Brilliantly illustrated by Sean Buckingham
This novel written in poems has promoted (a feeble attempt at) a similarly constructed review. So here goes . . . .
TRAGEDY AVERTED
Why have I never
before
discovered books
by
Zana Fraillon ?
She’s Australian, sure
but that’s no excuse.
So many of her books are published here.
I think
I’ve even heard of some of them.
The Bone Sparrow
rings a certain bell.
I can tell. It has a familiar ring.
Even
The Lost Soul Atlas
seems to have found its way
(somehow)
as a title
into my library
of the half-remembered
half . . .
forgotten.
But I have never read them.
Shame.
No.
Tragedy.
For now I know
just how much
I’ve been missing out.
But thank goodness
here is
The Way of the Dog
read
closed
finished
and on my shelves.
Chance brought to it me
serendipity
my lucky day
I’d certainly say.
And it was
reading heaven.
ON TREND
It seems that
fiction
written in V
E
R
S
E. (quite often terse)
has become a bit of a THING.
But
IMHO (as we seem to have to say these days)
its effectiveness, you see
can vary quite considerably.
Sometimes the ‘verse’ is so darned free
amounting to not much more than prose
divided into short lines (Much like this, IHTS.)
so that it leaves you asking
what is the point?
At the other extreme are works like those by Joseph Coelho
The Girl Who Became a Tree
The Boy Lost in the Maze.
The finest poetry
in its own right
so cleverly shaped
to tell a profoundly moving tale
and tell it (breath)taking
ly.
If this is a spectrum
Pointless __________________________to___________________________Coelho
then
The Way of Dog
comes well towards the Coelho end.
VERSE NOT WORSE
Its all about a dog
for sure
but no way is this . . . . . . . DOGGEREL.
(Sorry!
That was cheap at best.
Not even
particu larly funny :-)
It’s true enough though.
This is your actual poe TREE
in full and verdant leaf.
It enchants the ear
delight the eye
provokes the occasional
chuckle
evokes a genuine sigh.
Here are
rhythms
different rhythms
multiplemultiplemultipe rhythms
co m Pl eX and
simple
rhythms.
The rhythm of words
of
lines
and spaces.
Language
and TY pog ra phy
Calligrams (sorry that’s too difficult)
dance and SING.
Each poem
captures perfectly
a mood
a moment
a thought
a feeling
amusing
charming
enchanting
H. E. A. R.
T. breaki
ng
HEART mending
TELLING TAILS
But do all these poemspoemspoemspoemspoems
all these so clever words
Add + up + to = a coherent narrative
amount to a story
worth telling
worth reading?
They surely dodododododoDO.
Here is a simple tale
that has been
told many times
before
Finding - Loving - Losing - Grieving - Enduring - Surviving - Finding
Yet here it is
told with such deep truth
such honesty
such compassion
Here is the true doggy voice
the voice a dog would have
if dogs had voices.
Here is the yipping-yapping of the heart.
Here is the human in the animal
the animal in the human and
It S.
D
N
E
C
N
A
R
T
Its words move beyond words.
TAO
And does
The Way of the Dog
sound (just a little bit)
like your old Buddhist philosophy
a relic from your hippy days (for those of us who ever had them)?
Then so it should.
This is ‘the way’ for today.
A certain Benjamin Hoff wrote The Tao of Pooh
and now we have The Tao of Dog
by Dog
by yipping-yapping-whimpering-bouncing-spinning
DOG
Just helped a little
by the aforesaid Zana Fraillon
who knows dog well.
For this doggy way is
love
one love
animal human
gender race religion sexuality
ONE.
READITREADITREADIT
Read it.
Just read it
For adults
the lure of poetry
will entrap them in a story
they might have thought
sentimental
but which teaches them what children already know
that life like Christmas is often
sentimental
and a dog is not just for Christmas
but for life.
For children
the deeply captivating tale
of a dog
will draw them into poetry
its look on the page
its sound in the ear
its feel in the heart.
Whoever
Read it ALOUD (It will read aloud quite magically.)
Read it aquiet (Just for yourself.)
Like all good fiction
it will take you to
SOME . . . . . . ONE
you’ve never been
before
Someone
not like you
and
just
like
you
and return you not the same.
Just read it or
MISS OUT.
POEM WRITTEN ALL ON ONE LINE, IF IT WOULD FIT, WHICH SADLY IT WON’T
(To be read all in one breath instead)
And now I’m off to an independent bookshop to buy The Bone Sparrow, The Lost Soul Atlas, The Raven’s Song and all Zanz Fraillon’s other books they’ve got and order any they don’t have in stock and rush back home and put my life on hold and read them all as soon as ever I possibly can because I’ve already missed out for far too long.
