1970: A Novel Poem is the story of one year in the poet's life, encompassing "Öthe last year/ of the old decade, or/ the first year of the newÖ." 1970 was a year of much turmoil and strife, the dark, bloody middle of the Vietnam War; the year of the Kent State murders in the U.S., in the spring, and the War Measures Act in Canada in the fall. The year women in both countries were breaking out all over, and demanding that their voices and their concerns be heard and respected. It was also a year of personal struggle and change for the then-30-year-old poet; the year of her marriage in the spring, and of her own private revolutionary crisis that October, related in four sections "Winter", "Spring", "Summer", and "Fall". 1970 is novel not only in its narrative structure, but also in the poet's treatment of verse forms, and their visual presentation, the object being to "open up the lines and let the reader in," instead of "stanzas bristling with metaphors, forming a wall down the page, off which the eye glances, and turns away." The underlying theme of 1970 is the fact of Death, its certain occurrence and capricious exercise, and the terrifying and healing powers the recognition of its presence and nature can bring. Excerpt: from "Summer"That was a hot one, The last summer of the 60s, the last of that self-indulgent spell, when everyone seemed young because we were young; those revolutionary years, turning under our feet, time shifting our lives, turning out differently than imagined -but we couldn't see it, then; we didn't see our coming of age coming to an end; we couldn't see anything but ourselves in the heat, Seven of us living in a big old house on Beverley Street. We could barely afford the rent, but we scored our hits of acid, our lids of grass and quarters of hash, chanting our mantra: "Dope will get you through Oh! it was hot that summer,  |
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