The Recklessness of Love: Bawajiganan gaye Ni-maanedam
by Al Hunter
Wiarton, ON: Kegedonce Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9784998-1-5, 56 pp., $16 paper.

Al Hunter, author of Spirit Horses, has written a new book of poetry in which he explores the "recklessness" of love. And what is this recklessness? The subtitle, "bawajiganan gaye ni-mannedam," is Ojibwa for "dreams and regrets." This translation gives us an insight into Hunter's examination of love and the desperation, madness and audacity that can accompany this affection.

Hunter's poetry is full of colourful images, many of them relating to birds, flowers and stars. In "A Secret of Birds," Hunter draws a vivid picture of the ardour of love, the boldness of reaching beyond the images that we place on love. He compares the resulting kiss to birds feeding each other: "Slowly, tenderly we press our mouths together / Yes, tenderly, like hungry birds" and then, "To take wing, to take wing, / And soar . . ." and it is this figure of the birds that gives the poem texture. (5)

The short poem "Misfit" depicts what occurs in the instance of unrequited love. The poem is short (two lines), yet it conveys its succinct message--that we are mad fools when it comes to love. The image "The shoe on the wrong foot" is an achingly observant one. (2)

The Dream Hotel series has the poet searching for ultimate love. But the hotel is a borrowed place and we wonder at the choice. The erotic language: "Our laboured, excited breathing giving way / Mewling and moans escaping softly," depicts the lovers' preoccupation with their appetites. Hunter's descriptions are explicit, taking us through the progress of physical love, and remind us that humans are passionate and sensual beings. (12)

"Dream Hotel 1V" considers learning by the heart and brings the gradual realization of the dream come true. With the description "To trace again with my mouth and light kisses . . . / At every nook and cranny / Lush valley, crevice, and meadow," the poet's words suggest a country where he has found home with his love, and that the physical place does not matter. (16) The prose piece "Ghosts of Big Sur," a dream journey with Bob Dylan to find the ghostly Richard Brautigan--a prolific writer of prose and poetry who died at the age of 49--is fraught with longing and poignancy. The author mourns the loss of Brautigan, wondering if the poet's language died with his death. Dylan assures Hunter when he says, "we make our search for answers longer than it need be . . . Brautigan's dead. His poetry lives. You live. Simple." (22) His statement allows us to see that the poet's life had meaning, that his poetry is his legacy to the world. And that too is love.

The poet writes of another kind of love in the short narrative "My Whole Life Going Home." Home lingers in our memory long after we physically leave it. There is a sense of nostalgia in this poem, a feeling of quiet desperation and homelessness. The Aleut woman in the story speaks with regret when she says, "I've spent my whole life going home." Her words remind us that a return to our place of birth might be dangerous to our psyche; it may be best left as a memory, albeit one of regret. (38)

The final, title poem is the strongest in the collection. It leaves us breathless. The speaker writes of composing a poem for his loved one; his struggle with words, "4 days ago / I brawled drunkenly with metaphors," is heartbreaking. And then his piece culminates in the creation of a "dusky star," a "reckless love," a creation he can give to his lover. (56)

The step into the country of poetry can be daunting, but Hunter, by entering it boldly, has with this book made a definite mark.

Mary Barnes is a writer living in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.


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