“The purpose of this essay,” writes Jan Zwicky in her introduction, “is not to adumbrate a new theory about Plato, nor to develop a new approach. Plato is old; he is famous; my Greek is sketchy – there is nothing revelatory I am competent to say. And yet I wish to say something; in particular, I wish to say something about his dialogue Meno. Years ago, I became convinced that it was as close to a philosophical jewel as anything was likely to get. It sparkled; it had, I sensed, a kind of geometrical perfection that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I turned to the commentators, and learned much. But I also learned that no one was quite as impressed with the dialogue as I. Many thought it significant, some thought it central, but none, it seemed, was convinced it was a work of philosophic art – a complex ecology of argumentation, a survey of Plato’s central views in very small compass, an exquisitely nuanced report of both his idealism and his despair. And like other works of art, provocative, ambiguous, tantalizing. The purpose of this essay, then, is simply that: to record my astonishment at the beauty of this made thing; to praise; to express my delight and wonder, and my gratitude; to attempt to clarify, for myself, what continues to perplex me, and perhaps must, now that there is no one who speaks Plato’s Greek as fluently as he.”

Plato’s Meno begins with the question of whether virtue is teachable. Meno is an aristocrat, a visitor to Athens, and, as it turns out, not a quick study. Zwicky examines the dialogue in terms of the progression of an argument, and as a dramatic work. For as a philosophical exercise the Meno dialogue has often been thought to be entirely inconclusive. Taking under consideration the dialogue’s dramatic elements, the asides, the dynamic between Meno and Socrates, and Socrates’ rhetorical technique as he leads the discussion from virtue to innate knowledge and learned knowledge, we are encouraged to read for the insight it can provide into Plato’s presentation of Socrates and into argument as art.

Translating key turning points in the dialogue into contemporary language with corresponding stage directions, Zwicky draws out some of what makes the philosophy tick when we approach it as drama, exposing some of the seams of Socrates’ rhetorical technique. By stepping outside of what goes on in the dialogue and asking also why it goes on, we approach a wider plane of possible meaning.

For the past several years, Jan Zwicky has been developing a definition and working examples of the word “lyric.” Her writing has taken the shape of poetry and philosophy, neither necessarily confined to the traditions of those genres. Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences is the latest in this ongoing focus, previously explored in collections like Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (1998) and in her philosophic works, including Lyric Philosophy (1992) and Wisdom & Metaphor (Gaspereau Press, 2003).

The songs in this collection are odes, addresses and apostrophes, to household fixtures, human emotions, shades of light, seasons, stretches of land, departures, sounds and solitude. Working with the most associative details, Zwicky has whittled encounters with her subjects down to their integral and resounding notes. A single light shining from a house in the winter is the bathtub’s call to its tired owner. Dew on the grass is the long note of calm in a hurried departure. Every presence contains absence, every pause embodies continuation, every house has “one chink open to the wind.” These are songs to the negative space around solid shapes. Wild grape, nuthatch and August are in part defined by the time around their existence. Bath, laundry and grate have a life both for and beyond their owner, and it is upon these tensions that the poet’s fondness develops.

Zwicky’s musical sensibilities give these poems their resolve. The precise lilt of her verse amounts to a resonating frequency for each of her subjects, with the O of each address sounding the driving note. In music Zwicky has captured the energy and suddenness of realizations like homecoming, departure, familiarity and alienation. Her songs walk the tightrope between thinking and being, steadying and strengthening the act of imagination that maintains contact between past, present and future.

The seven studies in this collection signal a slower tempo, a downshift into the clipped stillness of memory. Summer months, garden gate, childhood house and silent afternoons are summoned to the surface for a look. These give way to six silences: three-line moments of pause or hush that request careful entrance and exit. Like still lifes or haikus, these silences suspend time within time. Basil springs motionless, grass ripens, pollen settles. As with the absences contained in her songs, Zwicky’s silences embody the tenuous balance between thought and experience.

Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences is a vital addition to a remarkable body of work. Zwicky’s lyricism proves to the senses what lies within the parameters set by her prose.

The trade edition of this book is a 5 x 8-inch, smyth-sewn paperback bound in card stock with a letterpress-printed jacket. The text is printed offset on laid paper.