Book Review: Orphic Politics

It can be very comforting to talk to the dead, and in his eighth book of poems Tim Lilburn seeks wisdom and guidance from dozens of figures such as Socrates, Iamblichus, Adam and Eve, Suhrawardi, Oedipus, Carl Brewer, and, of course, Orpheus to help make sense of the body’s descent into illness.

The poet’s strategy for dealing with mortality, the hidden and incomprehensible reasons for our bodily existence and how this affects our spiritual existence, is to probe everything around him. Orphic Politics draws its metaphorical terrain from the natural landscape, ancient texts, warfare, sports, and the flesh, and includes such compelling titles as “Against Imperial Angelisms: Pre-Surgical Instructions” and “Orphic Disgorgement, Anti-Colonial Disgorgement.” The range of references is impressive, as is Lilburn’s willingness to explore the possibilities of diverse arenas.

Yet many of the poems do not live up to their provocative titles, nor to the book’s title. One might expect exciting fluctuations between mourning and protest, vitality and elegy, sensuality and shame, and to have one’s preconceptions about the lyrical and the political radically redefined. But the music is often flat, the poems’ energies unfocused, and, notwithstanding the metaphorical and metaphysical excess, the results frequently banal. There is little variation in form, tone, or technique, and one has the sense that the author is desperately throwing imagery at the reader in hope that something will stick.

There are sparkling lines scattered throughout, and solid individual poems (“This, Then” and “Cognitio Matatunia” are notable), yet the overall effect of this dialogue with the dead, and the self and its mysterious surroundings, is ultimately uninspiring. Lilburn quotes from Plato’s Phaedrus, a famous section comparing a charioteer’s team of horses to the soul; galloping along, it “sees some real things and misses others.” I just wish, on this particular poetic journey, this important Canadian poet didn’t miss so much.