Tuesday poem #47 : D.G. Jones : Nature Tries

two daffodils on the bank beyond
the window, and April
is almost over

I am in the bank account of
fallen leaves, representatives of all
the devalued currency the bank
has created to forestall the collapse
of various
Western economies

the kind of double talk associated with
global warming we octogenarians associate
easily with

our governments, oil & holy writ, and
don’t believe. Still

we’re here like the daffodils, even if
two is not a host, but remains
a reminder that Wordsworth could only speak
for his own

moment in time – as May may say,
nature tries

(April 29, 2013)

D.G. Jones was born in Ontario in 1929. He has won the Governor General’s Award twice (for poetry in 1977 and for translation in 1993). His poetry has also won two QSPELL Awards and the A.J.M. Smith Award. Jones retired from teaching at the Université de Sherbrooke in 1994. He now lives in North Hatley, Quebec. His chapbook, standard pose, appeared with above/ground press in 2002 (reprinted in Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013), and The Stream Exposed With All Its Stones: Collected Poems came out with Vehicule Press in 2009.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #46 : Lea Graham : Note to mclennan from 110 Mill Street Five & Half Years Later

It’s time for the Mill Stream eels'

return to the Sargasso Sea. 

I pen numbers off

Poughkeepsie walls

to my left thigh, keep walking

these wan landscapes

where kill names most water. 

A wedding dress awaits

burning in the utility closet. 

Ottawa pulses across

this Hudson & you there

bend to dandelions, blowing

through Chinatown.

Lea Graham is the author of the poetry book, Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011) and of the chapbook, Calendar Girls (above ground Press, 2006).  Her poems, essays, translations and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in journals such as Notre Dame Review, Delirious Hem, Southern Humanities Review and Fifth Wednesday. She is a contributing editor for Atticus Review and works as an Associate Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York where she teaches poetry and travel writing among other exciting subjects.   Lea Graham was born in Memphis, Tennessee and grew up in Northwest Arkansas.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #45 : Brecken Hancock : LAKE EFFECT

Snow blinds the deer hearse.

Snow needles the blood purse.

Snow porridge in the hobo’s bowl.

Snow angels spread for ripper’s toll.

Dormers dripping toilet paper.

Castles of albino crows.

Amniotic impersonator.

Vomit stipples Mommy’s clothes.

Come snow, come sleep,

Bleach our red curtains

To surrender. O molester,

Put the animals to bed.

Bed the trees;

Rid us of forecast.

Calm the alabaster

Masts of dream.

Come dream, snow,

Bear in the cavern,

Rat in the cistern.

Every little chit in its hole.

Make us kid-glove clean again,

Intestines fresh from the fast.

Lay out your skin to swaddle our feet,

Snow Madonnas maquillaged in ash.

Brecken Hancock’s poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Riddle Fence, Event, CV2, Grain, and Studies in Canadian Literature. She is Reviews Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and Interviews Editor for Canadian Women in the Literary Arts.The Art of Plumbing, her most recent chapbook, is out with above/ground press and her first full-length manuscript of poems, Broom Broom, is forthcoming with Coach House Books. She lives and walks dogs in Ottawa.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #44 : Marthe Reed : article of faith

Marthe Reed is the author of three books: (em)bodied bliss (Moria Books 2013), Gaze (Black Radish Books 2010) and Tender Box, A Wunderkammer  (Lavender Ink 2007). A fourth book, Pleth, a collaboration with j hastain, will appear September 2013 from Unlikely Books; a fifth will be published by Lavender Ink (2014). She has also published four chapbooks as part of the Dusie Kollektiv; a fifth is published by above / ground press. Her poetry has appeared in New American Writing, Golden Handcuffs Review, New Orleans Review, HOW2, MiPOesias, Fairy Tale Review, Exquisite Corpse, BlazeVOX, and The Offending Adam, among others. An essay on Claudia Rankine’s The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue appears in American Letters and Commentary.  She is Co-Publisher of Black Radish Books.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #43 : Adeena Karasick : With Asura

With asura hath woman a hoarder of giddy tomes

breached locs. cut mouthy and ill-fitting

where dizzy sign’s makeover  re-phrased

with asura

hath woman a tainted parody of her arched will

harpies, floosies

where origin receiveth massage

and the shallow is intrajected by phissin’,

with asura

seeth woman’s vagabond zigzag, her errs and kinky lines

écriture is made to injure and to live in

and it is made to be salient with slurry quixotics

with asura, slink against the naughty denouement,

is thy cred ever more than stalwart gags

is thy misreading daring as precipice,

with mounting treats, strong flavours

with asura the lines grow thick

with asura is curled re-creations

where woman can mine, re-sited for indwelling.

