashed away and scattered in the wind’s deranging wrath Just so my thoughts are shattered by each thought They burst and break, they flood and then recede In panic they go off all scattershot That’s where I live, that’s where my senses feed — (Depression, p.16)
However, it is definitely not a mark against him, for he speaks bravely of the positives as well:
Once we were bright, exploded from a star
across the night, the opposite of dark,
we shone and somehow here we are
With burning brands in hand we weave our mark
against this loss — the sun-dividing sun
We’re not apart beloved we are one
(Information, p. 95)
There may be those who proclaim Robert Priest has referenced too many of the big social issues for one book to hold, but it is definitely not in this man’s style to hold back. Several poems toward the center of the book speak tenderly to the loss of children. Others speak to the ages-long neglect and lies that have been perpetuated against First Nations. There is one thing that is common through out the book, for all of his poems speak to the depth of this man’s heart. Our current situation, in this crisis of climate change and corporate disregard for the natural limits the earth will tolerate, has us balancing on the razor’s edge. It requires us to stand up to the corporate bullies, to call out the over-reaches of police when dealing with people of colour, and to demand that our governments treat all people equally. And then there is our need to recognize the sheer beauty of the earth which we are burying under the wastes of consumerism. Reading these poems, it is not difficult to imagine Robert Priest hollering from windows, rooftops, or the midst of crowds in the streets. He offers us an urgent message that we must take better care of each other.
Bio:
Born in 1951 in the UK, Robert Priest, is the author of 14 books of poetry, 3 plays, 2 novels, 7 music CDS, 1 hit song, many columns for Toronto’s Now Magazine, and numerous pieces for CBC Radio’s hit spoken word show “Wordbeat” under the alias “Dr Poetry”. His passionate poetry for adults is wide-ranging and much praised, while his children’s poetry is more tender, underpinned with a utopian hopefulness. Canadian novelist Barbara Gowdy has described him as “the voice of the people and the angels, entwined” and the Pacific Rim Review has said “He is certainly one of the most imaginatively inventive poets in the country.” Priest’s plays, novels and songs, have earned him awards and recognition in Canada, as well as a growing legion of readers (and listeners) world wide.