Underwhelmed online

My poem "Underwhelmed, if that's a word" is now online at The Walrus, awaiting your unenthusiastic appraisal.

UPDATE: The comments stream following the poem is starting to get quite entertaining.

Me, Myself and I or Who do You Think You Are?

My latest blog post is up at the Best Canadian Poetry site. It's on my favourite subject.

DWELLING [revised]

Strolling through these woods, I've chanced to dwell

upon the mouth of this long-abandoned

well. The boards its former owner must have

placed across the hole to keep stray animals

from falling in have rotted, gone to ground;

the stones that ring the lip are so moss-crusted

you can barely see them; a dump of rusted

cans and antique bottles surrounding the well

has sprawled and overflows onto the drowned

carcasses below. Fireweed's abundance

hereabout suggests the homestead's fate, animals

screaming as ember-jewelled rafters cave

in on them. Or not. It may be that I crave

high drama to explain the blown and busted

beauty of this plot. We are the only animals

seeking answers, building myths, raising dual

options. Making errors. What is it in abandoned

land, a refuse heap and a hole in the ground

sends my idle mind winding circles round

itself? Why not just wander on and leave

off speculation? Because abandoning

the understory to fungus and wild mustard

makes the deaths of those domestic animals

mean nothing, turns the history of their dwelling

here to dust. Out of every thing there wells

some essence, each dug hole and heaped mound

tells something of its labour, no animal

is separate from its heritage, so shave

away the surface of the piece of land on

which you stand and you'll find all the mustered

spirit matter of its clumped and clustered

self pulsing signals: activated nerve cells

messaging a brain. No land is abandoned

so long as someone somewhere saves

an image of it in her mind; no animal's

life ends when its bones are buried in the ground.

Time comes to abandon this idyll and heave

off for the green and rust-red concession I've dwelled

upon since birth. Animal smells, a well, tilled ground.

DWELLING

Strolling through these woods, I've chanced to dwell

upon the mouth of this long-abandoned

well. The boards its former owner must have

placed across the hole to keep stray animals

from falling in have rotted and gone to ground;

the stones that ring the lip are so moss-crusted

you can barely see them. A dump of rusted

tin cans and antique bottles surrounding the well

has no doubt overflowed onto the drowned

carcasses below. Fireweed's abundance

hereabout suggests the homestead's fate, animals

screaming as ember-jewelled rafters caved

in on them. Or not. I could just be craving

high drama to explain the blown and busted

beauty of this plot. We are the only animals

seeking answers, building myths, raising dual

options. Making errors. What is it in abandoned

land, a garbage heap and a hole in the ground

sends my idle mind winding circles round

itself? Why not just wander on and leave

off speculation? Because abandoning

the understory to fungus and wild mustard

makes the deaths of these domestic animals

mean nothing, turns the history of their dwelling

here to dust. Out of every thing there wells

some essence, each dug hole and heaped mound

tells something of its labour, no animal

is separate from its heritage, so shave

away the surface of the piece of land on

which you stand and you'll find all the mustered

spirit matter of its clumped and clustered

self pulsing signals: activated nerve cells

messaging a brain. No land is abandoned

so long as someone somewhere saves

a picture of it in her mind; no animal's

life ends when its bones are buried in the ground.

Time comes to abandon this idyll and heave

off for the green and rust-red place on which I've dwelled

since birth. Animal smells and well-tilled ground.

Against Originality

My latest blog post is up at the Best Canadian Poetry site. Check it out!

an explanation

I posted a new version of my poem-in-progress, which is not something I usually do. What I typically do is post a working draft I'm reasonably happy with and twiddle and tweak it without saying anything about the twiddles n tweaks. But I did quite a bit of tweaking on it today, so I decided to repost it altogether and undo some of the tweaks (the ones I could remember, as I'm bad about keeping drafts) in the previous post. So if you're curious to see a bit of step-by-step in my revision process, you now can, you lucky ducks.

PIECEMEAL

I construct nothing without first tearing

it down. My body's the sum of everyone's

parts. I do hope you won't begrudge sharing

your heart. Not that I care: half of the fun's

in begging forgiveness. I laminate

your private thoughts and post them on my wall.

I've always found it better to come late,

ill-dressed, than never to show up at all.

I've so far declined the experts' advice

concerning long-term palliative care

of my parents. I'm a dog for this vice,

my soft spot for anything counter and quare.

Reviews online and poem in print

Just found out that my brief reviews of Jim Johnstone's Patternicity and Jeff Latosik's Tiny, Frantic, Stronger are now online (along with many other reviews) at Arc's website.

I also found out that my poem "Underwhelmed, if That's a Word" is in the new issue of The Walrus, which I haven't seen yet, but I got an email from someone who has, so if it's not on a newsstand near you, it soon will be, tra-la.

Virtuosity

I'm blogging for the Best Canadian Poetry antho over the next couple of weeks. My first post, on the much-maligned topic of virtuosity, is now up.

PIECEMEAL

I can build nothing without first tearing

it down. My work is the sum of everyone's

parts. I really hope you don't mind sharing

your heart. Not that I care. All of the fun's

in begging forgiveness. I violate

your private thoughts and post them on my wall.

I've always said it's better to come late,

ill-dressed, than never to arrive at all.

I've so far declined the experts' advice

concerning long-term palliative care

of my parents. My sole bond is to this vice,

my fondness for all things counter and quare.

Sunrise in the Eyes of the Snowman

Very pleasant surprise today to receive my copy of Goran Simic's Sunrise in the Eyes of the Snowman, a book I'm proud to have edited. Might I suggest you order a copy?

IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMP

Distilled silence;

condensation

on a pane.

Car cancer

Got an alert today for something rather droll. Seems the good people at the How Pedestrian blog got these two fellers to read my poem "A Winter." Seems they only got one take...



You can also hear me reading the poem at Julie Wilson's Seen Reading.

One Question

Alex Boyd had one question for me. And I done answered it.

Some Love for Josh Trotter

Michael Lista think that Joshua Trotter's All This Could Be Yours is one of the five best books of 2010. And he's in some heavyweight company here. I'm super-biased, having edited the thing, but I agree. (I edited it because I think it's a great book, not the other way around; editing Josh's ms. was, I must say, not a tall order.) Order yours today!

WAYPOINTS

for Elizabeth Bishop

Comes a time, traveller, to rest your bones

by the roadside, to stretch out in a flowered

ditch, catch your breath and watch the patterned

play of sunlight and shadow on the membranes

of your eyelids, a few minutes or an hour

if needed. Comes a time at a trivial

junction to pause and reconnoitre,

reconsider flight plans and waypoints, wait

for someone with a wagon to pass by

and offer you a ride wherever it is

they're going. Comes a time when the sky

's dyed rose and darkening, to find a roof

or some other form of warmth and shelter

that might, on waking, be mistaken for a home.