When he first hiked the Don Valley trails / all he heard was river as he strode / beside its glitter of smashing glass
Grounded in the local and immediate – from Toronto’s rivers and ravines to its highways and skyscrapers – Metromorphoses explores some of the radical changes that have taken place in the city during the course of its history.
The collection’s poems focus, in roughly chronological order, on the city’s inhabitants and the changing relationships between people and place, from the original Indigenous presence, through the immigrants of the nineteenth century and the Depression and war survivors of the twentieth century, to the twenty-first century’s setbacks and affirmations. We encounter characters such as Symphony Pete, who whistled classical music while hiking Don Valley trails, Henry “Box” Brown, who escaped from southern slavery in a packing crate, or the exhausted anonymous newsboy a photographer caught fast asleep next to his stack of newspapers on a flight of stone steps. We zoom in like time-lapse photography on the changes that a single site has experienced, from wood-frame cottages to foundry to synagogue to furniture store to parking lot to the new provincial courthouse.
These poems bring the reader closer to the impulses that drove the art of the Mississaugas, the escape from slavery or famine of new settlers, or the social awareness of a Dr Charles Hastings or a Raymond Moriyama. Far from Eliot’s “unreal city,” Metromorphoses takes us into the heart of the real Toronto, alive and ever-changing.
Authors
Related Organizations
- Published in
- Montreal, CA
- Series
- Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Copyright 5
- Contents 8
- I 12
- Shall We Gather at the River? 14
- Don River Lingo 16
- Unknown Earth 18
- Patterns in Our Clay 19
- Shards and Ashes 21
- The Don River’s Dance at Skinner’s Mill 23
- The Making of a Naturalist 24
- Species Song 26
- II 28
- Moss Park, the Hon. William Allan House 30
- Boxed 32
- Shoes 34
- The Evidence of Things Not Seen 35
- Music at the Mechanics’ Institute 37
- Working from Home 39
- III 40
- Their Venice 42
- Toronto Verandahs 44
- God’s House on Earth 46
- Pipe Organ, St George the Martyr 48
- Clams 50
- The Jug 52
- The Battles of Hastings 53
- IV 56
- The Jungle 58
- He Sleeps 60
- The Making of a Clown 62
- Alice’s Door 64
- Heaven on Elizabeth Street 65
- V 68
- At the Red Lion 70
- Metromorphoses 71
- Streetcar Metamorphoses 73
- Wish You Were Here 75
- Out of Earshot 76
- The Swimming Hole 78
- VI 80
- Everything That Lives Is Holey 82
- Evolution at the Brick Works 84
- Our Neighbour 87
- Tricks on the Humber (Hurricane Hazel) 88
- Gone 90
- Memorial Quilt, York Mills Subway Station 91
- Local Ghosts 92
- VII 94
- The Making of an Architect 96
- Revell’s City Hall 98
- Metro Mountains 100
- Mysteries of an Urban Mountain 101
- Realms of Gold 102
- The Wandering Islands 104
- Two Boatmen 106
- VIII 108
- Timeslide on the Leslie Street Spit 110
- Second Thoughts on the Leslie Street Spit 112
- At the River 114
- Notes and Acknowledgments 116