Sewn scattered, coated with

fever ripped by her ludic moor

WITH ASURA

A wooly complex of meerkats

heaped bling, the domain of asura

Asura is an amorous terain, asura

A bonny kneading of the monad’s flan

and steeped with the spinner’s cunning. Perky borrowings

gamed by asura

Ducky kudos gamed by asura

A Pappardelle fracas of swanny bells; by asura

And salsa columns tainted

Gamed by asura, gelled relics, alcoves; came ambrosial phonemes,

Came the kitch of recast stains signs: altered phrases

By asura sauntering trophy memes

By asura, scented hilarity,

Asura wresteth the va-jazzled

It wresteth the rift and the riffing grafts and

It gnaweth the thread of all that blooms

It burneth to weave bold patterns;

A sewer of hottie contours by asura; crammed with moist avoidance, embroiled

Memory fingering Asemia

Asura sleuths, shouldered by whim

And chafes like hungry masks, recruiting

It hath brought pulsing to breed, rife

battling the languerous grid and the bridled gloom

COUNTER RANT: TWIRLY

wrought with horstext for Elusive

Courses a re-set banquet

all beset with asura.

Adeena Karasick is a poet, cultural theorist, media artist and the critically acclaimed author of seven books of poetry and poetic theory. She is currently Professor of Pop Culture and Media Theory at Fordham University in New York. Writing at the intersection of Conceptualism and neo-Fluxus performatics, her urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard) and noted for its “cross-fertilization of punning and knowing, theatre and theory” (Charles Bernstein) "a twined virtuosity of mind and ear which leaves the reader deliciously lost in Karasick's signature “syllabic labyrinth” (Craig Dworkin).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #42 : Susan Briante : THE PHYSICISTS SAY THE UNIVERSE MIGHT BE

a projection on the edge of a screen shadows by the door
or the boundary between the Muskogee and Cherokee nations
more nothing than anything else
smash the smallest parts to see if nothingness breaks
but there must be another way there’s no reason
in the cosmic order to necessitate human existence
no equation to explain the little arrows
at the end of my fingers—a plate glass above all that I do
and you hold the grease pencil and you move the shipping containers
across the horizon like a sentence about to be said: this morning
I saw the word “dog” in a hair left in the bathtub
and no matter how I turned could not get it to read “god”

Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion and Utopia Minus, both published by Ahsahta Press. She is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #41 : derek beaulieu : untitled #5

derek beaulieu is the author or editor of 15 books, the most recent of which are Writing Surfaces: The Selected Fiction of John Riddell (co-edited with Lori Emerson) and Please, No more poetry: the poetry of derek beaulieu (edited by Kit Dobson) both of which are published by Wilfrid Laurier University press. He is the publisher of the acclaimed no press and is the visual poetry editor at UBUWeb. He has contributed to fashion magazines such as Flaunt, Hobo and The Block, literary magazines such as The Capilano Review and Poetry and is a columnist at Lemonhound. beaulieu has exhibited his work across Canada, the United States and Europe and currently teaches at the Alberta College of Art + Design. In October 2013 he is starting his PhD at Roehampton University.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #40 : Fenn Stewart : a most notable fault

a most notable fault
the singular transcription of these out-door notes
I’m thinking that I might have left out
the Red Rock River fault /

before entering or leaving a room,
worries and doubts are common.
the backs of letters, home-made note-books: leave them out
the perception of a negative outcome
or, just the telling of how they came into my hands

a childhood onset
south, from out around Old Woman Bay
one might act on thoughts
If I see a piece of broken glass on the road
or on the Diabase dikes

