Have you ever been working on a puzzle and after hours of fitting pieces together you discover that there are a few missing pieces that make it impossible to complete the puzzle? Ever considered that a human life is like a puzzle?

Who hasn’t?

When you are feeling incomplete or troubled by loss or a missing connection it is a normal feeling to consider that something is missing. Some missing piece that makes it difficult to go on, to be at peace with the world.

The poems in this collection come from a place like that. In poem after poem the words construct and revel in the power of language and the images that light up the human condition. In the words and images of these poems Cathers considers loss, death, and other “missing pieces”.

Do we study a poem to investigate the complex maze of the creative mind, or to discern its philosophical statement and place it in the history of ideas, or do we concern ourselves with the emotional impact of the poem on the reader, or – are all of these ingredients of the poetic experience?

For the answers to these questions read the poems.

They are powerful and will resonate with you long after you put the book down.

For example, consider this poem: (page 30)

even though

             they had brought me

          home from school

                 at noon

 

 

 

 

     to tell me

     of my father’s

              sudden inexplicable

               death

 

I still found

 myself, later

   that afternoon

 

      on the front step

     waiting

one last time

                for your return

 

This poem speaks to me; the loss of a father is a devastating loss. Powerful poems like that one makes up the content of this selection and are testament to the claim by poet Stephen Bett that “Ken Cathers has for decades been one of Canada’s best, if unsung, poets. . . [who is] now becoming nothing less than a master. Cathers always “sounds” right, and never more than . . . in missing pieces.” And later, “A stunning book: no one else could have written it this well.”

The title, the cover image, the poems all work seamlessly together to produce a set of beautiful poems to read, consider, think about, and celebrate.

 

© 2019 Bob Lane

 

Bob Lane is a philosopher emeritus at Vancouver Island University.