Winter, Spring and Eternity’s Seduction by Gordon Phinn

This chapbook collection of poems opens with commentary by A.F. Moritz, one of Canada’s finest poets. Moritz says Phinn’s style can be thought of as “an affirmation honestly won” and notes that Phinn’s poetry is both sensuous and vigorous. Gordon Phinn addresses one of the key points of this collection by stating that he stands by the “gates of serenity” ready to admit all those who seek “blessed shelter.”

Winter, Spring and Eternity’s Seduction is published by mooninjoon (2024) and features free verse that echoes the poetry of W. H. Auden and Wallace Stevens. This all too brief collection of 41 poems is presented in chronological order of composition. The poems are mythical, mystical and musical while granting solace to those who seek peace during these troubled times. This poetry energizes topics such as delight, consent, consolation and knowledge.

The various poems included here are dedicated to notable artists, living and dead, such as Alice Munro, Sharon Olds, Richard Brautigan, and William Carlos Williams, among others. For those who might’ve forgotten, Sharon Olds is a U.S. poet who won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and she won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She taught creative writing at New York University and was a previous director of the Creative Writing Program at New York University. 

This collection begs a question; “What is Eternity’s Seduction”? Is it the belief that one can transcend one’s own transcience? Or, is it sufficient to have lived mindfully and aware of one’s own mortality? Is it possible to escape the seductiveness of immortality that is sometimes granted to others, or is it sufficient to take solace by accepting one’s fate as a “wannabee” seeker who desires a fame which potentially lies in a ditch submerged in rain water? As a partial answer, here is Phinn’s poem, “Consolation” which tackles such questions directly; 

Do you need the lover to look at you lovingly?

The window in the wall to provide a pretty view?

The chair to give you comfort, the pose to make you perfect?

The drink to make you drunk, the birds to send you chirpy?

The sky to seal your fate, the city to size you up?

The family to follow examples, the night to give you fright?

The body to sleep and eat, the spirit for reassurance?

The suit to make you suitable?  Make no mistake, your

Needs need you & your kindness is their consolation.

The concluding line seems to sum things up neatly. Are we creatures of desire? Is it true that our needs need us and our compassion brings about desire’s relief? Or, instead might we arrive at a complacent anonymity with ineffable pleasure? Should we eff the ineffable (to echo poet, Robert Kroetsch)? To answer such questions, you will need to read Gordon Phinn’s, Winter, Spring and Eternity’s Seduction with a careful and open mind. Here is a short bit from the poem, “Tedium” dedicated to Bruce Meyer: 

The three-day old sandwich, the bowl

Of clam chowder: the simple life does

Not require a rethink.  You sit to eat,

Existence is tied to repetition which may sometimes seem tedious. But, there is little tedium in this poetic collection. For example, the poem “Existence” dedicated to Richard Brautigan, speaks of loading mercury with a pitchfork into a pick-up truck. This remarkable image is accompanied by a puzzle about life itself. The puzzle relates to how we address the various delightful mysteries that confront us during our lives. Imagery plays an important role in this collection. The attention to imagery is not entirely surprising, given Phinn’s interest in visual art. After all, his poem “Taste” is dedicated to the McMichael Art Gallery. 

This lively poetry speaks of cosmic giggles at self-delusions, and terrible responsibilities secreted by the certainties of science and religion. This poetry points to Blake’s “doors of perception” from his 1790 book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Aldous Huxley also spoke of such doors of perception, and Jim Morrison’s musical ensemble named themselves after such doors. In Peckham Rye, London, Blake claimed to have seen “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars”. His vision, which was recorded by biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, forms an essential part of Blake’s legacy as a visionary artist. Phinn suggests that “sheeple” can be jerked out of timid obedience, permitting them freedom to play within gardens of paradise parked just beyond the horizons of the sensible and invisible. Phinn dances readers beyond galaxies and inside photons, beyond spectrums of sunlight, to a realm of acid wit.

Nor does Gordon Phinn limit himself to a mindful and meditative state. Instead, he addresses issues such as the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Phinn’s poem “Propaganda” is dedicated to Victor Viggiani who serves as News Director of ZlandCommunications, an international news service. Viggiani spent over 30 years considering odd aerial phenomena including UFO’s and asks why our government keeps them secret. Here is a brief excerpt from the poem, “Propaganda”;

Witness To Roswell, the latest and perhaps ultimate

Edition. Seventy-five years later it still looks like a

Slam dunk: six hundred reports from witnesses and

Families, all of them confirming the cover-up,

With Winter, Spring and Eternity’s Seduction one travels through the seasons of one’s life, beyond time’s flight, perhaps on route to the rainbow’s end, but arriving in a realm of consent. Existence is revealed to be a system based on assumptions, and unfolding processes, that arise from the larder of vanity, as indicated from this couplet for Alice Munro;

Daughter of anger, mother of shame, witness

Those who would throw the first stone.

Gordon Phinn’s Winter, Spring and Eternity’s Seduction provokes as well as assures. It is rife with puzzlements and revelations that takes readers beyond their comfort zone. 

Karl Jirgens

Karl Jirgens, former English Dept. Head (U Windsor), is author of six books (Coach House, Mercury, ECW, The Porcupine’s Quill and Exile Editions). Jirgens edited two books (on painter, Jack Bush, and poet, Christopher Dewdney). His scholarly and creative texts are published globally (recently in Japan). His poetry was selected for Best Poetry of Canada, 2023. His collection of poems, Travesties (Exile, 2025) is due autumn, 2025. Jirgens founded, edited & published Rampike magazine, featuring celebrated international artists, writers, and theorists. Rampike is digitally archived (free: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/rampike/about.html), and print archived at Thomas Fisher Library (University of Toronto). His prize winning short-fiction collection, The Razor’s Edge was published in 2022 (See: https://www.jirgens.org/).