Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent

Liz Howard’s Griffin Prize award for “Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent” was something was something of a surprise. This was her first published collection of poems, and her background and university training are not literary – she’s a research officer in cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto. She has previously published a chapbook, “Skullambient” (the poems of “Skullambient” are included in “Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent”), and her poetry has appeared in such Canadian literary journals such as The Capilano Review, The Puritan, and Matrix Magazine.The poems in the collection are related and often loop with the same title. She combines nature, time, science, and elements of Canadian native religion into on striking collection of poems. This poem is from the first section in the collection, entitled “Hyperboreal.”A WakeYour eyes open the night’s slow static at a lossto explain this place you’ve returned to from above;cedar along a broken shore, twisting in a wake of fog.I’ve lived in rooms with others, of no place and no mindtrying to bind a self inside the contagion of words whileyour eyes open the night’s slow static. At a lossto understand all that I cannot say, as if you cameupon the infinite simply by thinking and it wasa shore of broken cedar twisting in a wake of fog.If I moan from an animal throat it is in hope youwill return to me what I lost learning to speak.Your eyes open the night’s slow static at a lossto ever know the true terminus of doubt, the limits of skin.As long as you hold me I am doubled from without and within:a wake of fog unbroken, a shore of twisted cedar.I will press myself into potential, into your breath,and maybe what was lost will return in sleep once I seeyour eyes open into night’s slow static, at a loss.Broken on a shore of cedar. We twist in a wake of fog.Born and raised in Canada, Howard received her Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto. She recently received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Guelph.The Griffin Prize has established itself as one of the world’s most prestigious (and financially rewarding) prizes in poetry, and the recognition of collections like Howard’s enhances the prize’s reputation.

I return to this collection of poetry again and again for its attention to sound, texture and word play. Howard's thoughtful engagement with ideas surrounding assimilation, decolonization, and feminism is electric. There is a circular motion to the book that will haunt you in the most wonderful way.

I will reads this poem when directed by my Professor of Poetry in Summer School Session at U of C, Dr. Jonathon Wilcke.