Inspired by the Rocky Mountains, ‘Land of the Sky’, the last poem in this collection, is a means of using detail from various distances to reflect on the socio-political and the human that is all around us. At the essence of all the poems in the collection: to explore the land through the distance of the sky and understand that which seems so grounded as the sky as full of metaphor and near-unfathomable reflexes of histories. This collection is also a continuation of one of the projects of the previous poetry collection, Letter Out: Letter In: defining and redefining love as an alternative to solidarity, with the added twist of drawing alternatives to diversity and democracy from the multiplicity of nature.
“Land of the Sky delivers poetry that is moving, transporting, and transcendent. A citizen of the globe, Salimah Valiani has no time for the pedestrian and no room for the commonplace. She recognizes that “things are similar and different simultaneously”: “What’s wrong with choosing the strange?” In Land of the Sky, Valiani connects Canada, Tanzania, and Uganda; Ismaili, Ishnashari, and Buddhist; Anishnabek Cree, Chinese, and Luganda; Chez Rodin and Plante Bath; snow and savannah; astronomy that’s based on criminal justice forensics. For Valiani, “The first crime is alienation,” and so she savours the world–exotic menus and mountain gorillas, public transit workers and women dancers–and each moment’s “eminence / decadence.” This book is the result of the poet’s “fragmenting my life / into more new places.” Why? “How many times can a heart be broken?” The resolve? “it takes pain / to feel free.”
— George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary (Canadian) Poet Laureate (2016-2018)
Salimah Valiani is a poet, an activist and a researcher. She is the author of two collections of poetry – breathing for breadth (2005) and Letter Out: Letter In (2009). An Associate Researcher with the Centre for the Study of Learning, Social Economy and Work at the University of Toronto, she is also the author of Rethinking Unequal Exchange: The Global Integration of Nursing Labour Markets (2012). In June 2012, she was awarded the Feminist Economics Rhonda Williams Prize, an award recognizing feminist scholarship and activism in the spirit of the African American economist and activist, Rhonda Williams. Her poetry and essays have appeared in a number of Canadian journals and anthologies.
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
—To the park workers of Uganda
How to know
the road
Of the rainforest?
By the thickness
or thin-ness
of trees?
By the yellow mould
on stones
Orange mould on stones
Tawny-orange mould on tree trunks?
By the patches of nibbling ants?
surprise plots of wild apples
meandering blue flowers
By the creeping miniscule ferns
carefully examining the forest floor —
*
No matter the angle
I can’t capture
The depth
of this
Impenetrable forest
Can’t capture the amazing
profusion of trees
shrubs
shrubs with flowers
vines – green and red
dripping
from
nowhere
Can’t escape the shock of
sudden empty spaces
where sky breathes light into
the midsts
Can’t fathom the relief
of the many shades of green-yellow
spicing branches and rays.
*
When I ask
in the forest
on the mountain
(or in the savannah)
What is this/
What is that?
What I am asking
And what you give
along with the name
Is the story used by humans (from ancestral times to present)
To try and understand what is essentially
Humanly-
Unknowable
*
In this name-giving
Through this sharing
one vulnerable human being to another
Travelling together a rainforest in search of engaj1
(mazike)2
(mountain gorilla)3
of the Rushengura Group
We arrive at a place
where a cousin-being sits
back against tree
peeling layers of bamboo
tasting the crunchy tears inside
where a cousin-being gropes a trunk
climbing up and away
for a sigh of solitude
where a small engaj lifts a smaller engaj
and moves away from what is feared
We arrive at a place
Where
‘roads’
‘capturing’
‘penetrating’
(words)
lose meaning
And what remains
What exists
Is the depth of the here and now
(now hunger)
now joy of quenching
now solitude
now fear—
So long as we are able
to peel and peel-away
So long as we are willing
to sink ourselves inside the moment.
——————————————————
1The Rukiga word used to refer to the large dark mammals of the Bwindi forest. Rukiga is the language of the locale in which the mountain gorilla live.
2The Luganda word used to refer to the large dark mammals of the Bwindi forest. Luganda is a widely-spoken language in Uganda.
3English word used to refer to the large dark mammals of the Bwindi forest. English is another widely-spoken language in Uganda.
inannaadmin –
Land of the Sky by Salimah Valiani
reviewed by Candice James
Canadian Poetry Review – October 9, 2016
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At a distance and up close in the mind and psyche of the animate and inanimate, these poems resonate with many frequencies and moods bringing the reader to full attention and then lulling one into the relaxed atmosphere of daydream. SalimahValiani has the wherewithal and verve to spin the reader every which way but loose. There simply is “no putting this book down” once you’ve begun the journey into “Land of the Sky”
The poem “Sculpt Me” is a journey into the reshaping and ‘fine-tuning’ of the soul:
“Escape me form myself and meld me into the bigness of sound”
“sift-sifting of chald and sawdust with rubber souls carrying body weight/
ANO “Chords in fingers on keys in wood and wind”
The first to lines of “Wien 2012” sum up who Salimah Valiani really is … A born poet.
“You drink wine / I drink poetry”
All the poems are very thought provoking and although it is very hard to choose only one as a favourite, I have done so. My favourite poem in this great collection of poetry is “Poetry or Gold”
“The eye looking straight into the heart”
/ gold to reproduce alluring words one time events the self
/ poetry to re-envision the history of the species
Poets who dedicate their lives to poetry have chosen poetry over gold whether consciously or subconsciously. Poetry is a calling and usually not a very profitable one; so goes the old saying that no matter how good a poet you are …. “Don’t quit your day job” if you want to keep a roof over your head and food on the table.
Bombastic lines resonate in “From the Memorial of a Storyteller” to illuminate and shine the light of reasoning onto one’s past foibles:
“…Believe it or not our drinking is part of the journey
/ we must make to find where we are going”
The last poem in the book is the title poem and it breathtakingly reflects the beauty, magnificence and longevity of the Rocky Mountains: “The Land of the Sky”.
“The weight of the Rockies / 4,000 year old goddess / stones of the earth/”
“nights like this / your paintbrush strokes / white light / rugged/ on dark-grey-blue”
“your tawny brown patches / are your many etched faces / one of the many that are one”
The descriptions and moods of this, the last poem in the book, make one want to go back to the beginning and read the book, yet again.