Night-Eater
Patricia Young
Quatro Poetry
71 pp., 14.95
I’ve always liked Patricia Young’s work and she edited my Lucky Man collection. I really like where she goes with the Night-Eater, roaming her imagination, or heightening the reality given to her by her perceptions. Past the kitchen sink, and the water in the bathtub bathing (Like mine in Lucky Man)baby, but two different versions, a mother trying to calm a colicky infant, and in another poem a baby suffocating in a wild-fire. The kitchen fridge mind, is very much there in the darkly comic title poem, reminding me of Atwood’s Edible Woman as intended. And what a gorgeous cover! The cover painting Black Forest Cake, is by Marnie Faunt, cover design by Diane Masherin.
I didn’t notice the question marks until page 52, which bizarrely enough is some Facebook experiment today, not question marks but turn to page 52 in the book that’s closest to you and write down the fifth line. In this instance “girl you don’t recognize who curls,” less interesting to me than the 5 or 6 question marks driving me crazy, so I look back, and yes, right from the first page. “Swabbies of Life?”’Swabbies of Death? Is there a Survey Monkey poll? Do I choose? What? They do ease up a bit in the last pages, but I would love someone to explain question marks to me. What choose your own adventure? Liberate my own imagination? Granted, I, like Patricia am getting older, and no longer have all the answers, if any at all. Recommended, especially poems from page 53 “Raised on religion ” to pages 63 & 64, “Blue Monday.”