In the Bowl of My Eye

The meditative if uneven ninth collection from Garebian (Moon on Wild Grasses: Haiku) draws its inspiration from the Lakeshore Road area of Mississauga/ Etobicoke in Canada. The book is in conversation with Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” citing excerpts frequently as a starting point for his own contemplation. Other poems allude to, or quote, from Anne Carson, Karen Solie, Virginia Woolf, and others. There are many skillful descriptions, “How lace and poison play tricks/ as light slants on them” (“Queen Anne’s Lace”), or the delightful poem “Some Trees,” which ends “some thicken the vocabulary of form/ some tell us of what is gone/ some have nothing to say.” However, several of these poems use language that feels forced, or even stereotypical, as in a description of “Nocturne”: “Small trees of loneliness/ dark with gay men, subterfuge/ of parched longing.” He describes “risky ardour/ to allow finite dreaming,” a high diction that does not land as impactfully as when the poet is more immediately concrete and precise. It’s a mixed outing, one that offers intriguing visions of suburban Mississauga but may alienate some readers with its descriptive choices. (Oct.)