Tuesday poem #312 : Conyer Clayton : Irrigation Techniques

I thought

earth was tainted
with lead

and the plot
was sad.

I shovelled
countless worms

for years,
heavy with doubt.

No — it wasn't
the soil but how

it was used.
How it was

treated; the chemical
nature of upbringing.

Lead is a choice
sometimes

or at least
if you let yourself

be poisoned by it.

Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are: Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (forthcoming with above/ground press, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press), Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press), and For the Birds. For the Humans. (battleaxe press). She released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still, in August 2018. Her work appears in ARC, Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead, The Maynard, Puddles of Sky Press, TRAIN, post ghost press, and others. She won Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize, 3rd place in Prairie Fire's 2017 Poetry Contest, honourable mention in The Fiddlehead's 2018 poetry prize, and was long-listed for Vallum's 2018 Poem of the Year. She is a member of the sound poetry ensemble Quatuor Gualuor, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full length collection of poetry is forthcoming in Spring 2020. Check out conyerclayton.com for updates on her endeavours.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan