[What does it mean to square something?] by Gillian Sze
[What does it mean to square something?]
Gillian SzeWhat does it mean to square something? It is to multiply oneself with itself. A more than doubling. A more than mirroring. I see our hands take the clay and mould something out of something. What forms breaks down again and it is all our doing. We repeat, reshaping and destroying, always starting from the bottom. I wonder if this is what it’s usually like between two people. It is not the clay that multiplies, it is the new shape, the memory of past shapes, and all the air around. Look how the feelings square themselves. Look at the grudges. Little mathematician. Smooth logician. When I turn my back on you it’s still you I see before me.
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This poem appeared in An Orange, A Syllable by Gillian Sze, published by ECW Press, 2025. (Available direct from ECW Press • Also on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“An Orange, A Syllable details a period of maternal and artistic transformation. This prosimetrical work is a meditation on motherhood, language, and art. The central speaker witnesses the earliest utterances of her child and launches into a poetic inquiry of words themselves, asking, How to measure one’s mouth by its words? The speaker seeks an answer amidst the language that surrounds her — words misspoken, mispronounced, remembered, unwritten — and, in doing so, struggles with signification and significance.
Each prose poem in the five-part collection darts between the many meanings of “fit” — as in “a sudden burst of emotion” or “to be the right size and shape,” and the archaic “fytte” (a section of a poem). A text becomes an open mouth, a square day of a calendar, or a bare fragment of a narrative. The final section of the book is an intimate and ekphrastic engagement with the work of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. Drawn to Hammershøi’s paintings of the empty rooms of his apartment, the speaker recognizes a familiar space of art’s insistence.” (Source)
ABOUT GILLIAN SZE
Gillian Sze is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Concordia University. She is the author of multiple poetry books and picture books. Her latest poetry collection, Quiet Night Think, received the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. ECW Press will publish her next book, An Orange, A Syllable, this fall. (Source)
Read more poems by Gillian Sze • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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