14th Canadian Challenge - 5th Review - Low Centre of Gravity

While George Stanley is moderately obscure for a Canadian poet, Michael Dennis is arguably more obscure.  He was largely an outsider, at least outside of Peterborough and Ottawa poetry circles.  He never landed one of those writer-in-residence gigs.  (Arguably these gigs are not what they used to be, but he seems to have been completely outside academic circles.)  However, he did publish regularly, largely chapbooks with smaller presses (perhaps a male, Canadian version of Lyn Lifshin?).  Many of them are listed here, but sadly most links are dead.  On the other hand, he did become a regular poetry reviewer with his Today's Book of Poetry review site, eventually reviewing an astonishing 800+ books of poetry on his blog, having to shut it down in early 2020 due to ill health.  Mchael Dennis passed away on Dec 31, 2020.  A touching tribute can be found on rob mclennan's blog.  Michael Dennis largely worked in blue-collar professions and didn't support himself through his writing (which incidentally was also the case with George Stanley at least until he started teaching at Coast Mountain College).  I see him as working in the Al Purdy vein, and perhaps a bit inspired by Bukoski as well.*  Michael Dennis has a volume of selected poems from 2002 (This Day Full of Promise) and Bad Engine, a more recent selected volume on Anvil Press from 2017, which also includes a generous helping of new poems.  Bad Engine is still in print, and I expect I'll review it this fall.  Low Centre of Gravity, published in 2020, is Dennis's final stand-alone poetry collection.

In general, the poems are short, first-person observational poems, often with an ironic or humourous  twist at the end.  These are certainly up my alley, and I look forward to checking out Bad Engine in short order.

Low Centre starts off with a bang literally.  "Winter Storm" features a car accident that leads to the car passengers dying with their proverbial lives flashing before their eyes: "their lives sped past / they remembered many of the same things / but not in the same order.".

"Tombstone" seems grounded in a reversion to Dennis's outsider status.  The narrator crashes a poetry reading, shoots the featured poet and takes the stage.  The poem closes: "the audience was lukewarm at best / but I still had some bullets / and they would all love me soon."

While Dennis's wife Kirsty (always referred to as K) appears in many of these poems, it may not be that much of a surprise that she doesn't make an appearance in "There is No Responsibiliy Once You are Dreaming": "had an inappropriate dream last night / about the wife of an old friend / she'd never visited me sleeping before / but she certainly made herself at home."  While "not much really happened" Dennis still "woke up feeling guilty."  But there's a twist at the end: "I think of calling my old friend / on the off chance he won't be home."

There is a somewhat elegiac feel to the collection, though it's not clear how many (if any) of the poems while Dennis was in poor health.  Quite a few poems involve funerals for his (older) family members ("Funeral Chat," "Aunt Alice" and "Another Funeral"), but perhaps even more disconcertingly for his contemporaries ("Went to Another Funeral").  Dennis reflects on previous vacations ("Fourth Arrondissement" and "History"), hiking trips ("The Blue Blue Sky"), and even the wearing out of wedding rings in "My Wedding Rings" where Dennis notes "it's astonishing / how quickly the years fly past."  Most things seem to be in the past for Dennis.  This is abundantly clear in "Quiet Future": "I used to read the newspapers / but there's nothing in them anymore / ... /  I listen to old music / and remember."  In "Sixty-One" Dennis gripes about the weather and says "it feels like I've been 60 / a lot longer / than 60 years."

I'll have to see what jumps out at me in Bad Engine, but my favourite travel poem from Dennis (so far) is "Elephants in Smith Falls" which combines a short report on a cycling trip Dennis made with his wife along with a shout-out to Raymond Souster's Elephants on Yonge Street.  The poem ends on an upbeat note: "a quiet street / us cycling / and the elephants with their handlers / ... / but a good start / an omen / for all those miles we had to ride / before the next small town."

* In this review of Low Centre of Gravity, Dennis admits to being inspired by Bukoski the poet, not Bukowski the person, as well as being a big admirer of Raymond Carver.