Friday night over dinner Carolina and I were discussing Sarah Dowling’s new book, Security Posture, which was recently published by Snare Books in Montreal. Sarah’s book is the winner of the 2009 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, an award for emerging Canadian writers. Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Sarah now lives in Philadelphia.

Earlier this year, Chris & Jenn McCreary published some of Security Posture in the most recent Ixnay Reader. That excerpt really interested me, so it’s great to read the work in its entirety now that the book is here. I should say, by the way, that the size and feel of the book is fantastic, too. It’s small enough to fit within a pocket, and the blue, black, and white of the cover is sharply done.

In the conversation with Carolina, I had mentioned to her that I found myself reading the book quite fast the first time around. Once finished, I immediately began again until about halfway through. I can’t remember what stopped me from going all the way to the end this second time. Perhaps tired eyes, or an interruption, but no matter, really. Part of the reason why I read fast was because the book moves, I mean really moves. Sarah has such a strong sense of the line, particularly the short line. Her skill in this regard is especially interesting because the book deals with erasure in many ways. That is to say, the book is filled with repetition, but it’s fractured repetition. Or, as Jena Osman puts it in a blurb “[the poem] takes on adaptive choreographies.” I put in the word “poem” where Osman actually says “we,” but it seems a fair enough leap to suggest the we is the poem. To choreograph short lines the way Sarah does, it seems to me, would be a challenge, because how is it possible to maintain the sense of the rhythm when words are vanishing? Sarah makes it happen. The book’s title, Security Posture, certainly indicates what Charles Bernstein says in his blurb when he writes: “In these exquisitely reserved poems, the relation of person to body, stare to reflection, touch to sight is incised in a poetic dry point that cuts deep.”

What follows is an excerpt from pages 38 - 40, which is roughly the middle of the book. It’ such an amazing moment, which is why I want to emphasize it here, but it’s also the reason why I feel I shouldn’t do so. Admittedly, I take the selection out of its context, but as I’ve said, I’m particularly interested in Sarah’s adeptness with the line, and this selection demonstrates that understanding. Perhaps you ought to check it out for yourself. I will reproduce the excerpt here and you should check it out, how about that? One last note, where you read [page break] is my insertion to clarify where the pages break, and therefore where lines and stanzas break, too.

from Security Posture

sky, the against
is spread out evening when
I turn over
there I turn
myself, like
stones

soft white walls
you are my assurance
f
you, everyday
turn, pass her delicate may I

pool I leave it
turn you’re what
like stones f
the against like
f

[page break]

f
like against the
f stones like
what you’re turn
it leave I pool

I may delicate her pass, turn
everyday, you
f
my response are you
walls white soft

stones
like, myself
turn I there
over turn I
when evening out spread is
against the, sky

[page break]

f like f what it
I everyday, f my control walls
stones like, turn over when against

against stones you’re leave
may you are white
myself I turn evening, the

the like turn I
delicate you you soft
there I out sky

pool
her
spread

pass
is
turn