{"id":4532,"date":"2019-08-29T14:25:36","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T19:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toronto.docker.prairiefire.ca\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2019-08-29T14:25:36","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T19:25:36","slug":"infrangible-by-carol-barbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prairiefire.ca\/infrangible-by-carol-barbour\/","title":{"rendered":"Infrangible by Carol Barbour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Take first the meaning of the word \u201cinfrangible\u201d \u2014not capable of being broken or separated into parts. <!--more-->Then take the cover art for the book, the author\u2019s painting of a woman holding her head in her hands. Now take the poems themselves, each one observing, surveying and celebrating the body close and the body at a distance, the body imagined through the eyes of others and through the questioning of self, the body moving through the complexities of life. Body and mind. Separate. But not apart. This dynamic, the push pull of perception and reality, animates the poems in Carol Barbour\u2019s 2018 book of poetry<em>, Infrangible<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Written in two parts, \u201cThe Broken Vase\u201d and \u201cGigantomachy\u201d, <em>Infrangible<\/em> explores relationships and the power they hold over us\u2014and that we hold, sometimes tenuously, within them. The first section, \u201cThe Broken Vase\u201d consists of twenty-three poems, the titles of which read in sequence narrate a coming together and a breaking apart. In \u201cAt First\u201d, Barbour reflects on beginnings, the slow circling \u201cof fish in water, kissing against glass.\u201d (3)\u2014while yet foreshadowing the end of the relationship, \u201cBut what of the glass? It is broken.\u201d (3) She then pulls at the threads of a relationship that has unraveled, and the troubled ways we read ourselves relative to others. The section closes with the poem \u201cFortune Telling Doll\u201d, in which she writes: \u201cEmbracing the confusion of self in focus, out of context, seen through the lens of another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the second part of the book, \u201cGigantomachy\u201d\u2014which references a pivotal battle in Greek mythology in which the old order of giants are overthrown by the gods of Olympus\u2014Barbour writes large the women in her life. In \u201cMama\u201d and \u201cGrandma\u201d, these formidable women are rendered in mythic language, take on mythic proportions. Of her mother, Barbour writes, \u201cI was one of her admirers, and drifted away from the centre, waiting for a chance to be me in the presence of she.\u201d (36) And of her grandma, \u201cI recall your silhouette, attenuated, majestic, and threatening to overpower.\u201d (39) In these and other poems in this section, Barbour interrogates the nature and enduring influence of the many power relationships we encounter in our lives, those within families, and those we find ourselves enmeshed in at work and in the varied and oftentimes unconnected social spheres in which we move. Ultimately, in the poem \u201cCompany of One\u201d, Barbour upsets long-accepted power imbalances when she writes: \u201cThe \u2018I\u2019 is important, the inverse of how it was.\u201d (69) In the final poem, \u201cAllegory of the Journey\u201d, Barbour\u2019s words encourage us to revisit our own experiences with power and consider them anew. Just as she has done throughout this book, she inspires us to \u201cListen, hear it again. Differently.\u201d (70) And by so doing, to recognize and claim our own \u201cI\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Barbour, a visual artist and art historian as well as a poet, writes with a painter\u2019s eye. Interspersed throughout <em>Infrangible<\/em> are ekphrastic poems that reference Renaissance and other painters, the work of painting and the making art, and the necessity of art to life. In the poem \u201cArt History\u201d, she writes: \u201cArt persists when currency fails.\u201d (18) In the context of this book, and her recently released artist\u2019s book \u201cAlter Pieces\u201d, art can also be read as a constant and sustaining force.<\/p>\n<p><em>Infrangible<br \/>\n<\/em>By Carol Barbour<br \/>\nGuernica Editions, Essential Poets Series 256, 2018<br \/>\n76pp., $20<br \/>\nISBN: 978-1771832786<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Jody Baltessen<\/strong>\u00a0is an archivist and poet in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take first the meaning of the word \u201cinfrangible\u201d \u2014not capable of being broken or separated into parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-reviews","category-book-review","category-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Infrangible by Carol Barbour &#8211; 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