Photo by Matthew Filipowich //

Sitting at the counter at Zoots Cafe on Dundas West, recorder running, I'm baffled by how vividly Pelee Island emerges in my mind; a small, isolated, forgotten place, low buildings and open land, log cabins and Victorian homes, trading posts filled with teacups. I lean my head on my hand, listening to Melanie Janisse speak, picturing the wrinkled face of the 82-year-old poet who sells bicycles, or the log cabin full of Scottish sweaters with silver clasps, saucers and old china. The dark, shadowy landscape emerges from her words, fraught with history and legend, evoking a sense of delay, waiting, longing, saudade, upon which the voice in her new collection of poetry stands; a modern woman reaching in to the isolation of the island. I've never visited Pelee Island, nor seen any photographs, but something in Melanie's poetry and bare description creates a lush landscape of natural shadowy mystery, images so peculiar to a city woman like myself. This is exactly what makes Melanie Janisse's first collection of poetry, Orioles in the Oranges (Guernica, 2009) something to linger over; a dark kaleidoscope of a place so unlike the city, in which a modern voice traverses the strange complexities of both physical and existential isolation.

The collected prose poetry in Orioles in the Oranges uses the Pelee Island legend of Hulda - a Metis woman whose broken-hearted longing compelled her to sacrifice herself to Lake Eerie - to haunt the poetic voice of the modern woman in Pelee Island."There are so many sad ghostly women wandering around Pelee Island" Melanie explains, "The main character desires to be one of them; desires to be there, ghosting."

"The collection is inspired by impossible love, longing, saudade, and the recognition that there will always be something to long for. Though the modern voice chooses a different path than the legend, the two brush with the sorrow of love that is unavailable."

Unavailable, delayed, lost; all of these impressions permeate the images crafted in Melanie Janisse's poems. Inspired by the Pelee Islands since childhood, Melanie stockpiled images and extensively researched local history when writing.

"There was just something about it as a kid that really just stuck in my brain. It’s a very magical place, a very forgotten place." She intimates, continuing to describe the people and places that inspired her work.

"When I was a kid, my Dad used to take us to Pelee Island, and the whole place mystified me. We'd often take the ferry over to Sandusky, Ohio, to go to the Cedar Fair amusement park, but I hated the candy and stuffed-things, I loved the strangeness of the island."

Returning alone in 2003 to live on the island in an old Victorian farmhouse with her cat and dog, Melanie spent a year researching local history and taking medium format photography. "I spent so much time researching the history of Pelee Island," she explains with a chuckle, "that they gave me a job giving bus tours."

On top of the tour gig, Melanie Janisse was invited to read her poetry at the recent Hertiage Weekend in Pelee Island, celebrating the rich history of the area.

"The people choose the island for a reason." She elaborates, "It's beautiful and has such a rich history. Dark, but rich."

With a background in visual art and photography, Melanie Janisse understands images, and how to create them in words with strange and evocative results. "I'm a Concrete poet in spirit" she says with a smile, "I want to create something that can be imagined again, just as vividly."

I truly believe that she has succeeded, as the coffee shop closes for the evening and Melanie packs up her things. She invites me to her monthly vintage sale before saying goodbye and I leave to drift down Dundas Street, images of ghostly women reaching out from misty shores, teacups and old wooden porches lingering in a blur of the island I have never met, which now, since reading this collection, clings to me with its beautiful, mysterious, shadowy longing.

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Orioles in the Oranges launches at Bar Italia on College Street in Toronto December 6th.

A graduate of both Concordia University in Montréal and the Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, Melanie Janisse is a poet, multidisciplinary artist and shopowner living in Toronto.