Elizabeth Brewster

Today we note the birth date of Elizabeth Winifred Brewster (August 26, 1922 – December 26, 2012), Canadian poet, author, and academic.

A founding member in 1945 of the Canadian literary journal The Fiddlehead, Brewster went on to publish over twenty collections of her poetry, five books of fiction, and two memoirs.

Over the course of her career, she was a recipient of several awards, including the E.J. Pratt Award for poems from her second book Lillooet and the 2003 Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry.

Her poetry collection Footnotes to the Book of Job was shortlisted for the 1996 Governor General's Award, and in 2001, she was inducted as a Member into the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor.

In The Library

I

Believe me, I say to the gentleman with the pince-nez,
Framed forever with one hand in his pocket,
With passion, with intensity I say it –
Believe me, oh believe me, you are not I.
Making my chair squeak on the chilly floor,
Catching up my pencil, I say –
But of course I am myself.
And all the while time flows, time flows, time flows;
The minutes ripple over the varnished tables.
This is June, I say, not yesterday or tomorrow.
This is I, not Byron or Vanessa.   I am not in the moon.
I must differentiate my body from all other bodies,
Realizing the mole on my neck, the scar on my hand.
I must wind my watch, say it is ten o’clock.
But I know I am not convinced feel uneasily the lie.
Because actually I am Byron, I am Vanessa,
I am the pictured man with the frigid smile,
I am the girl at the next table, raising vague eyes,
Flicking the ash from her cigarette, the thoughts from her mind.
The elastic moment stretches to infinity,
The elastic moment, the elastic point of space.
The blessed sun becomes the blessed moon.

II

Alone in the public room, listening to retreating footsteps,
Listening to a whistle and a scrap of song,
I who must always tiptoe over floors,
Stand with raised hand and thudding heart outside doorways,
Linger embarrassed in the corridors of life,
Apologizing, back out of rooms like an intruder –
I, who listen nervously to the epoch-shattering stroke of the
            clock –
I would imitate if I could the staccato, assured footsteps,
The whistle unconscious of fear, scornful of time.
But is it worth it?  I ask, is it worth it?
And think more respectfully of the fox’s sincerity.

--Elizabeth Brewster 

[poem published in Poetry Magazine, June 1947]