Small Arguments by Souvankham Thammavongsa


Small Arguments
Title : Small Arguments
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0973214058
ISBN-10 : 9780973214055
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : -
Publication : First published December 4, 2003
Awards : ReLit Award Best Poetry (2004)

Reminiscent of Pablo Neruda's Elemental Odes, Small Arguments is a stunningly original debut by a gifted young poet. The language of Small Arguments is simple yet there is nothing simple in its ideas. The work touches on the structures of argument, orchestrating material around repetition, variation and contrast. Thammavongsa's approach is like that of a scientist/philosopher, delicately probing material for meaning and understanding. The poet collects small lives, and argues for a larger belonging: a grain of dirt, a crushed cockroach, the eyes of a dead dragonfly. It is a work that suggests we can create with what we know and with that alone. -- "This is the voice of a pilgrim, the one who bends to see, leans to hear... Thammavongsa has distilled her meaning from her details so masterfully and with such confident wisdom that she seems to be reading nature. Through her eyes, we can believe we see the true meaning in things." - Anne Michaels"A formidable work." - George Elliot Clarke

Small Arguments Reviews

  • Ian M. Pyatt

    A very interesting take on numerous seemingly insignificant every day objects.

    I thought the ones describing various items of food were the best.


  • Alan Teder

    From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)
    Review of the Pedlar Press paperback edition (2003)

    By random chance i had actually picked up Souvankham Thammavongsa's first book of published poems back in 2003 when Pedlar Press put out a facsimile edition to recreate the poet's earlier handmade chapbooks. With Thammavongsa's recent win of Canada's top literary prize the Giller Award for
    How to Pronounce Knife (2020), it seemed like a good time to revisit her early work.

    Just as How to... celebrates simple people and work, Small Arguments celebrates simple items and living things such as fruit and insects. Rereading it now after many years i realize that all of the objects can also act as metaphors for people as well. Still a lovely simple collection to think about and ponder.

    Mwpm Mwpn's
    review provides several examples of the poems, including their spacing on the page.

    My review of How to Pronounce Knife is
    here.

  • Chris Hutchinson

    The number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin is insignificant compared to the
    multitudes contained within Souvankham Thammavongsa’s minimalist, lapidary
    poems.

  • M.W.P.M.

    Small Arguments is dedicated "To my parents for knowing the weight of how much". The meaning of this dedication is later illuminated by the poem "The Weight of Salt"...

    There are no measuring cups to mark
    how much is enough

    no scales
    to balance the weight one holds


    There is only salt in
    an open hand

    an open hand
    that knows the weight of how much
    - The Weight of Salt, pg. 15


    The poems that interested me the most were the poems that took a line from another poem as their starting point...
    Water will never lie to you...
    -
    Gwendolyn MacEwen, "Water"

    WATER
    will lie to you,
    make you believe
    this

    unmarked end
    isn't deep

    - until you go in
    without enough air
    to find your way back

    It breaks light
    before light knows
    where it is

    - Water, pg. 16


    *

    in an anguished moment
    a narrow silent throat
    where one by one, pulsing and shining,
    the unbodied elements pass
    -
    A. F. Moritz, "A Narrow Silent Throat"

    THE GRAPEFRUIT (A REMIX)
    shrunk
    from the reach of light
    "in an anguished moment"

    It hardens
    into a black shrivel
    where its language

    unbranches
    into "a narrow silent throat"

    - from The Grapefruit (A Remix), pg. 31


    My favourite poem in the collection...

    A GRASSHOPPER
    leaps
    into heaven,
    asking
    for a place

    At every leap, heaven
    turns it away

    places it
    back into this field

    its small body
    worn down and beaten,

    clotted and covered
    with so much earth,

    poised
    to ask again

    - A Grasshopper, pg. 42

  • Dylan Tweney

    Remarkable small poems about ordinary things, but with not so subtle echoes and resonances of what must be an intense personal life behind each object.

  • Kier Scrivener

    Who knew the weight of gravity that always won

  • Andrew

    Souvankham Thammavongsa's "Small Arguments" is an absolutely enthralling collection of poems. They show the true beauty that the small things of the world can hold to a careful observer. Fruit and insects are the main subjects of her poems, and yet each one contains much insight and wisdom. There are some truly beautiful words contained within Thammavongsa's "Small Arguments" that must be read! Highly recommended.

  • Beth Follett

    Winner of the 2004 ReLit Award for Poetry.

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