Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip
by Lisa Robertson
Toronto, Coach House Books, 2009, ISBN 978-1-55245-215-8, 101 pp., $16.95 paper.

Lisa Robertson attended the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver, which probably accounts for the influence of language writing, particularly that of Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino, evident in her poetry. Hejinian has written that poetic tension arises as a result of the conflict between the line and the sentence. This is definitely the case with Robertson's writing. Scalapino has taught her to exploit the seams within the tapestry of life.

The second poem, "Early Education," which, like the first, is written in paragraphs, opens with this preamble: "I designed my own passivity. I present it to you by my face, by your guts, and in the name of human space. I was born into a rough little city, site of hasty invention actively dissolving into steel sky. The city was a glittering ruin sucked upwards." (9) It is broken into several parts, part VI of which contains the following:

say nothing of the soul that flutters its sleeve dictating not this not that not this muddled doctrine. I'll not name each oblivion each venal carthage each dumb rut written up in verse. dominant my ink's not diligent like yours. I simply tug and vend and strum at pacts secundum signa quibbling litteris in commodo. sit poetica stupid with words past their sweet-arsed date. (13)

This passage definitely shows Scalapino's influence while retaining the originality that Robertson brings to her work. She brings a vast knowledge of language and languages to play in her poetry. Does anyone else hear the echo of the German expression 'sturm und drang,' usually translated as 'storm and stress,' in her use of the phrase 'tug and vend and strum'? The word 'pacts' flips her into Latin mode, from which she escapes through her fabulous use of alliteration: 'sit poetica stupid.' And while using Latin, she shifts into another register with her 'sweet-arsed date.' There is a certain amount of Adeena Karasick in the way she sets up and uses her word-play, such as 'each dumb rut written up.'

Although influenced by language, Robertson does not shun verse. "After Trees," although not indicated as such, is made up of a number of parts, with the last one occurring on page 32. Here, she creates some beautiful metaphors:

What about the data of trees before
Virgil? The day comes out of the earth like
an animal and it goes. A suite of
shadow follows. Some of you don't have to
like it. Absence is a sauce licked up, a
little peplum of fat and lint flung
off. For today only I'll accomplish novelty's capaciousness

Still, language writing shows its influence in the lack of closure, the loose connection of sentences, the conflict of sentence and line.

Then the concepts of sentence and line begin to merge (a definite Hejinian influence) as each line becomes its own sentence. This is where Robertson comes into her own. "Wooden Houses" is written in couplets as follows:

And we said a boat would come and take you to Venice
And you are a law of language.

And my mouth took part
And we fed you morphine mixed with honey. (39)

The first line of each couplet bears no punctuation although it is endstopped. The second ends with a period. Each comes to a full stop, but is the first a line and the second a sentence as a result of the punctuation or lack thereof? "Draft of a Voice for Split-Screen Video Loop" consists of single lines/sentences:

'A young woman looks openly out of the picture.'

'A young woman looks openly out of the picture.'

'Her experience of scale is always paradoxical.'

'As for the unconscious, she is breathing in its Latin.' (45)

Here we recognize another influence--that of Erin Moure--but again expressed in the singularity of Lisa Robertson. As the poem continues, lines begin more and more to repeat themselves with the sentence "Thus she arrives at the idea of the mistake," taking on the semblance of a refrain. This aspect is reminiscent of something Ron Silliman would do. But the nature of the lines themselves, the way they are worded, shows Scalapino's influence.

Lisa Robertson has achieved a major accomplishment with Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip. She has synthesized the voices of the language poets into something uniquely hers. This volume is a concerto in homage to language.

John Herbert Cunningham is a Winnipeg writer. He reviews poetry in Canada for Malahat Review, Arc, Antigonish Review, Fiddlehead and The Danforth Review, in the U.S. for Quarterly Conversations, Rain Taxi, Rattle, Big Bridge and Galatea Revisits, and in Australia for Jacket.

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