Jeremy Stewart, one hour more light [review]

There are six or seven poets in Prince George (that I am 
familiar with) that I am positive will be widely published 
before long. Jeremy Stewart is one of them. I know Stewart 
mostly as a poet but he is also a successful musician/songwriter 
and painter. In all his endeavors he is relentless and hard-
nosed. Fine Prince George pedigree. 

one hour more light was published by my chapbook press, 
wink books, in 2004. It is the first chapbook I’ve published that is not 
my own. It may seem odd for a publisher to review his 
own publication, but chapbooks are a bastard form and all rules 
are off. I will describe the book to you. Find it and make your own 
call. 

The poetic persona of this book is a Prince George street. It’s 
a kid on a Prince George street who, despite the street’s
violences, believes in the street. Believes it is in him. It’s an 
awkward gruff language that greets him. He loves it: 

a raspy throat crows a hoarse cry
                                             /  calls out:

wire birds sing the day before a black cloudburst
/  descant with ghosts
                              who will not answer

this is my street
so I sing along

Stewart’s poem “(lines for my famous father . . . )” is now a 
Prince George anthem and captures the essence of the city 
in its abused but loveable town mascot/statue “Mr. PG,” a 
cartoonish character made of fake logs. Stewart’s chapbook 
is about place and the negotiation of place—the kind of odds 
Prince George artists are up against and persevere.  

In the poems, Prince George is laid bare: its boom and bust 
(“that was the bust that nursed me”), its stalwart poets in the 
Sears Country Inn  (“sitting across the cafeteria / from Barry 
McKinnon and John Harris    unbeknownst to us / laugh 
now    a secret convergence of poets"), the haunted landscape 
(“the horizon through the scrawny lodgepole pines      
green     blackening”), misguided graffiti (“FAg”), and songs 
from real places (“7th Avenue, Legion Hall parking lot”). The 
chapbook is a sourcebook on surviving with creativity in a 
northern logging town. It is history, memoir, and tall tale. It is 
sprawling, bold, unabashed, young, and heading out:

 

to break down
decompose          the black
                                        and white lines
                       on the sheet of news-
                                                     print that lies
under the fallen poplar
                               leaves
                                        rotten beyond recognition
when the snow melts in
                                spring     seeping
                                        sustenance from dead layers
into the green earth

that is the creative process
of a northern poet




___________


Stewart, Jeremy. one hour more light. Prince George: wink books, 2004. 
44pp. unpagenated. Printed on Digital color Xpressions text stock and 
Blue Sandstone cover stock. Photograph and drawings by Jeremy Stewart.