What Stirs

Reading Margaret Christakos's poetry on the page is like reading sheet music. You don't get the full effect until you hear it. And when you do hear it, when you read it aloud to yourself, you realize that the music is wildly experimental and takes some participation. Christakos, in What Stirs, challenges you to meet her halfway. There's nothing passive about these poems.

Toronto writer Margaret Christakos’ seventh collection is What Stirs (Coach House, 120 pages, $17), and it is stirring both emotionally and in a bold experimentalism.

The ambitious title poem and several others use phrasal sequencing, a technique older than written poetry that brings a musical dimension to the material.

Christakos’ work is often very funny in using the language of the lyric against itself: 'The way to San Jose is aquiver/ with few and fewer friends', or 'Mauve hydrangea heads nodded off in front of my laptop/ with the pallor of popped vivacity.'