By Subhagya Liyanage
Vivimarie Vanderpoorten’s Borrowed Dust demonstrates a straightforward writing style that predominantly explores the themes of love, loss, death, and some issues of socio-political relevance. Although the blurbs on the book’s back cover make note of Vanderpoorten as a “deceptively simple” writer who “hides her art and craft” (emphasis added) in uncomplicated poetry, her poetry is often exactly what they seem. Some of the poems are graceful and compelling in their simplicity; “Gender”, for example, is one of the collection’s better poems that effectively conveys a sense of bewilderment and a cruel streak in human nature. Some of the other poems, however, read like brief sketches that are in want of poetic finesse (and substance) to qualify as impressive, or even good, poetry.
In Borrowed Dust Vanderpoorten relies heavily on the colour black, crows and rain as frequently employed images of death and as harbingers of tragedy. In “Permanence of Grief”, for example, she brings on the crow’s blackness to symbolize the “grief-stricken and the dead” while in “Anunciation” a girl, before being stilled by the idea of impending motherhood, grabs a “black blanket”. In such instances, the colour black seems to indicate a definite transition from an epoch to another (the end of girlhood etc.). Similarly, the reference to rain is found in several poems including “A Murderer Mourned by his Wife” (as in Patrick Fernando’s poem albeit more grounded) where the funeral takes place amidst “December rain”. This poem and “Tradition” generate a pathos which Vanderpoorten delivers through a strategic narrative pace.
Vanderpoorten also reflects on the tragedy implied in lives destroyed before their time which, too, flag indirect images of death and decay. This is seen in poems such as “Newspaper Bride” (and other shorter pieces) where an abused fourteen year old girl is compared to “a rose bud crushed before it had time to bloom” (akin to a death). With regard to her choice of imagery discussed above, it is a pity that Vanderpoorten rarely makes use of the incongruous or the unusual in her poems; and instead settles for rather unremarkable images to furnish her point. Although, considering their everyday familiarity (from crows to rose buds), such commonplace and mundane symbolism are bound to resonate with most readers it detracts from the poetry’s originality and carrying power.
Moving beyond these fairly simple generalizations, death and/or decay are also shown as being brought about (in a philosophical sense) by the passing of time and allusions to impermanence. In “Slowness and Haste”, the poet finds time to photograph flowers that – “inconsiderate as ever, they didn’t wait for [her]” – succumbed to the decay of time. In “The Warning”, which is not a poem but a piece of short fiction, too, the gradual loss of memory is equated with the loss of a life lived with all its ups and downs. There is contemplation here of the good times and the regret that one has not attempted to live fully or had been unable to recognize the potential to do so before things turned to dust.
Another significant characteristic in the collection is that although the poems seem to indicate a fixation with death and similar thematic content, they are usually linked to love and relationships. In “Love, Rain and Death”, the tangible affection for the narrator’s partner is felt in tandem with the fear of death:
Strangely I think of you Missing your bright eyes And the deep and intelligent thing You might have said;… I wish wordlessly and un-usefully… …that You are safe And out of the rain.
This is also seen in the poem written in memory of two student union activists presumed killed during a protest which features “black arm bands” and “the sound of the crows”, but is motivated by a form of love for them: where, as the poet claims, “[the] memory of you will never rust”. One sees here, therefore, an understanding of death and its inevitability prompted by a love for certain people, things and events which somewhat subdues Vanderpoorten’s relentless and rather grim focus on death and decay.
Some of the poems, however, like “Blank Page” (cited below) are far too abrupt and inadequate to make any kind of impact; others like “Sand” and “An Alphabet Song” are superficial and only skim over socio-political issues that warrant greater attention.
Blank Page
What if love is nothing
more than a blinking computer screen
on which you record your pain
Borrowed Dust has its moments of elegance and a frank expression of love and loss that makes it endearing and philosophical. There is, however, something oddly lacking in some of the poems (as mentioned above) either with regard to technical – even poetic – finesse, content and imagery that makes the poetry lamentably average. It is a collection, therefore, that makes for easy, even relatable, reading but is one that fails to live up to the hype the veteran poet’s name calls for. [Subhagya Liyanage].
Sri Lankan English WRITERS REVIEW 
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