Reduction Fired: concise, quiet, and intense poems voiced over vibrant scenes of nature – reflections to ripple through the mind Paperback – May 25, 2021 by Jennifer Yeates Camara

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— Reduction refers to the pottery method of firing a piece in low oxygen conditions – typically by slowly reducing the oxygen that feeds the kiln’s fire.

Some colours of glazes result from reduction that aren’t achieved in oxidation. It may also be that the fuel-starved fire pulls oxygen from the clay itself, and in doing so draws elements from deep in the clay up to the glaze. This can make it harder to determine the precise outcome of the glazed piece.

Reduction can even change the texture of the clay. —

Jennifer Yeates Camara is a contemporary Canadian poet with a distinctly condensed style. In this first collection spanning over 25 years, she was inspired by some of the standouts of classical world poetry, including traditional Japanese haiku, Tang Chinese poets Li Po (Li Bai) and Du Fu (Tu Fu), Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, and even Biblical Hebrew poetry, as well as English and Canadian literature.

While Jennifer enjoys different forms of poetry (including the occasional sonnet), the style mostly seen in Reduction Fired is architectural. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, “‘Think simple’ as my old master used to say – meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.”

Here, lines are built only long enough to hold what is needed. Intimate feelings and rich visuals are described in everyday language that is clear and calm. The minimal verse at times is broken where the lines stand alone or the words at those points become different phrases with those before or after.

Many poems use parallels, or rhymes of thought, to keep ideas finely connected. Yet routinely, they take the reader to unexpected endings. Most are short shots – they may be quickly swallowed but keenly felt. And there is ever a rhythm throughout Jennifer’s writings.

Reduction Fired is set out in 4 sections, each named for a season. In this way, they are grouped loosely in the reverse order they were written, with those under “Winter” being more recent poems, penned when Jennifer was ill, and those under “Spring” being a few poems from her early 20s.

There are further subgroups of poems for different subjects; for example, “Chalk Drawings” processes the emotions Jennifer felt when a man who appeared romantically interested in her revealed he had someone else in mind all along. On a similar note, “W.A.M.W.” refers to her feelings for an older man who was beyond reach.

Largely self-taught, Jennifer is the youngest of 13 children who all grew up in severe poverty while having a love of the arts, and reading and writing especially. She moved with her mother from Ontario to British Columbia at age 9, began late French Immersion at age 11, and around that age began writing her own poetry.

Jennifer excelled at language arts and maths throughout secondary school, and this duality is still seen here in her precision and discernment in the words she chooses and where they are placed. She later explored the poetry of a variety of cultures, took trips to West Africa, and spent years managing a modern Guinean music group while working full-time in a fast-paced law firm.

The events described in these poems are common to many, as they typically involve relationships of one kind or another (like in the popular ‘Chalk Drawings’). However, on occasion, Jennifer’s poor beginnings, her dear friend’s suicide, her spouse’s disassociation from the family through addiction and her eventual mental breakdown do reveal themselves in certain poems or phrases.

Jennifer presently works as a paralegal and lives with her son Mohamed in Vancouver, Canada. For more information on Jennifer, her influences and her photos, please visit yeatescamara.com.

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