The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen

This is the only edition to chronologically follow the astonishing trajectory of Gwendolyn MacEwen’s career as a poet, story teller, translator and dramatist. Seminal and a substantial selection from each genre are set among paintings, photographs, personal letters, and rare archival material. Also included for students or book clubs or for the general reader are questions for discussion, essay topics, suggested reading, and related Web sites. Poems (eight previously unpublished), prose, photographs, personal letters, questions for discussion and essays, suggested reading, related Web sites, and more!

The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen traces the astonishing trajectory of her verse, and the development of her fiction – the novels Julian the Magician and King of Egypt, King of Dreams, and her stories, No Man, and No Man’s Land – as well as her brilliant translations, The Trojan Women, and the theatre piece, The Birds.

The publication of The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen, compiled and collated by poet Meaghan Strimas, represents a signal event in Canadian culture. Not only does it provide readers with both sumptuous samplings and generous helpings of entries across the swath of genres with which the haunted wordsmith wrestled throughout her too-brief life, it also cements her reputation as the greatest poet of her generation. As such, this gorgeously produced objet d’art towers above the field while barely containing its contents under pressure.

It’s a stellar omnibus, bound to become the first and last word on a writer of extraordinary range and abilities. Some said the woman born in Toronto on Sept. 1, 1941, wrote from the point of vision of a madwoman; others dismissed her work as maudlin, self-obsessed posturing. But many adored the miraculous turns of phrase and shapes of thought glittering on every page. A chronological repository of the various genres upon which MacEwen left her mark, this volume preserves the overarching sense of purpose, the acceptance of her blessing’s curses, and the journey she undertook to meet its all-consuming demands, a journey that would find her in Greece, Egypt and, at the end, both broken and broke in a gently decaying flat on Toronto’s Robert Street.

From Marino Marini’s Horses & Riders (Afterworlds):

We proceed in beautiful devastating stages
Towards our end, as the horse and rider
Collapse together in the catastrophe of love.
I lie in the night of your breath,
There is only your breath, all else has gone.
The horse dissolves between the rider’s thighs,
The world dissolves before the rider’s eyes.
So now, in the animal darkness, come.

Unimaginably wounded by grief (dolor), passion (furor) and hardship (labour), heartbroken beyond belief, inexplicably abandoned by those who called her friend, MacEwen still somehow managed to stay the course, effortlessly rising to communicate, never stooping to conquer, always mindful of her place in the holy acts of destruction and creation, the dualities she never ceased attempting to reconcile. In one of her final Afterworlds poems, she lays that apprehensive affirmation on the line, resigning herself to the truth “the lord of Life is breathing in and out,/ creating and destroying the Universe/ With each wave of his breath.” A few lines later, she does an about-face, positively celebrates the catch-breath beauty while “lord Siva dances in the streets,” before squaring the circle in “all its myriad inner worlds,” whirling around “in the carousel of space …”

Unrequited love, ineffable longing for the impossible, the need to be needed, the magic of transformation, the catastrophes of desire – all fuel MacEwen’s work. Collectively, The Selected pulls together the various strands informing her work in such a way that the resulting tapestry speaks eloquently of her passions, preoccupations, demons, desires and, yes, impossible proclamations. “What if the whole show was a lie, and it bloody well was-/ Would I still lie to you? Of course I would.”

If nothing else, MacEwen never shied away from tackling the tough issues, those circumscribing notions involving a reason to live, always affirming the transformative value of both the sacral and secular, relishing existence instant by instant and staving off both cynicism and self-congratulatory inclinations in favour of confronting that which is:

If I see the connection I will die with laughter
I will tumble off the universe
At the very least I might make verse
With the fulsome laughter of the moment
Yes, at last!

MacEwen’s poetry, poetics, politics, stories, novels, plays, translations and as-yet-to-be-surpassed stature all receive fair play in this exquisite collection, from 1961’s Selah through 1982’s The Fire Eaters to her final astonishing offering, Afterworlds, a work published to superb critical reception that could not hold her here: Come Nov. 29, 1987, the news of her incomprehensible demise nearly overshadowed the book’s incomparable triumph, fully formed achievement, philosophically coherent and politically astute presentation.

Sadly, happily, too redolent with dolor, furor and labour for mere words, MacEwen’s enduring gift earned both the accolades and the income she frantically attempted to secure until her hard-scrabbling desperation – which both grounded her and ground her down before they came her way, when she’d already accomplished what she had to do.