Tuesday poem #287 : Madeleine Stratford : UNDERSTANDING

To  under-

stand is to stand

      under

not below

      Bodies touch

When I stand under

          you

withstanding your weight

I grasp your ankles

and hold on

As you stand on my shoulders

neither of us falls or feels

unsteady

But sometimes I can’t stand

          under

I must         crouch

sit

lie down

          crushed

          under

Then

I need

to gather

my strength and stand

          up

and lift you

          up

over my shoulders

so I can stand

under and under-

stand you

once

more

Madeleine Stratford is a poet, literary translator and professor of Translation at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. Her first poetry book, Des mots dans la neige (éditions anagrammes, 2009) was awarded the 2009 Orpheus Poetry Prize in France. Her poetry has also appeared in various journals, including Corresponding Voices, carte blanche, and Pøst. Her French translation of Ce qu’il faut dire a des fissures by Uruguayan poet Tatiana Oroño (Paris, L’Oreille du Loup, 2012) was awarded the 2013 John Glassco Prize by the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada. Elle nage (La Peuplade, 2016), her French version of the novel Swim, also by Marianne Apostolides, was shortlisted in 2016 for a Governor General award (Translation into French). In 2017, Me Tall You Small, her English translation of Lilli L’Arronge’s Ich groβ, du klein (OwlKids Books, 2017), was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #286 : Melanie Dennis Unrau : thumbs

Melanie Dennis Unrau is a poet and PhD candidate from Winnipeg. Her first poetry collection, Happiness Threads: The Unborn Poems (The Muses’ Company, 2013) was nominated for two Manitoba Book Awards. Melanie is co-editor of the environmental humanities journal The Goose and poetry editor of Geez magazine.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #285 : Sommer Browning : I Thought it was Sunday

I smoke so rarely now
That when I light one
I feel like I’m letting Paul
Put his hand down my pants
On the train tracks.

The long corridor my house
Makes when I come home
A word
That rhymes with known.

The hammered man
Holding the trashed woman
Inarticulating love.

        Walking through a gas leak—

Cumming
Into on coming traffic

I wake up sobbing
As if I were married

So fat I was skinny I was fat.

Your dick friend
Calling your other dick friend
A dick:

a Beat poem
if the Beats were men.

Sommer Browning writes poems, draws comics, and says jokes in Denver. She is the author of Everything But Sex (Low Frequency Press, 2017), You’re On My Period (Counterpath, 2016), Backup Singers (Birds, LLC; 2014), and other things. With Elisa Gabbert and Brian Foley, she curates Death Horse, a monthly reading series. In 2017 she opened GEORGIA, a popup art space in her garage. She is a librarian.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #284 : M H Vanstone : [untitled]

doubt a lack

or presence

full of

without

regardless

comes
morning

none in
the open field

the paths
of air

sure

was its
own answer

and that truly

said something

M H Vanstone is a Toronto writer with a background in film. His work has been published prior in The Puritan and (parenthetical). His debut chapbook, That Pass Between, was published by words(on)pages press in 2016.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #283 : Anthony Etherin : SUNDIAL

Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial….

Sky rhythms fly by, wryly,
by my crypt—
by syzygy.

Sulphur sun succumbs:
Dusk dulls us, murmurs,
blunts us up.

Soft glows of hollow moon
grow gnomon forms on
ponds of rock.

This night is finishing.
Its vigil lifting, nitid shifting
gilts this dish in twilight’s stirrings.

Restless edges represent:
The steeple’s lengths lessen when
the flexed degrees descend.

A raw and rampant
dawn attracts a waltz.
A vacant patch draws back:

Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial….

Anthony Etherin is a UK-based writer of constrained, formal and experimental poetry. He has been published online numerous times—including by The Account Magazine, Cordite Poetry Review and Nagari Magazine—and in the print magazines Timglaset and Touch the Donkey. Leaflets and chapbooks of his poetry have been published by No Press, Spacecraft Press, The Blasted Tree, and Timglaset Editions, as well as by his own press, Penteract Press, through which his collection of palindromic and anagrammatic micropoems, Cellar, was published in March 2018. Find him on Twitter @Anthony_Etherin and via his website, anthonyetherin.wordpress.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #282 : Di Brandt : O Sylvia

You could never have known

the air sucked out of the glass jar

of your desperate youth

your desperate life

your desperate death

would spread like wildfire

all over the world

and reverb reverb reverb

in the minds of millions

of ordinary and extraordinary

helpless and powerful

girls and women and men

who all understood

what you meant what you felt

what you were

you were not so alone after all

dear Sylvia in that blue tinged glass jar

take a look here we all are

from near and far crowding in

for a party with you

who taught us how to dance

with the dark side

of ourselves

 the nightmares lurking

in the basement

the attic the bedroom

the innocent looking corner store

Di Brandt is Winnipeg's first Poet Laureate (2018-2019). Her new book of poetry is Glitter & Fall: Poetic Meditations after Laozi's Dao De Jing, with ink drawings by Lin Xu (Turnstone Press forthcoming Fall 2018).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan