What fills this house like smoke? Bravery, honesty, and curiosity

Shelley A. Leedahl Sask Book Reviews I must admit, the title of E. (Erin) McGregor’s debut poetry collection—”What Fills Your House Like Smoke”—greatly piqued my interest. I’m partial to similes and metaphors, and McGregor’s title was a poetic hook—what, exactly, does fill this Winnipeg poet’s house with metaphorical smoke? I guessed that butterflies and sweet [...]

Photo from Thistledown Press. “What Fills Your House Like Smoke” is the debut poetry collection from E. McGregor.

Shelley A. Leedahl Sask Book Reviews I must admit, the title of E. (Erin) McGregor’s debut poetry collection—”What Fills Your House Like Smoke”—greatly piqued my interest.

I’m partial to similes and metaphors, and McGregor’s title was a poetic hook—what, exactly, does fill this Winnipeg poet’s house with metaphorical smoke? I guessed that butterflies and sweet peas wouldn’t be at the heart of it. McGregor holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and the sheer variety of poetic forms—prose poems; free verse; quatrains; couplets; concrete; and experimental, sound-oriented pieces—in the book is consistent with the range I’ve seen in other first books by creative writing students. What differentiates McGregor’s poetry, however, is its nearly singular focus on the theme of personal identity; often, first books “free range” across themes and subjects.

McGregor’s poems weave pain into a story. The poems are real and raw—full of hangovers and lousy partners, class disparities and Death Apnea. And they’re credible, though the back cover copy claims the book’s “an incomplete and wildly imaginative biography of [McGregor’s] grandmother”.

I applaud this imagination. In the opening poem— “Instructions for the Death of a Grandmother”—McGregor writes about her grandmother’s “gurgle-thick breaths,” and the poet wonders if Dora can smell “the stale alcohol” on her granddaughter’s skin. What fills this house with smoke? Bravery.

Honesty. Curiosity. The matriarchal line contains all the strengths and “lesions” of three generations, and the youngest of these women—through examination, contemplation and literary skill—is doing her best to slowly clear the smoke, and understand who she is.

“What Fills Your House Like Smoke” is written by Erin McGregor and published by Thistledown Press. It is available at your local bookstore or from the Saskatchewan Publishers Group at www.skbooks.

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