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Strange Peacock (SP) 1986
Mythographies (M) 1990
A Demolition Symphony (DS ) 1995
Beautiful Chaos (BC) 2000
In the House of the Sun (HS) 2005
Abundances (A) 2009 |
 | | Sonja A. Skarstedt. photo by Geoff Isherwood |
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Sonja A. Skarstedt's poetic career spanned close to twenty-five years. She was involved in the production of her books since the start, and her last, Abundances (2009), was a handcrafted limited edition. As I read through her books, it struck me how early this poet found her voice, her themes and her style, as in her original chapbook, Strange Peacock. Its cover is an amusing illustration of a jazz age type dancer drawn by the author. There is warmth and extravagance, always something extra in Skarstedt's art.
As a poet, she was present, open to the now in the material world that she observed so minutely. She recorded people, places and things in a rhythmic style, a knowingness of where she was. Joy and good humour in her poetry gave a lift to the reader. Montreal, her native city, was the sun, and other places she travelled and wrote about were shiny rays, such as a ferry ride to Vancouver Island, or a train ride on Long Island, or a trip to Arizona which merited a sequence entitled "Arizona Circumstances."
Skarstedt was adept at her craft and excelled in narrative poems. She had a sense of structure and the line breaks were just right. She kept her distance like the visual artist that she was: she sketched, drew with words, drew out her experiences of that person or that place or that street. Colour, glamour, the bling of life were captured as the poet went through the underground city, the downtown malls of Montreal including Place Ville Marie, Les Promenades de la Cathédrale and Place Montréal Trust. The poet was in the metro when there was a suicide attempt in "Incident in the Charlevoix Métro"(DS). She meditated on tragic events in the city or region such as the Université de Montréal's Polytechnique shootings in "December 6th, 1999" (BC) and "Stand-Off: Oka, September 1990"(BC).
 | | Irving Layton and Sonja Skarstedt. photo by Geoff Isherwood |
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 | | Phyllis Webb and Sonja Skarstedt. photo by Geoff Isherwood |
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Other Canadian poets were celebrated such as Phyllis Webb, Ralph Gustafson and Louis Dudek, who was a mentor and friend to Skarstedt. Local poets make an appearance such as Artie Gold and Peter Van Toorn who is "The Hot Sake Poet"(M). Although she isn't named, the late Montreal poet Mona Elaine Adilman seems to be an invisible presence. Adilman's volume Candles in the Dark : new and selected poems(1990) contains an exuberant jazzy poem "Oscar Peterson and the Lady" that may be an antecedent to Skarstedt's "Bird How?"(M) about the jazz man, Charlie Parker, and Madame Soleil in "Dwarf Rise"(A) may be a poetic relative to Mrs. Pinsky in "The Pomegranate Widow." Skarstedt's poetic family seems to be made of outsiders, "looneys," artists, musicians and street people. Recurring words are circus, carnival, mardi gras. She created her own Cirque du Soleil, she was a graceful acrobat with words. In "Père Néoiste" (M), the opening lines are rich with evocative details:
"Cold as an oracle, the March breeze
slices through Phillips Square
carrying an aura of pigeons
goat cheese and cinnamon."
The "père" or father figure that haunts this poem is a doomsday prophet type whom the poet paradoxically wanted to avoid in life yet commemorated in her verse:
"We turn instinctively away
ignoring the cries of Luc
Père Néoiste whose hair
white as Zeus' tumbles
an unholy waterfall
over his stomach:
repent!......"
Skarstedt revelled in the urban landscape, and street names in her books read like those from a tourist guide: Saint-Laurent Boulevard, Milton Park, Jeanne Mance, Rue de L'Esplanade, Carré St-Louis. In "Jeanne Mance Décolletage", she recorded how a church was being renovated into condos and played on the street name which is that of the iconic nun and founding figure of Montreal, Jeanne Mance. To associate "décolletage," which alludes to the French word "décolleté" meaning low cut, has a certain sweet naughtiness.
An early poem "Hanalei Soliloquy "(M) prefigured the volume dedicated to Hawaii In the House of the Sun. Skarstedt travelled there for the first time in 1989. Her poem "Under Kihei" appeared in Canadian Literature and this spurred her to write more poems and research the history of the Hawaiian islands. There is sometimes an overwhelming volcano of facts but it works. Skarstedt's bent for myth and mythical figures is apparent in this collection in which Hawaiian gods and goddesses are unleashed. One of the most remarkable poems is "Pele's Nightmare." Pele is a mythological creature trapped in the ocean and the depths of despair from being punished by Na-maka-o Kaha'i Goddess of the Sea. A bond between the reader and the persona of Pele is established from the beginning of the graphic soliloquy:
"Nobody could know what it is like
down here in Kanaloa's pot
a muffled kettledrum
under a chaos of ships
whose uncaught bounty
filters past me toward shores
I am unable to touch."
The flora and fauna of Hawaii enhances the poetic language in native words that add musical
pleasure:
"I swim from port to port
catch meager glimpses
of pu'u and lehua
strolling he'e
delving dolphins
starfish 'ahi...."
The glossary doesn't contain all the definitions looked for but this is a minor disappointment. In the title poem, the dark side of Hawaii is captured:
"As you keep pace with Sliding Sands Trail
Haleakala's frigid shoulders far behind you
you realize how only a moonscape
comes close to defining the isolation
of this harsh and seductive realm"
The image of the mountain Haleakala's "frigid shoulders" is unexpected in a tropical setting and creates a remarkable contrast as does the word "moonscape" with the lushness usually associated with a Fodor's Hawaii. Skarstedt dedicated the volume to the memory of Louis Dudek and Gordon "Gordini" Barker, the owner of Barker's B& B on the island of Kaua'i. The Great Gordini is remembered by the always observant poet as he made breakfast for his guests:
"The pancake expands like buttercream
across the black griddle whose dents
are more precious than trophies to Gordon"
"The Sleeping Giant"
Sonja Skarstedt's poetic oeuvre is a treasure house, each book a treasure chest overflowing with precious poetic goods. In the winter of 2009, Skarstedt published a handcrafted limited edition chapbook entitled Friperie Swing. Decorated with sensual bits of colourful fabrics, the chapbook is beautifully hand-stitched. An earlier version of this chapbook was published under the title Abundances at www.coraclepress.com. The poem "Lingerie Window" was a new addition, and other titles such as "Café Rasputin," "Complexe Desjardins" and "Jazz Bells," speak of Skarstedt's recurring fascination with her native city and its denizens. Certainly the personification of "Rue de Bienville" is as charming, polished and contemporary as anything found in her early poems:
"Rue de Bienville
redolent of regentrification
invites the breeze come taste
my peeling mauves and greens
rattle your fingers through
my post-tenement screens
as she tucks her dreams
under flower pot porches"
©Anne Cimon, 2009
Anne Cimon is a Montreal poet and freelance journalist. She has published four books of poetry and her most recent An Angel around the Corner/ Un ange autour du coin is a bilingual edition that reflects her French heritage. She has read at various well-known Montreal reading series such as the Arts Café and the Yellow Door Coffee House. In 2007, she was a participating poet in Random Acts of Poetry.
Anne's literary articles and reviews have appeared in Canadian publications as Books in Canada, the Montreal Review of Books, and The (Montreal) Gazette. She also freelances as an editor and translator. Anne is currently at work on a new collection of poems inspired by the work of Vincent Van Gogh.
