John Lent, Wood Lake Music

Craig McLuckie (Okanagan College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1982

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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Wood Lake Music (1983) is John Lent’s second volume of poetry. The poem has a twenty part structure and begins with a newspaper article on the racism displayed by Okanagan Valley inhabitants towards migratory Quebecois fruitpickers. Following this newspaper article, five prose passages set the scene: we are with a persona on his daily commute - a recurring event, marked for the persona by its “Different” nature - a novel happening and its relation to the “other things” going on beneath the public relations gloss on the racism. A long, complex and dynamic narrative poem, it intertwines landscape with mindscape, prefiguring the central themes and structuring devices of Lent’s subsequent work.

The narrative employs a simple plot-the protagonist’s drive to and from work (from

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1033 words

Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "Wood Lake Music". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 July 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11943, accessed 27 April 2024.]

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