Billeh Nickerson
I will admit to
having being fascinated by all things Titanic. One of our family stories is
about how my grandmother saw it in Belfast, when it was being built. When Ted
and I were in Newfoundland in 2009 we went to the Johnson Geocentre on Signal
Hill in St. John’s. We spent quite a
bit of time with the Titanic exhibition there.
I’m about a
third of the way through Beryl Bainbridge’s Every Man For Himself, her
fictional account of the tragedy, so it seems like the perfect time to give a
National Poetry Month nod to Billeh Nickerson, whose collection of poems about
the infamous ship came out last year, the 100th anniversary of the
sinking. Even though it would be hard to find a reader who didn’t know how it was going to turn out, Nickerson sets up the story in lines that make you
nod, wince and shake your head in disbelief.
Several poems
anticipate the impending disaster. In one, a stoker decides against working the
maiden voyage when he sees a mother cat remove her newborn kittens from the
ship, one by one, because:
he
learned long ago to always trust
a
mother’s instincts.
I've enjoyed a couple of Nickerson's previous collections. His writing is clear, spare, and to the point. Take this one, that looks at events from a child’s point of view.
Goose Bumps
It
took three million rivets
to
piece the ship together
though
only a few seconds
for
a small child to notice
it
was as if the ship
had
a surprise chill
for
it seemed her hull
was
covered in goose bumps.
In any tragedy
you’ll find layers of sadness. The Young
Widow recounts the story of a newly wed survivor of the sinking whose father had filmed her
recent wedding, and how she would grow older but her nineteen-year-old groom
would ever remain as he was.
There are poems
in here that make me furious, make me despair for the human species and its seemingly endless greed at the most inappropriate times.
The
Balance
Although
the band played on,
their
paycheques stopped
the
second the water swept
over
the bow.
One
family received an invoice
for
the balance owing
on
their loved one’s uniform,
which
startled them
as
they believed
they’d
already paid so much.
Anyone who’s
interested in stories about the Titanic will want to get their hands on this little
book from Arsenal Pulp Press. In the acknowledgements, Nickerson credits a book
by Walter Lord, A Night to Remember, as triggering his lifelong interest in the
subject. Coincidentally, it also triggered mine. When I was in about Grade 10 I did a report on that very book. When I
handed it in to the teacher she looked worried for a minute, then brightened
and said, “Oh, it’s about the Titanic! Thank goodness!”
Even then…
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