U is for Jane Urquhart

ABC Wednesday
June 4th, 2014

The letter is U, 

and I have chosen to tell you a little about Jane Urquhart, 

a brilliant Canadian Poet and Novelist.

She is one of Canada's best loved writers and was born in northern Ontario in 1949;

the author of three or four books of poetry and seven internationally acclaimed novels

for which she has won many awards,

and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

If you don't know her works it would be most rewarding to GOOGLE her name!

I find that I have only read her last four novels,
A Map of Glass, The Stone Carvers, the Underpainter  and the Sanctuary Line

and so I have visited the Library online and ordered

her first three The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, and Away.

Here is one  of her poems from the book The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan

The sun decides to enter

from the garden

moving on the carpet

he touches all your furniture

crawls under your closet door

investigates your wardrobe

moves his arm across 

your memories

substituting light

heat and silence

he erases last year's

conversation with the stars

changes the contents of your mirrors

invents an alternative

palette for your crystal

scrapes his nails across  brocade

revealing tangled threads

like contours on a map

he polished your tables

his brilliance clings to cutlery

till spoons become large

bright incisions

all across the grain

a weight of gold and heat

he stops  burning

at the flesh of your neck

you are the only shadow in the room

It seems a pertinent poem for these first sunny days of June

For more interesting u's visit here at ABC Wednesday,

with thanks to Roger and Denise, and their hopefully ubiquitous helpers.