FRAGMENTS OF CHILDHOOD EFFORTS, HEARD BY MOM, STAY WITH HER
Patricia Young has been writing poems for as long as she can remember. Her early poems, fragments of which she can still recite, were about nature. Her mom was her first audience.
"She was nice enough to listen to them," says the 54-year-old Young, who was born and raised in Victoria. "When I look back, I don't think they were very good, but it gave me enough encouragement to continue."
Today she writes for a larger audience. So far she has published nine books of poetry and one of fiction. The quality of her work has also improved. The list of her achievements since 1987 include being nominated twice for the Governor General's Award for Poetry and winning the Pat Lowther Award, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Award and others. Her first collection of fiction, Airstream, also won the Metcalf-Rooke Award.
She has been a writer in residence in several universities, the latest at the University of New Brunswick. It was during a hard winter in New Brunswick that she was inspired to write today's poem.
Young lives in Fairfield with her husband, Terence, who is also an award-winning poet. The couple met when Patricia was only 16; they have two grown children.
The husband-and-wife team occasionally spend time at their other home in Highlands, using it as a retreat for their writing.
"We help each other out," Young says. "It makes life easier when your spouse understands your work." -- Pedro Arrais, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½
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The ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ asked six Victoria-area poets to create poems for the winter season.
Today we present the fifth, Patricia Young's Cherry Tree in Winter.
The last will follow tomorrow on the front page of the Life section.
CHERRY TREE IN WINTER
By Patricia Young
Icicles hang from the eaves, the size of a man and twice as lethal.
Today I trudge through the snow-deep city in my landlord's parka.
Within its sheltering hood I hear nothing but rustling inside my head.
Here, winter goes on and on and I'm tired of my own thoughts.
Through snow-deep streets I trudge in my landlord's down parka.
On the other coast you get out the lopper, prune the cherry tree.
Here, winter goes on and on and I'm tired of my own thoughts.
On the phone you say, So much light. Now the leaves won't shadow the deck.
On the west coast, you get out the lopper and prune the cherry tree.
For years I've asked you to take it down -- too much foliage, too little fruit.
The light, you say on the phone. Now the leaves won't shadow the deck.
Tonight I love that its branches still hold our daughter's tree fort aloft.
For years I've asked you to take it down -- too much foliage, too little fruit.
And the trunk serves as a post for our son's Guatemalan hammock.
I love that its branches still hold a childhood tree fort aloft.
Beneath three quilts I dream I'm a tree riddled with blossoms and birds, a diamond-weave hammock swaying in a Guatemalan market.
Inside my sheltering head: the sound of rustling green. Husband,
you are the riddle beneath which I dream blossoms and birds, but
when I wake, icicles hang from the eaves, the size of a man and twice as lethal.
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- To hear Patricia Young reading her poem, visit www.timescolonist.com
