2-page anthology of Canadian poetry
Getting ready to review a book by rob mclennan, it seemed like a good idea to improve my knowledge of Canadian poetry from nil to 0.00000001 (mainly by googling names that led to other names) . Unsurprisingly this anthology catches nothing of many types of poetry and person (not to say language) that exist in Canada, but it is fragments of what I read this morning. In order to cram it into 2 pages, I've dropped all contextual details other than the names of the writers. MP
Fill a tall jar with water and place your latest poem in it. Try to drop words into the text. It is very surprising that however carefully you aim, the words nearly always slip to the side.
It is seldom possible to get a word to fall straight The very slightest nuance with even the smallest tilt is enough to cause a greater resistance of the water on the slanting underside of the word. (Sharon Harris)
and damn the troops, the horsemen
are wheeling in the sunshine,
the cree, practising
for their deaths: mr poundmaker,
gentle sweet mr big bear,
it is not unfortunately
quite enough to be innocent,
it is not enough merely
not to offend- (John Newlove)
Long day after longest day of wing-striped sky,
sun eclipsed by featuers. Blue-black,
bruise-black,
antigen-tinged half moons under your eyes.
Beleagured just by thoughts
of countless birds, prospects of an entire
summer riddled with peck-marks and quills …(Sylvia Legris)
You, of all white women I have loved,
I have loved least gladly. You have
no eyes, but white cranes floating
to water, in your fields full of snow. (Diana Brebner)
0 : a lit fit fish sits sit fish sit
1: fish wit spits splits a skit
2: it a fish skits sits kits a hit
0 : hit kits a fish sit sits split
1: sits a fish a skit fish wit writ
2: tip a fish skip pips lip fits (Max Middle)
scraptures behind me
i am written free
so many people saying to me they do not understand
the poem they can't get into
i misplace it three times
this is not a spell
it is an act of desperation
the poem dictated to me by another will
a kind of being writing is
opposite myself i recognize these hands
smash the keys in
the necessary assertion of reality (bpNichol)
Your heart says who is this country bumpkin girl in the preposterous Mexican musician cowboy hat, with her sleeves rolled, arms around a black Labrador dog, on her haunches on a hillside in the hot sun of summer a long time ago, or at least, say, about the time you were born? Every second time you look at it the dog's foreleg looks like a carbine rifle, the picture becoming nineteenth century sepia bad vaquero romantic killer needing a shave. But here she is again a hayseed girl with a big nose in the sun. The dog's eyes are closed to slits, meaning that he is happy with the cuddle or that there are summer insects in front of his face. (George Bowering)
awakening water temples, his sword
glistens bloody, flanked by jaguars.
Controller flicks an airway. If he
stares at the map long enough to deduce
each lever pull, local rules assume
individual members of a long wooden
ladle to pull boss tips from the ether. (ryan fitzpatrick)
And you are a rare modern painting in the grand salon
And you are a wall of earth.
And you are an ideological calm
And you are flung out to search.
And you are framed only by the perspectival rigors of masonry
And you are not a neutral instrument.
And you are pornographic
And you are the imagination of society as a tree. (Lisa Robertson)
close by two women wade, prosaic under sun umbrella,
hauling pigeons to sell. i too discover i can walk … deep
in this place that feels like history, old jossticks burning,
old offerings. (Daphne Marlatt)
Fill a tall jar with water and place your latest poem in it. Try to drop words into the text. It is very surprising that however carefully you aim, the words nearly always slip to the side.
It is seldom possible to get a word to fall straight The very slightest nuance with even the smallest tilt is enough to cause a greater resistance of the water on the slanting underside of the word. (Sharon Harris)
and damn the troops, the horsemen
are wheeling in the sunshine,
the cree, practising
for their deaths: mr poundmaker,
gentle sweet mr big bear,
it is not unfortunately
quite enough to be innocent,
it is not enough merely
not to offend- (John Newlove)
Long day after longest day of wing-striped sky,
sun eclipsed by featuers. Blue-black,
bruise-black,
antigen-tinged half moons under your eyes.
Beleagured just by thoughts
of countless birds, prospects of an entire
summer riddled with peck-marks and quills …(Sylvia Legris)
You, of all white women I have loved,
I have loved least gladly. You have
no eyes, but white cranes floating
to water, in your fields full of snow. (Diana Brebner)
0 : a lit fit fish sits sit fish sit
1: fish wit spits splits a skit
2: it a fish skits sits kits a hit
0 : hit kits a fish sit sits split
1: sits a fish a skit fish wit writ
2: tip a fish skip pips lip fits (Max Middle)
scraptures behind me
i am written free
so many people saying to me they do not understand
the poem they can't get into
i misplace it three times
this is not a spell
it is an act of desperation
the poem dictated to me by another will
a kind of being writing is
opposite myself i recognize these hands
smash the keys in
the necessary assertion of reality (bpNichol)
Your heart says who is this country bumpkin girl in the preposterous Mexican musician cowboy hat, with her sleeves rolled, arms around a black Labrador dog, on her haunches on a hillside in the hot sun of summer a long time ago, or at least, say, about the time you were born? Every second time you look at it the dog's foreleg looks like a carbine rifle, the picture becoming nineteenth century sepia bad vaquero romantic killer needing a shave. But here she is again a hayseed girl with a big nose in the sun. The dog's eyes are closed to slits, meaning that he is happy with the cuddle or that there are summer insects in front of his face. (George Bowering)
awakening water temples, his sword
glistens bloody, flanked by jaguars.
Controller flicks an airway. If he
stares at the map long enough to deduce
each lever pull, local rules assume
individual members of a long wooden
ladle to pull boss tips from the ether. (ryan fitzpatrick)
And you are a rare modern painting in the grand salon
And you are a wall of earth.
And you are an ideological calm
And you are flung out to search.
And you are framed only by the perspectival rigors of masonry
And you are not a neutral instrument.
And you are pornographic
And you are the imagination of society as a tree. (Lisa Robertson)
close by two women wade, prosaic under sun umbrella,
hauling pigeons to sell. i too discover i can walk … deep
in this place that feels like history, old jossticks burning,
old offerings. (Daphne Marlatt)
