Purdyesque?

            On my way out to Bike Pirates on Tuesday afternoon I checked my mailbox and found my return envelope containing my marked poetry manuscript from George Elliot Clarke. There were some errors in my prose introduction to the manuscript such as the mixed metaphor of the line, “spice up the threads”, but he gave me an A- minus on that part.

            In the poetry manuscript, from my poem, “Antiprayer” he wrote “Nice!” beside the first line, “Is the world really just the result of unplanned parenthood?” He also underlined the phrases, “deadbeat deity”, “left-handed centuries”, “extra obscenity” and “stuttering of souls”.

            From my poem, “Out on the Fields of Youth”, George wrote “powerful” beside the lines, “On the one day that I felt somewhat loved / by my father / the razor strap was not swung on Christmas”.

            From my ghazal, “Failed Launch of the Rocket of the Day” he underlined the phrase, “fashioned out of shit”.

            From “This is a Manner of Flight” he underlined, “I manoeuvre my oeuvre over”.

            Beside my haibun “Tailor-made Chain” he wrote both “Nize!” and “Dreadful!” though with the second comment I think it was just a response to the subject rather than a comment on the writing.

            From my freefall poem, “Wet Traffic”, he underlined, “sonorous chorus”, “breathing shushing traffic”, “an elastic crescendo” and “dragging their damp ectoplasm”.

            He commented that the last stanza of my poem “Beneath the Rubble of Us” was “A bit prosaic”.

            From my poem, “She Would Not Settle for the Limits of Satisfaction”, in the lines, “meaning they tend to need a handle / to handle insanity, like Jesus” he circled my two uses of “handle” and beside it wrote “Okay!”

            For my long poem, “Lotus Hotel” I was surprised that he’d crossed out the first five lines that give a preview of the end of the story. Beside that he wrote, “Cut?” On the second page of the same poem he added, “Reminds me of Purdy”.

            At the top of my poem “Your Absence Forms a Shape in the Air” he wrote “Purdyesque”.  He wrote “cliché” beside “sullen mood”, and I would agree with him there. Beside the lines, “When you returned your mood would be back / to normal and we’d talk and laugh until you realized / that you were late and you’d say goodbye” he wrote “Cohen, Hey that’s No Way to Say Goodbye”.  He liked the lines, “I feel run down when you give me a cold /vagina …” and “ungoverned but downright / neighbourly …”.

            I was disappointed that I didn’t get a higher mark for the poetry, as he only gave that an A-minus as well.

            Also in my return envelope George included the gift of a book of poems called “The Bone Weir” by D.S. Stymeist. I assume that this is one of the books that George receives in the mail from publishers in hopes that he will review them, which he doesn’t do anymore. Instead he offers the books as gifts to students whenever they visit his office, and I guess whenever they give him a stamped, self-addressed envelope like I did.  The only connection I can think of that George might have considered in choosing to send me this book is shown in one review on the back where Don McKay declares that Stymeist has the “stride of Purdy” and George mentioned of two of my poems that they reminded him of Purdy.

            I went online and saw that my official mark for Canadian Poetry had been posted. George gave me 84%, which is just one percentage point short of an A.