Greg Simison, Disturbances

Alexis Ratz (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1981

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

The cover of Disturbances (1981), Greg Simison’s first book of poetry, suggests that the volume will leave a reader feeling content: the illustration of a jolly-looking teddy bear in the bathroom mirror is somehow comforting. However, the volume’s 54 free verse lyric poems, as the title suggests, deal largely with traumas—mental, emotional and moral: “...my best work / has always stemmed from conflict / / ...a little creative agony” (40). The poems are short (the longest being 33 lines in three stanzas), an emotional, at times intensely introspective, reaction to disappointments and injustices in society, romance, and humanity’s treatment of nature.

The opening (and title) poem introduces an isolated and …

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1625 words

Citation: Ratz, Alexis. "Disturbances". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 September 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16379, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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