by Karen Solie
has happened,
though not always
as I’d feared.
And so much more to fear
than I’d imagined.
On an afternoon beneath
the Quiraing, we watched
the gannets dive,
looked from the cliff edge
straight through the clear water
to the origins of variety.
NOTES
In addition to the texts noted below, the Preface draws from Peter A. Yeoman’s “Pilgrims to St. Ethernan: the archaeology of an early saint of the Picts and Scots,” in Conversion and Christianity in the North Sea World: Proceedings of a Day Conference, edited by Barbara Crawford (Committee for Dark Age Studies, University of St. Andrews, 1998).
Of valuable assistance for facts and details throughout have been A Sketch of the History of Fife and Kinross, by Aeneas James George Mackay (William Blackwood and Sons, 1857); Bede’s A History of the English Church and People, translated and with an introduction by Lee Sherley-Price and revised by R. E. Latham (Penguin, 1968); and The Place-Names of Fife, vol. 3, by Simon Taylor (Oxbow Books, 2009).
Some phrases and details supporting the passages titled with coordinates appear in the Forth Yacht Clubs Association’s guide to the Caiplie Caves and the Hermit’s Well.
The third couplet of “A Plenitude” owes a debt to Roland Barthes’ The Pleasure of the Text, translated by Richard Miller (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975).
“Efforts are made to dissuade him . . .”: Decisions forbidding belief in vampires, growing one’s hair, wandering, and changing one’s mind following a vow to remain a bride of God, are among the thirty statutes of the First Synod of St. Patrick.
“Evidence of his own cult in Pictland . . .”: The second line adapts a phrase from Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots, translated by Arthur Wills (Taylor and Francis, 2001).
“‘Ethernan’ likely derived from the Latin . . .”: Lines 10–12 revise phrases from Max Picard’s The World of Silence (Eighth Day Press, 2002).
“The Desert Fathers” adapts phrases attributed to Abba Moses (b. 330 A.D.) and St. Anthony (b. 251 A.D.). In 2017, an article in the Independent christened Slab City “California’s most unlikely Airbnb hotspot.”
“When Solitude Was a Problem, I Had No Solitude” is a quote from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). The term “bad infinity” is Hegel’s, from Science of Logic, edited and translated by George di Giovanni (Cambridge University Press, 2010). The italicized line repunctuates Abba Macarius’ response to Palladius, who in retreat complained of making no progress: “Say, for Christ’s sake I am guarding the walls.” The Lausiac History of Palladius, edited and translated by W.K. Lowther Clarke (MacMillan, 1918).
The phrase “tones of the aquatic scale” in “A Miscalculation” is more or less James Frederick Skinner Gordon’s, from his 1867 Scotichronicon, vol. 1.
The first line of “The Spies” is based on Matthew 18:20. The last inverts a line from St. Augustine’s Confessions.
The term “durable disorder,” which appears in “Mercenaries Know There’s Always Room for Specialists in the Market,” was coined by the improbably named Sean McFate, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, professor of War and Strategy at Georgetown University and National Defense University, and a former contractor with DynCorp International.
The Meridian was an Anstruther fishing trawler lost in the North Sea east of Aberdeen in October 2006, while on contract as a repair guard vessel for Talisman Energy, a Canadian company.
Italicized line 28 in “Whose Deaths Were Recorded Officially as Casualties of ‘the Battle of May Island’” quotes Ovid’s Metamorphosis, translated by Anthony S. Kline. Line 41 closely follows one of its phrases, and 36 is from Dionysius the Areopagite’s The Divine Names and Mystical Theology, translated by J. Jones (Marquette University Press, 1980). The Royal Navy’s hugely expensive K-class submarines, designed in 1913, soon earned the nickname “Kalamity class” for their involvement in serious accidents. Admiral John (Jacky) Fisher, on hearing of their proposed design, responded: “The most fatal error imaginable would be to put steam engines in submarines.”
“He remembers a friend from his travels”: By the 7th century, druidism had gone largely underground to avoid persecution by Christian clerics. To ensure a continuity of belief, the Catholic church absorbed the stories of pagan deities into those of the saints and appropriated sacred sites for its sacraments.
Line 10 of “A visitation” arrived in a text from Ken Babstock.
The “white martyrdom” of “Hostilities were inevitable among the four peoples . . .” is one of three categories in the Cambrai Homily, an Irish text from the 7th or 8th century. White martyrdom was used by St. Jerome to describe the sacrifices of the desert hermits — the withdrawal from company, from all one loves, into a strict and often permanent ascetism. A red martyrdom, or blood martyrdom, was violent death resulting from religious persecution. Green (or blue) martyrdom represented self-denial and labour, and while not necessarily a withdrawal from common life, often involved a retreat to the natural world.
The Invertebrate Fauna of the Firth of Forth, Part 2, 1881, was compiled by George Leslie and William A. Herdman, and published from the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, vol. 6.
Lines 7 and 8 of “‘Goodbye to Cockenzie Power Station, a Cathedral to Coal,’” revise phrases from Jean Moréas’ “The Symbolist Manifesto,” published in 1886.
The first line of the second stanza of “She Is Buried on the West Braes” is from the “First Merseburg Charm,” a pre-Christian incantation recorded in the 10th century. In the 18th century, at least 26 people accused of witchcraft were tortured and 18 killed in the village of Pittenweem. In March 2012, the village held a referendum on whether to erect Scotland’s first official memorial to victims of the trials. The vote being roughly 50/50, the community council decided against support for the memorial, citing fear of damage to the village’s reputation.
