The Self-Completing Tree

by Livesay, Dorothy

• ISBN13: 9780888782588
• ISBN10: 0888782586
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Dundurn Pr Ltd

Summary

The Self-Completing Treeis the author's own collection of the best of her last 50 years of writing. In this new edition, the celebrated Grand Dame of English Canadian letters and award-winning poet uses the metaphor implied by the title - a tree, half verdant, half in flames - to symbolize the androgynous self. This is the theme of much of Livesay's work and a central metaphor for the most definitive collection of her poetry. The result is a spiritual autobiography charting the fascinating domains of her own life and the universal struggles we all share.

Table of Contents

Foreword	i
Linda Rogers
The Self-Completing Tree	1	(30)
Zambia: The Land	5	(2)
The Difference	7	(1)
Interval With Fire	8	(3)
Unwritten Letter	11	(1)
Survival Kit---Bluff Park	12	(1)
Ballet	13	(1)
Imminent Alert	14	(1)
Finches	15	(1)
Inter Rim	16	(1)
Celebrant	17	(1)
Winter Solstice	18	(1)
Postcard Mountains	19	(2)
Erindale: Hammond's Wood Revisited	21	(1)
The Superiority of Flight	22	(1)
September Equinox	23	(1)
Unmusical Bird (blue heron)	23	(1)
Eve	24	(1)
`Geranus' .... Crane	25	(1)
Pear Tree	26	(1)
Second Coming	27	(1)
On Looking into Henry Moore	27	(2)
Gloria	29	(2)
The Childhoods	31	(38)
I
Green Rain	35	(1)
Wilderness Stone	36	(1)
Serenade For Strings	37	(3)
The Mother	40	(1)
Children's Camp	41	(1)
Abracadabra	42	(1)
Blue Wind	43	(1)
Small Fry	44	(1)
The High	45	(1)
Isolate	46	(1)
On Holding A Baby	47	(1)
Five Months Young	48	(1)
II
Signature	49	(2)
Teachers	51	(1)
Canadiana	52	(1)
The Children's Letters	53	(1)
And Even Now	54	(1)
Waking in the Dark	55	(1)
The Halloweens	56	(2)
On Seeing	58	(1)
Invisible Sun	59	(1)
Grandmother	60	(1)
Ballad of the Battered Children	61	(1)
On Reading Some Writings By Women	62	(1)
Life Styles	63	(1)
Parenthood	64	(1)
Friday's Child	65	(1)
Where I Usually Sit	66	(3)
Rites of Passage	69	(42)
I
Song from The Multitude	73	(3)
Page One	76	(2)
Inheritance	78	(1)
Easter	79	(1)
Wedlock	79	(1)
The Husband	80	(1)
Letter at Midnight	81	(1)
The Morning After	82	(1)
The Three Emilys	83	(1)
Epithalamium for Susan	84	(2)
Latter Day Eve	86	(1)
Look to the End	87	(1)
Heritage	88	(1)
Other	89	(2)
Ballad of Me	91	(3)
II
Lament	94	(2)
This Arrow	96	(1)
Widow	96	(1)
After Grief	97	(1)
Disasters of the Sun	98	(4)
III
The Origin of the Family	102	(2)
The Inheritors	104	(1)
F.R.L	105	(1)
Everywoman Every Man	106	(1)
Why We Are Here	107	(1)
Rachel Rachel	108	(1)
The Whole Sun	109	(1)
The Merger	110	(1)
I
The Unquiet Bed: Fire and Frost	111	(40)
At Dawn	115	(1)
The Unquiet Bed	116	(1)
Four Songs	117	(2)
The Cave	119	(1)
The Taming	120	(1)
The Woman	121	(1)
The Touching	122	(2)
Sorcery	124	(1)
The Notations of Love	125	(3)
Moving Out	128	(1)
II
The Male Muse	129	(1)
Let Your Hand Play First	130
Aubade	120	(11)
Mistakenly	131	(1)
The Search for Wholes	132	(1)
Only Before Dawn	133	(1)
In My Dream Room	133	(1)
This page my book	134	(1)
The Hard Core of Love	135	(1)
The Record of All Our Nights	135	(1)
When I Got Home	136	(1)
You Are My Mirror	137	(1)
The Uninvited	138	(1)
Because We Want Each Other	139	(1)
I Touched	140	(1)
I Sought To Cut You From Me	140	(1)
The Quarrel	141	(1)
Twice, Twice I Let You Go	142	(1)
Now It Is Done	143	(1)
The Severance, Being Willed	144	(1)
The Operation	145	(4)
The Step Beyond	149	(2)
Struggle: The Documentaries	151	(38)
Day and Night	155	(6)
West Coast: 1943	161	(5)
Montreal, 1933: Mass Chant	166	(2)
Call My People Home	168	(13)
Comrade	181	(1)
New Jersey: 1935	182	(1)
The Fallow Mind	183	(1)
The Child Looks Out	184	(1)
Autumn: 1939	185	(1)
Spain	185	(1)
In Time of War	186	(1)
V-J Day	186	(1)
Improvisation on an Old Theme	187	(1)
After Hiroshima	188	(1)
The Poetry	189	(40)
Dream Sequence: I and II	193	(2)
Inarticulate	195	(1)
Fire and Reason	196	(1)
Sea-Flowers	196	(1)
Lorca	197	(2)
For The New Year	199	(1)
Fantasia	200	(3)
Without Benefit of Tape	203	(1)
The Incendiary	204	(1)
For Abe Klein: Poet	205	(3)
Making the Poem	208	(2)
Pyllis, Reading Her Poems	210	(1)
Wunderbar	211	(1)
Picasso, Sketching	212	(1)
Bartok and the Geranium	213	(1)
Sleeping In Sally's Library	214	(1)
Nocturne	215	(1)
The Second Language	216	(2)
Precautions	218	(1)
The Dismembered Poem	219	(1)
Two Lives	220	(1)
The Emperor's Circus	221	(2)
Poetry Is Like Bread	223	(1)
Tale	224	(1)
Lament And Praise	225	(1)
The House of Winter	226	(3)
At the Finish	229	(46)
Ice Age	233	(1)
Aging	234	(1)
News From Nootka	235	(1)
Widow	236	(1)
The Cabbage	237	(1)
Mathematics	237	(1)
For Rent	238	(1)
The Dark House	239	(1)
The Other Side Of The Wall	240	(1)
Thumbing A Ride	241	(1)
Bus Trip	242	(1)
Salute To Monty Python	243	(1)
Interiors	244	(1)
The Drive To Live	245	(1)
One Way Conversation	246	(1)
The Survivor: Downed Pilot (Edmonton)	247	(2)
Return To A Birthplace	249	(1)
Breathing	250	(1)
On Seeing `The Day of the Dolphin'	251	(1)
Arbutus	252	(1)
As We Grow Older	253	(1)
The Artefacts: West Coast	253	(3)
The Old Bawd	256	(1)
Windows	257	(1)
To Be Blind	258	(1)
In Times Like These	259	(1)
Bellhouse Bay	260	(1)
The Prisoner Of Time	261	(1)
Old Soldier	262	(1)
Even in These Highrises: A Suite	263	(3)
The Rat	266	(1)
Euthanasia	267	(1)
At The Finish	268	(1)
Remembrance Of Things Past	269	(2)
Arms And The Woman	271	(1)
Towards A Love Poem	271	(1)
The Enchanted Isle: A Dialogue	272	(2)
The Sybil	274	(1)
Syzygy	275