Skip to content
logo TNQ
  • Read
    • Dispatches
    • Issues
    • Online Exclusives
    • Under Review
    • Free Archive
      • Poetry
      • Fiction
      • Nonfiction
  • TNQ Presents
    • Wild Writers Literary Festival
    • Writing on the Land: A Wild Writers Retreat
    • The Vestige and TNQ Story
    • Spirit Ink
    • The X-Page Workshop
    • Parallel Careers
  • Subscribe
    • Print Magazine
    • Digital Edition
    • Free Archive
  • Submit
    • Contests
    • Regular Submissions
  • Donate
  • Buy
    • Where to Buy
  • My Account
  • About TNQ
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us
  • Read
    • Dispatches
    • Issues
    • Online Exclusives
    • Under Review
    • Free Archive
      • Poetry
      • Fiction
      • Nonfiction
  • TNQ Presents
    • Wild Writers Literary Festival
    • Writing on the Land: A Wild Writers Retreat
    • The Vestige and TNQ Story
    • Spirit Ink
    • The X-Page Workshop
    • Parallel Careers
  • Subscribe
    • Print Magazine
    • Digital Edition
    • Free Archive
  • Submit
    • Contests
    • Regular Submissions
  • Donate
  • Buy
    • Where to Buy
  • My Account
  • About TNQ
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us
Login
$0.00 0 Cart

Finding the Form with Brian Henderson

By Brian Henderson

So, this poem, bent water light something: Does it ever happen to you that a feeling, seemingly out of nowhere, will sweep through you, an awareness of something but you’re not quite sure what it is? Standing at the kitchen window looking out into the sun-splattered cedars one spring morning while making coffee, that kind of strange sensation washed through me, a sort of wave-spell or possession, or perhaps dispossession, but a haunting certainly. A feeling of familiarity, almost nostalgic, but at the same time not, more like defamiliarization, like a déjà vu but not quite that either. A déjà rêvé? Certainly memory-like, but there was no specific memory, kind of like a timewarp in space – one of the dark pits in a Murakami novel perhaps, but luckily I was in our kitchen – I think. 

“Standing at the kitchen window looking out into the sun-splattered cedars one spring morning while making coffee, that kind of strange sensation washed through me, a sort of wave-spell or possession, or perhaps dispossession, but a haunting certainly.”

Maybe time really does bend around the gravity well of feeling, but it was a feeling in which the me of me was displaced. An immersion in a somehow fragilely sacred memory-ness filled with glimmerings and shadows. And as a result (and ha! once I’d recovered so to speak), the poem became central to the journey that turned out to be unfinishing, just published in the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series at McGill-Queen’s.

Brian Henderson is a Governor General Award finalist (for Nerve Language, Pedlar Press 2007) and a finalist for the Chalmers Award for Sharawadji (Brick Books, 2011). He is the author of twelve books of poetry. His latest is Unidentified Poetic Object from Brick (2019). He has a new book, unfinishing, forthcoming from MQUP.  Visit him at brianhenderson.ca 

Link Link

Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Read more

  • Brian Henderson
  • Finding the Form
  • Writer Resources

Post navigation

Finding the Form with Emira Tufo
Finding the Form with Alex Merrill

Territorial Acknowledgement

The New Quarterly is based in Waterloo, Ontario, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, and Neutral Peoples. We acknowledge that this land is part of the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations of the Grand River as part of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784.

As a literary magazine devoted to storytelling, we recognize that stories have long been a way of knowing, preserving, and sharing in Indigenous cultures. We honour the generations of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples who have cared for these lands and continue to do so. We commit to listening, learning, and amplifying Indigenous voices, and to supporting pathways for truth and reconciliation through the stories we publish.

Facebook-f Instagram Linkedin-in Tiktok X-twitter
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibilty

MAGAZINE

  • About
  • Our Team
  • Where to Buy

CONTRIBUTE

  • Submit
  • Volunteer
  • Our Board
  • Donate

CONNECT

  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter

CONNECT