Jennifer Houle’s collection, Virga, is many things at once. This startling collection of 55 poems begins rather softly with images of nature and magical winged creatures, but the drum beat of fierce, lyrical beauty soon gathers speed, and she begins to hit you where it hurts.
Her poems delve into archaic language and hidden verse forms, reaching deep into the library of history to re-acquaint us with ancient words that help equip us to face today’s struggles. She shows the reader how our collective past, the pain and trauma we inflict on one another, still haunts us and affects our lives, our loves and our art, while also suggesting ways to rise when we have fallen.
Houle brings the night sky down to us, using stars and constellations as names and characters in her day-to-day life. One of the great joys I had in reading the collection was searching the names and words used, finding elegance and magic in how she spun both cosmology and ancient myth into a tapestry of verse. “Fomalhaut,” the fifth poem in the book, reads:
“The mouth of the fish
Pierced by a hook
bleeds reddish light
from 1989″
An explanation in the margin tells you that Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the Austrina Piscis constellation, also known as the Southern Fish, but a deeper dive shows you the star is twenty-five light-years away, with the poem being written, I assume, in 2014. The book is filled to the brim with these puzzles, and a thoughtful reader will find years of joy in exploring these stray but intentional bits of light.
Houle also jumps into deeper issues using unexpected models. She uses the motif of 1980’s slasher films to illustrate the position of women in society, being denied their place in the world, while bringing to light very personal experiences. Threat, violence and fear play a role in several poems, the thread of courage and perseverance sometimes wearing thin under the strains of daily life. Seeing oneself through the eyes of a potential predator, alluding to a woman murdered by a stranger/partner? These are passages that require a close eye and a steeled heart. Her three-part poem, “Final Girl/The Pretty One/Die Naked,” takes the reader through the internal journey of woman-as-potential-victim, and the ridiculous reality of these all too familiar circumstances we risk becoming numb to.
This set of references could seem ungrounded in less skilled hands, but Houle brings these entities into stark reality: voices you can hear, stars you can touch, and myths that can hit back.
The titular poem, “Virga,” carries many of these ideas in one stream, beginning with an epigraph in Latin. We are then carried on through a band of six stanzas of three lines each, a form that breathes life and energy into her words, yet also leaves you breathless, the urgency bringing the poem to a close before you can prepare yourself for its end.
It was during my third or fourth reading of the collection, that I realized just what a puzzle the volume was, and what treasures awaited the patient and curious reader. This collection has years of secrets to be pulled from the wet earth and starry sky, if only you take the time to look for it.
JTG: This is a powerful, complex and articulate collection. Where did these poems come from?
JH: These poems were written over a span of two decades, so at least 10 different versions of me wrote them, although 40-year-old me got final say. I pulled from my life, my own favourite myths, and the times we live in, but these are mostly pieces I had set aside for years as being too feminine, witchy, goddessy or personal/emotional. I was pretty sure they would be difficult to publish because of that. It seemed there was no real appetite for that kind of work 10-15 yrs ago. So I kept these aside for years and finally began to revise them seriously in 2017 when #metoo was happening. I felt like it was time to give them voice.
JTG: Your use of legend and archaic and ancient language is powerful and important throughout. Then to watch you go from ancient mythological references to women in horror films of the 70s and 80s, there were interesting connections there.
JH: Take the Lost Pleiad myth. I’ve been fascinated by that myth for years. The Lost Pleiad, one of seven sisters, falls to earth for love of a mortal man (Sisyphus, usually) – who turns out to be basically a dick. I feel like that is a myth I was living in my 20s. Although not to write off these mortal men – themselves caught in the violent storm of the world, and raised on violence. I’ve often thought that growing into adulthood is like falling to earth, in many ways, so I worked that metaphor throughout the book – falling stars, notable women/goddesses who have fallen from stars… and risen. In the three-part horror poem, I called up the stereotypes of b-movie heroines I grew up with and considered the way women in film, even when they are portrayed as victors, are exploited for those portrayals.
JTG: And then there is the connection to Myth.
JH: Yes, The Lost Pleiad myth is key for me, but I also called up other myths and legends. Asteria is the goddess of shooting stars and mother of all witches. Following her own trauma, she becomes a protectress. Dorothy, of Oz fame, fell from a star, or woke from a vivid dream, her own imagination….whatever…. to a bleak reality that dismissed her experience. I love the Wizard of Oz for the idea of a girl on an internal quest. . . and it really fits with the theme of falling from stars. So I was thrilled when a series of Dorothy poems emerged. There is also a poem about Astraea, the last Titaness to leave earth when it all went to shit in the Iron Age. I know the collection jumps around a lot, but I’m a working mom who writes when I can. If I don’t allow for unevenness and fluctuating registers, then I won’t write.
Jennifer Houle’s Poetry Collection, ‘Virga’, is published by Signature Editions, and is available across the Maritimes and Canada in Independent and Major Bookstores, and online.