The Weight of Oranges / Miner's Pond

by Anne Michaels | Poetry |
ISBN: 0771058780 Global Overview for this book
Registered by pinkoeria of Basingstoke, Hampshire United Kingdom on 11/13/2009
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3 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by pinkoeria from Basingstoke, Hampshire United Kingdom on Friday, November 13, 2009
Beautiful collection of poems. I have had it on my shelf for 10 years though and haven't read it in a while, so it is time for this book to go to someone else.

Journal Entry 2 by pinkoeria at RABCK in Toronto, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada on Saturday, November 14, 2009

Released 14 yrs ago (11/14/2009 UTC) at RABCK in Toronto, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Sent as RABCK to Tarna. Enjoy it!

This book is released as part of The "THE" Release Challenge.

Journal Entry 3 by pinkoeria from Basingstoke, Hampshire United Kingdom on Saturday, November 14, 2009
I accidentally classified this as a wild release.

Journal Entry 4 by pinkoeria at Toronto, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada on Saturday, November 14, 2009

Released 14 yrs ago (11/14/2009 UTC) at Toronto, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent as RABCK to Tarna.

Released as part of the THE release challenge.

Journal Entry 5 by Tarna from Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Tuesday, January 19, 2010
It’s here, it’s here! And it’s The Weight of Oranges, my Wish List book!!! Plus The Miner’s Pond, a book I never even dared to put on my Wish List. You totally, totally made my day. THANK YOU, ckochlourens!
The timing was almost perfect, too, even of I don’t know who to thank for it. ;) It’s my birthday on Thursday, you see. What a lovely birthday present this is!
I only wish they’d still stamp the envelopes everywhere they go on their journey. I see you mailed the book in mid-November and I’d really like to see where it’s been; if it lost its way sometime or liked some place so much it wanted to rest there awhile. I like to know the history of a book, that’s why I love notes in margins and anything like that. So you don’t have to worry about the pencil marks. They just make this copy unique.
I’ve read Kivenkantajat, the Finnish translation of Fugitive Pieces, when it was published, and fell in love with the language in the first part. It is text only a true poet can write. I’ve wanted to learn to know Anne Michaels as a poet ever since. You made it possible.
I already read the first part, Lake of Two Rivers, and like it a lot. It brought one of my favourite novels, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, to my mind. (You know the part where they’re driving in a car through the night and father is telling about his past and his family history.) Lake of Two Rivers made me also think about books I’ve been reading lately (Finnish translations of Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay and Sonata for Miriam by Linda Olsson), the two Finnish Canadian sisters I’ve interviewed in Thunder Bay, and also about my parents who are both Karelian refugees, kind of misplaced people in their own country.
The two sisters had left Finland as babies and grew up in a Finnish Canadian community; they didn’t learn English until they went to school. Since their parents never told them about Finland or their Finnish relatives, they didn’t really understand they had family here. During all their school years they felt otherness among ‘Canadian girls’, as they called their English speaking schoolmates, never quite knowing why they felt themselves so different. When the younger sister was 18, they first visited Finland and, finally, they realized. ‘This is us,’ they said, ‘this is where we come from.’
My parents didn’t talk much about their past either. My mother had a couple of anecdotes she told every time she thought I was being lazy (quite often, really) but my father said nothing until we first visited the islands they both came from (it was around late 80’ies, I think, when Finns finally were allowed to visit that part of Karelia) and then a few years ago when he got really sick and thought he was dying. (He’s much better now, thank God.) But, of course, I always knew. My maternal grandmother talked a lot about Karelia (she never felt home outside Karelia) and two of my mom’s sisters have always been reminiscing their childhood.

Anyway, Lake of Two Rivers reminds me how important it is to pass on your family history to the next generation. I’m so glad you’re planning to take your sons to visit their family in The Netherlands. They need to know where they come from.

Oops. This must be the longest JE I’ve ever made just to tell the book has arrived. But this book made me think some many things and I wanted to share my thoughts with you. Bear with me, please, ckochlourens. I just wanted to say this book is truly appreciated. Thank you!





Sept. 11, 2016
I'm trying to track down award winning/nominated books and found this one. I don't have the book in my hand right now. But, according to Amazon, the inside flap says,
“Published in 1986, The Weight of Oranges created a sensation, garnering the kind of praise rarely accorded a first book of poems. It went on to win the Commonwealth Prize for the Americas. Miner's Pond appeared in 1991 and received the Canadian Authors Association Award, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and the Trillium Award” [bolding is mine].

Journal Entry 6 by Tarna at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Thursday, October 20, 2016
When I first read this collection, Lake of Two Rivers spoke to me. Years have passed and my life has changed since then, this time I was touched by some other poems. I enjoyed the ones talking about meaning of words and language.
”You explained visual time,
how there’s no weight without shadow.
Nothing falls, every figure has a ghostly buoyancy. You explained how Chambers grounded things with his light,
leaving the ghost inside.

I understood this by thinking “language” instead of “light,”
how everything suspended stays temporal.
I understood it as a grammar of beauty
with its apex of loss,
dishevelled burning trees half leafless.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(From The day of Jack Chambers)

There were several themes that touched me deeply. Human relationships, love in its many forms.
”You have lived Brecht’s parable of the Chalk Circle.
When I was caught in the middle, you let go
so I wouldn’t be torn to pieces.
Your actions have taught me what it is to love —
that it’s holding back, as well as holding.
[...]
I’m living proof
we don’t stop wanting
what we can’t have.
[...]
Like loons we travel underwater
great distances, to surface next to each other.
We burst up from water to air
to drift beside the serrated horizon of firs.

No matter where you are
or who you’re near,
we come up for air together.

No matter my pace or distance,
it’s you I surface to.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(From Sublimation)


”The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love.” (From Memoriam) Poems that moved me most speak about losing a beloved one. Well, it was no surprise to me. Feels good to find comfort in literature.
”There is mystery in how we love,
but not in why.
Like forgiveness, love is practical.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(From Pushed into the dark)


This is a collection one should have on hand all the time. But I’ve already kept it a long time and I think the book must be shared. Besides, Anne Michaels is not too well-known in Finland, especially not as a poet. So I put the book in Palkintokaappi (trophy cabinet), a VBB including award-winning/nominated books. It was picked up by Annimanni and will start travelling soon.

Thank you so very much for sharing this book with me, pinkoeria!

Journal Entry 7 by Tarna at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland on Thursday, October 20, 2016

Released 7 yrs ago (10/20/2016 UTC) at Tampere, Pirkanmaa / Birkaland Finland

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Kesis is visiting Tampere today and she promised to take a bunch of books to Helsinki with her. This is one of them.
I'm sure you'll like this collection, Annimanni. Enjoy!

Journal Entry 8 by Annimanni at Espoo, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Saturday, October 22, 2016
The book arrived safely in my hands. Thank you very much, Tarna!

***

Kiitos vielä suomeksikin, Tarna! Ihanaa, että täsmäkaapitit tämän. Täydellinen valinta! Taidan köllähtää heti kirjastohuoneen sohvalle ja nautiskella hetken tästä.

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