“White Strangers”: By the end of the 8th century, Viking raiders were terrorizing monasteries and communities in Ireland and Britain, and were known by the Irish as Finngaill and Dubgaill — the Norwegian “white strangers” and the Danish “dark strangers.”
The title “To the Extent a Tradition Can Be Said to Be Developed . . .” appears in a footnote to the introduction to The Theology of Arithmetic, by Iamblichus, translated by Robin Waterfield (Phanes Press, 1988). The poem draws its numerical assignments from “The Alphabet of Devotion” in Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery by Gilbert Màrkus and Thomas Owen Clancy (Edinburgh University Press, 1995), and “Dark Night of the Soul,” by the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross, translated by David Lewis (Thomas Baker, 1908).
The third “Song” uses an idea from Picard’s The World of Silence.
The Mighty Warriors Intercessors Prayer Army is an online division of Benny Hinn Ministries. The italicized passage revises a fragment from Pope Gregory the Great’s letter to the monks he sent to preach to the British in the 6th century. The fifth stanza’s final lines draw from Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich (Penguin, 1999).
Lines referencing Edinburgh’s United Glass Ltd. are inspired by the online article “Some recollections by Archie Young Jnr, works’ engineer (1962–1967),” edited by Christine Hudson.
The “two kinds of darkness” of “The Isle of May lies just outside . . .” are from Dionysius the Areopagite.
Line 19 of “The Hermits” is Dianne Brodie’s.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincere thanks to the editors of the publications in which these poems, in earlier versions, appeared:
Times Literary Supplement: “Tentsmuir Forest,” “A Lesson,” “You Can’t Go Back,” “Clarity.”
New England Review: “A Retreat,” “Two Chapters on Ancient Stones,” “Stinging Nettle Appreciation.”
Ambit: “Whose Deaths Were Record
ed Officially as Casualties of ‘The Battle of May Island.’”
Poetry London: “Ancient Remedies with Contemporary Applications Currently in Development.”
Lemon Hound: “To the Extent a Tradition Can Be Said to Be Developed; It Is More Accurate to Say It Can Be Clothed in Different Forms.”
The Forward Book of Poetry 2018: The Best Poems From the Forward Prizes: “An Enthusiast.”
POETRY: “The Hermits.”
Swimmers: “Origin Story,” “Kentigern and the Robin.”
Granta: “The Sharing Economy,” “A Plenitude,” “A Trawlerman.”
Wild Court: “He remembers a friend from his travels,” “Evidence of his own cult in Pictland exists in the distribution of carved stones bearing his name.”
London Review of Books: “An Enthusiast,” “Crail Autumn,” “Crail Spring,” “A Miscalculation.”
The Paris Review: “When Solitude Was a Problem, I Had No Solitude.”
The Walrus: “The Desert Fathers,” “The Shags, Whose Conservation Status Is ‘of Least Concern.’”
Harper’s Magazine: “The North.”
The Scores: “Sauchope Links Caravan Park,” “The Spies,” “Intercessors,” “The North.”
Prac Crit: “Mercenaries Know There’s Always Room for Specialists in the Market.”
Thanks to Carleton Wilson and Junction Books, which published early versions of some of these poems in one of its beautifully designed chapbooks, under the title Retreats.
I am grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Chalmers Arts Fellowships, Access Copyright Foundation, Queen’s University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the Landfall Trust for the time and financial assistance crucial to the completion of this book.
For shelter from the storm, thank you Katherine Ashenburg and Hadley Dyer.
Kitty Lewis, as ever, you have my gratitude and admiration.
Caroline Adderson, Dionne Brand, Greg Hollingshead, Meghan Power, and Shyam Selvadurai, Banff Writing Studio colleagues, your work as writers and as mentors has been an inspiration.
This book has been immeasurably improved by Kevin Connolly, who deftly and subtly picked the locks of doors I didn’t know were there. Thanks also to Sarah MacLachlan, Maria Golikova, Janie Yoon, Matt Williams, Alysia Shewchuk, and everyone at House of Anansi Press. Peter Norman, I owe you one. Jonathan Galassi, your support and kind encouragement have supplied fresh oxygen at every stage. Thank you, Don Paterson, for your thoughtful attention, and your ear.
For conversation, advice, wit, and generosity of spirit, thank you Gil Adamson, Ken Babstock, Sheri Benning, John Burnside, Michael Dickman, Michael Helm, Michael Hofmann, Chris Jones, Kimberley Peter, Michael Redhill, Alexandra Rockingham, Declan Ryan, John Sauve, Matthew Tierney, Tara Quinn, Janet Walters, Sheryda Warrener, and Michael Winter.
For my family: everything I write is for you.
THE CAIPLIE CAVES
Karen Solie was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. She is the author of four collections of poems including Pigeon, which won the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Trillium Award for Poetry. She was International Writer-in-Residence at the University of St Andrews in 2011, and is an Associate Director for the Banff Centre’s Writing Studio programme. Her poems have been published in the US, the UK, Australia, and Europe, and have been translated into French, German, Korean, Hebrew, and Dutch. Her first UK collection, The Living Option: Selected Poems, was published in 2013. She lives in Toronto.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
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First published 2019 by House of Anansi
128 Sterling Road, Lower Level Toronto, ON
First published in the UK 2019 by Picador
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ISBN 978-1-5290-0533-2
Copyright © Karen Solie 2019
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