a review of Monty Reid's Disappiontment Island

by Ronnie Brown (Canadian bookseller, Volume 2, 2007)

Still referred to many as a "western poet," Monty Reid moved from Drumheller, Alberta in 1999, a year after his last full length collection, Flat Side, was released. Eight years is a long time for a poet of Reid's calibre to go between books but, contrary to its title, Disappointment Island, one of the first collections released by Ottawa's newest publishing house, Chaudiere Books (the brainchild of rob mclennan and Jennifer Mulligan), will not disappoint fans of Reid's quirky, but apt, imagery.

Divided into nine sections, most of which are either single long poems or sets of sequenced poems, Reid does not so much 'describe' his world (which includes archaeological digs in the Gobi, trips to Cuba, as well as more conventional jaunts to the cabin) as invite the reader to join him in the experience. For, whether Reid urges the reader to "watch the white/ waves undress upon the point/" or talks about the archaeological aspects of discarded civilization in the form of "…the single wing of the flightless refrigerator/" or "…the carapace of an old stove/," he makes his reality clear and present.

In "Gobi Dig," Reid speaks of a man needing, "…a story, and a throat/ to contain it, one more way to make us believe/ the fissures of starlight open like one of the gates/ upon what we are//." Disappointment Island opens the world up like that for the reader: it is a truly fine book. Kudos to Chaudiere, both for daring to brave the world of publishing, and for finding such a well-written and polished work to launch their series.

Ronnie R. Brown is a freelance writer. The author of five books of poetry—her fourth, States of Matter (Black Moss, 2005) was recently named the winner of the Acorn-Plantos People's Poetry Award; her fifth, Night Echoes (Black Moss) was launched in late 2006.

related notes: see another review of the same title here.

upcoming chaudiere author events

Don't forget the reading this Friday hosted by Max Middle, or the ottawa small press book fair on Saturday, with appearances throughout the day by Monty Reid, Anne Le Dressay and Clare Latremouille (among others). After that, Michelle Desbarats reads at the Sasquatch Reading Series on Sunday, June 24 (2pm-4:30pm) in the basement of the Royal Oak II on Laurier Avenue East; on Tuesday, June 26, 2007, the Max Middle Sound Project will be featured at a special event of the Tree Reading Series to be held in the Byward Market's Tin House Courtyard commencing at 8:00 pm. open set to follow. Later on in the season, fiction writer Emily Falvey reads as part of a four-author "new Ottawa voices" feature (along with Marcus McCann, Sandra Ridley & tba) on July 10th for the TREE Reading Series in their usual location at the Royal Oak II, with Monty Reid featuring at the same series on August 14.

brief review of Monty Reid's Disappointment Island

By Steve McOrmond, posted on The New Quarterly online:

Monty Reid’s Disappointment Island is one of the finest collections of poetry I’ve read in years. In several long sequences of precise lyrics, small songs and “narrowed prayers,” Reid casts a paleontologist’s eye on the accumulations of everyday life, the remains of the near and distant past. Objects, those accretions of memory, are taken down from the shelving and dusted off by a mind hungry for meaning and transcendence. This is a poetry that asks the big questions: What survives, and what may be revealed by listening to the “erotic murmur of material things” (The Shelving”)? In so many of these moving poems, time is telescoped and small human figures are set against a stark backdrop of barrens, desert places, stones and “an excess of bones” (“Kwei”). There are meditations on the arrogance of seeking such emptiness, and also on the various places and provisional dwellings we come to call home: a cabin fastened into place “by sticking the chimney into the mist,” a crumbling Cuban love hotel and “the faintly luminous tents that have gathered like so many eyes / around the fire in the desert…” (“‘Outside the Mouth’”). Here be wonders.