Say, In the autumn of 1900, when all senselessness was lost
I could predict a singularly catastrophic consequence
like roadcuts or attacks on personal well-being
Or a piece of broken glass
For example, bedtime routines
Pillow lavas and stacks
and thinking of one punishment
an anguish in / Gargantua Harbour
I really have made a terrible mistake
it forms an interesting cataract/

broken glass
and A year later / he had passed into eternity
As in the case of
violent and aggressive thoughts
or the older and Precambrian rock

but it’s only a couple of pages to the St Lawrence
If I continually wander
I might just catch A faint, a fresh, a barely palpable air

Also of interest / his wife began to wonder
"bad" thoughts are equally immoral
especially among perennials

Keeweenawan lavas
occur, so frequently, against one's will
like Cat-birds, thrushes, robins, etc.

experience a substantially higher rate
include your agate exposures
your blasphemous thoughts
the profuse bloomings of the tiger lily (is it the tiger-lily?)
stream erosion: although it could be a cause or an effect
it is possible and highly desirable
on a first-class steamer
in numerous river valleys
to be overwhelmed with anxiety.
Eskers are present / so
It was worth coming to Canada
tho’ it may have harmful consequences
Glacial spillways
but then, I have to do something
a better job controlling

As I write, a long shell appears
on the Baldhead
the weight of the glaciers has depressed the level of these lakes
what am I afraid might happen?
water, like frost, is almost significant
bizarre, upsetting or intrusive
frost shatters

I feel continually like the relative
of an ordinary mouse
I stride athwart the stream
what else might I tell you, tell myself
of these half-burnt shells
the debris or talus accumulated at their bases
images are experienced
I could multiply some individual probabilities
I could throw their black shadows in strong relief
To wave action and lake ice
I could give each of them a ranking
on the clear and glistering water
of of of
how moral you evaluate them to be
how very dashy and inspiriting
stack shores and sea caves, consider the /
unwanted thoughts the
generally jagged appearance of the /
final catastrophe
mine is an agreeable jaunt, no?
on a rocky shore
to and fro, one afternoon
I did not extinguish my cigarette
I do not make even minor mistakes

Every prospect pleases you: you overestimate the severity
it is more likely that I really have/
Made a mistake

Which dreaded events are reasonably possible
Lizard islands, some trusted people in your life
I did not make a mistake

a dossier, a creek/ do draw a circle:
one has / susceptibility to some disease
even to an illness

& although I know that The Dominion government keeps entire faith
It is critical to reorganize
the beach. ensure it’s sufficiently developed

include yourself last; that is,
perfectly still and cloudless, fresh and cool enough
smooth like Buckshot
This is the effort required to achieve perfection
these are my most pleasant hours
unwanted thoughts
spangled with still orbs, emulous, nestled
in bedrock, raised and contemporary beaches
a little physical discomfort
the riverbed, its rocks
the appraisals you have been using
how much of the blame do you believe is yours
coastal erosion is a feature of regional, provincial, and even national significance
to fully experience this benefit

I go out every day

Contaminate other people
as well as the eskers, scattered

The smell of the cut herbage
how much do you dwell on them
how much less rugged backshore

The sprouting of new associations
not having toxicoplasmosis
thoughts completed
It is a great place for our birds
this Coldwater River
varieties of minnows / are Also present
note this down / with Well-fibred little notes
cancer is a zodiac sign, it is an animal, it is a crab.
 fire = fireflies, fire = fireworks, fire = candlelight-dinners

in Lake Superior there are sea lampreys / one ought
to hold oneself responsible for this
Though but a looker on
it’s insect populations
I hear the sound of scythes snapping
it’s almost as bad as doing it myself
animal life in general is very representative
it is highly persistent
like the sandhill crane
I am convinced beyond a doubt
I am a peaceful person
tho’ less rugged
a naturally occurring sugar
a preoccupation with avoiding
the occurrences of peregrine falcons

if I feel any doubt
like a car over broken glass
I can engage in regular treatments
the native brook trout
it would be all my fault
to assume that this is possible

these are features of perhaps provincial dread
highly desirable
These have a larger and a fresher look than
Eastern gulls

Fenn Stewart reads and writes in Toronto. Her work has appeared in The Arcadia Project, Open Letter, The Capilano Review, and ditch, poetry. She is the author of two chapbooks: An OK Organ Man (above/ground, 2012) and Vegetable Inventory (Ferno House, 2013).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan