A Brief and Endless Sea

Born out of the early days of the pandemic, Barbara Pelman’ s A Brief and Endless Sea explores the concept of ‘ gaps’ : those moments of nothingness that are paradoxically full of potential. Many of the poems are rooted in Jewish tradition: the Angel Purah who cuts the ties between soul and body; the prophet Isaiah’ s words of comfort; the concept of “ Tsimtsum,” a withdrawal in order to create space for something new. The poems reach toward a potential built from seeming emptiness; Pelman mines the depths, taking us to difficult places— the dissolution of a marriage, caring for a parent with dementia. But she doesn’ t leave us there, waiting. Using the power of words to map a route out, A Brief and Endless Sea pulls us toward life in all of its vibrant details— the simple beauty of a small garden, the pleasures of teaching, long walks with a grandson, and encounters with spirituality. For Pelman, there is comfort in the “ smallest life you can love.” Like the glosa form she turns to often, something small transforms into something larger, expansive. In A Brief and Endless Sea, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and waiting in itself presents fertile ground for hope and possibility.

Barbara Pelman has an MA in Literature from the University of Toronto, and lives in Victoria, BC. She taught high school and university English courses for three decades before retirement. She has three books of poetry: One Stone (2005), Borrowed Rooms (2008) and Narrow Bridge (2017), and a chapbook Aubade Amalfi (2016). Many of her poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and her glosa, “ Nevertheless,” won the Malahat Review Poetry Contest in 2018. She is an active member of Victoria’ s vibrant poetry community, assisting at Planet Earth Poetry and conducting workshops.