Poems for Burning by Spencer Folkins

As children, we’ve all been told not to play with matches, but Spencer Folkins can’t seem to resist the lure of starting little fires in his debut chapbook. Seven years in the making, Poems for Burning, is a crackling mix of previously published and new work. Each poem explores an aspect of that all-too-common modern condition that smolders in us all— anxiety.

Another poet, Dana Levin, once described poetry as “the genre of anxiety, of not knowing, of being torn.” Folkins’ writing is true to the genre, with not-knowing a major theme, weaving its way quietly through the collection.

The artful sequencing of these twelve poems creates a slow burn from beginning to end of this 30-page chapbook. One poem after the next adds carefully chosen images and observations to the pyre, creating an in-depth exploration of how we experience anxiety in a variety of contexts. The poems are constructed of mostly short lines, sparking with energy. Most poems are spaced loosely in short verses over two pages, with generous white space.

The opening poem, “The Shore and the Undertow”, introduces the central themes of time and mortality through sea-related images, including tides and trickling sands— “and the ocean alive in the shell / becomes your own blood back to you.” The poem serves as a landing place for the rest of the collection to unfold.

The theme of transience continues in “Life, After”— “And so I exit the indecision of indifference // The placenta of my existence / collecting fresh debris in my wake.”

“Something About a Bathtub and a Mattress” paints a portrait of the physical aspects of anxiety— “Like I know the storm is coming / I just don’t know how to prepare for it.”

The title poem comes mid-book— “a desire innate / for the end is in everything”—with the final two words of the poem falling alone on the second page— “we touch.”

(This is one of the superpowers of chapbooks, their outlier status frees the poet to use each page as a stand-alone canvas, where white space can say as much as text.)

The title poem is followed by three back-in-time poems: “When I Was Little”, “Confession:”, and “Cows.” These are my favourites of the collection. The poet, currently a teacher in his hometown, is especially skilled at authentically capturing a child’s point of view. Each of the three poems offers fresh observations from a younger voice. For example, in “Confession:”— “When I was younger / I thought my brother would one day surpass me in age / because that’s how age worked / in my mind / young people grew older / and seniority was a debt to be paid.”

Folkins returns to the fire metaphor mid-collection with “Poem for Burning II”— “I had to see it myself, this wreck:/ still smoking after all these years // They came for want of fire / I came for want.”

“As the Deer/ So This Poem” explores anxiety around the act of writing and inspiration, likening the appearance (and disappearance) of a poem-in-the-making to a white tail deer fading into the forest. Two pages later, the poem “Marble Mouth” continues the exploration of the act of writing, this time focusing on voice, and using the surprising context of periodontal surgery— “in which teeth fall from my face like a broken rattle / smile cracked. In the pharmacy parking lot, I sift / with my shoe through a blood puddle—gathering the courage / if I must, to pinch my pale flesh and rinse it of small rocks.”

Closing a collection is a way of reopening it, and the final “Poem of Burning III” is a strong summary of the specific motifs in the collection, including sea life referenced in the opening poem. It’s interesting to note that Folkins is an avid Search and Rescue volunteer. This collection, and the closing poem, is more about search than rescue. In the final lines the poet confesses— “When it comes to what is hard / and what is good—for me, I prefer// not to know / of my unknowing.”

The graphic cover design, by Nick Moeller, features a burgundy border, suggesting a matchbox, an apropos metaphor for a chapbook. At the bottom corner of the title poem, “Poem for Burning” plus the other two numbered poems in the trilogy, is an illustration of fingers holding a flared match, lighting the reader’s way through the collection.

Poems for Burning is the first release of Gridlock Lit, a community-building micropress based out of Fredericton, New Brunswick that publishes “stately zines from friendly elms, poets from the corner, and new chapbooks from the grid.” The Editor-in-Chief is Jamie Kitts.

Spencer Folkins (he/him) is thinking about writing a poem that glows in the dark. He has served as a Board Member for the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, First Reads Editor for The Fiddlehead, and currently serves as a member of the AX: Arts & Culture Centre of Sussex Literary Committee. His writing has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, QWERTY, FreeFall, The League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause series, the Newfoundland Quarterly, Riddle Fence, and elsewhere. Spencer is a member of Egg Poets, a poetry collective—their debut collaborative chapbook “All Things to Keep You Here” was published by Homerow, an imprint of Qwerty. Spencer is a proud member of his local and provincial Ground Search and Rescue Associations, in which he has served as President and Board Member (respectively). He teaches in his hometown and tweets with decreasing frequency @FolkinsSpencer.

Publisher: Gridlock Lit (December 4 2024)
30 pages

Catherine Walker

Catherine Walkeris a writer/editor living on the South Shore of Miꞌkmaꞌki (Nova Scotia). A founding member of the Little Books Collective, a community-building micropress in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Catherine is the author of two chapbooks: Short Takes: My seven-week career in the film biz (2024) and the call of many sorrows: fourteen poems (2023).