Pluviophile veers through various poetic visions and traditions in search of the sacred within and beyond language.
At the risk of resembling a middle school English report, let’s start with a definition. Pluviophile – (n) a lover of rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. And so we join Yusuf Saadi, to splash through his shower of joy- and peace-of-mind-inducing Pluviophile.
An opening cloudburst sets the tone with Love Sonnet for Light:
I know a star in Andromeda broke every colour in your heart. That you shivered yourself to sleep in a meteor’s crevice or moon’s crater whose dust is now my skin. Beyond my finitude you dream a wave and particle at once.
With increasing precipitation we take an admiring step back for Painting a February Sky:
On this palette, will mixing black and violet uncover the nameless colour tipping over the horizon, grief entering sky’s consciousness, dark-plum wine spilled and bleeding from the other sides of the canvas?
Like a shift to subtropical wet, my engagement’s piqued with chunky blocks of text, the prose poem Rough Draft, whisking us to Chile:
I set up my apparatus on the wooden table: voice recorder, open notebook, Sharpie pen and sharpened pencil. Across from me the woman and her son sat on rickety chairs. I clicked the recorder on; its light blinked beside the teacup that steamed between us. The house’s front door was half-open, sunlight wandering in shyly across the floor over the mountain chert I had dragged in.
Skies rend with a torrent of imagery as we join our author in pursuit of game, in Hunting:
As I slip out the first / third of my life / memories like monsoons //
wash through my skull / searching for marrow. / I remember Saturday’s //
breakfast cartoons, / alarm clock guillotines, / a toy telescope for the moon. //
And we conclude in damp but penetrating mizzle, with Belittle:
As you fade further in memory, I’ll forget / your voice’s timbre when you wept, / lose the scars above your nose (already / I’ve forgotten their shapes). Hence, / I’ll only think of you on chance / encounters in novels, essays, poems— / in lines searching for conclusions.
In Pluviophile poet Yusuf Saadi shares a bold suite of work and does so successfully. I admit I began with a mental umbrella, cautious of threatening overcast. But this structural smorgasbord of style had me toss raingear aside, happy to feel the familiar presented anew, each page a puddle jump, experiencing things we share, witnessed through fresh and insightful eyes.
About the Author: Yusuf Saadi’s writing has appeared in journals including The Malahat Review, Vallum, Brick, Best Canadian Poetry 2019, Best Canadian Poetry 2018, Grain, CV2, Prairie Fire, PRISM international, Canadian Notes & Queries, Hamilton Arts & Letters, This and untethered. He won the 2016 Vallum Chapbook Award and The Malahat Review’s 2016 Far Horizons Poetry Award. He holds an MA in English from the University of Victoria.
About the Reviewer: Author, poet, songwriter Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga, Allan’s Wishes, and Dromomania. His work is published in literary journals and anthologies around the globe. Bill makes his home on Canada’s west coast. https://www.amazon.com/author/billarnott_aps
Pluviophile by Yusuf Saadi
Nightwood Editions
Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of A Season on Vancouver Island, theGone Viking travelogues, andA Perfect Day for a Walk: The History, Cultures, and Communities of Vancouver, on Foot(Arsenal Pulp Press, Fall 2024). Recipient of a Fellowship at London’s Royal Geographical Society for his expeditions, Bill’s a frequent presenter and contributor to magazines, universities, podcasts, TV and radio. When not trekking with a small pack and journal, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, where he lives near the sea on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land.
