Up-and-coming poet comes to Redeemer

Thursday, November 26, 2009, Redeemer hosted a recent recipient of the Governor General’s Award. Jacob Scheier is a young poet, in his mid-twenties, still early in a career that has begun with acclaim. Scheier seemed a little shy at first, but as he read his poetry he became more self-assured. With good reason.

Scheier’s poetry is focused on themes of personal, familial, and cultural history. As he imaginatively re-creates memories, Scheier gives his poetry life by highlighting sense details so that the images he speaks of are painted with vivid clarity in the mind’s eye of his audience. Scheier has a remarkable ability to communicate the emotional overtones of memory and history through his poetry. The poem “Postcard From Brooklyn” demonstrates how Scheier evokes nostalgia through imaginative detail:

These days I am still walking at a cathedral pace 
beneath the branches bending across the avenues, 
nearly touching, and yes, 
the brownstones like rows of lived in chapels, 
like a pop-up picture book I could have had as a child, 
but didn't.

Scheier’s sense of the past can also be seen in the poem “Your Haunted House” in which he writes:

I imagine that days went by in that house,

with no one saying a word

as if you were all preparing to become ghosts

and this was the only thing you had to look forward to.

It is Scheier’s gift that he is able to communicate the emotional overtones of memory and history through his poetry.

Scheier’s talent has already been recognized in several different Canadian forums. His first book of poetry, More to Keep Us Warm, received the Governor General’s Award, and won first place in the Winnipeg General Press’s “Best in Verse” category (both in 2008). Those who attended the poetry reading on Thursday look forward to seeing what is next for this young poet.

Redeemer is privileged to be able to host poets such as Jacob Scheier through its association with the Hamilton Poetry Centre.

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