SOURCE: "Refusing the Sweet Surrender: Margaret Avison's 'Dispersed Titles'," in Canadian Poetry; Studies, Documents, Reviews, No. 1, Fall-Winter, 1977, pp. 44-53.

In the essay below, Zezulka provides a thematic analysis of "Dispersed Titles," noting Avison's concern with nature, modern technology, and humankind's place in the world.

For Margaret Avison, a poem is a vehicle of discovery, an imaginative "jailbreak / And recreation" which can lead to "that other kind of lighting up / That shows the terrain comprehended." Before this can happen, however, the reader must grapple with shifts in perspective, close verbal textures, and an eclecticism in thought that has few parallels in the poetry of the last generation.

The very density of her poems, individually, seems to encourage a thematic approach to them, and Avison herself seems to discourage the attempt to find the 'meaning' of her poems, just as she resists all fixities, preferring instead that the poem should...