Stifled by dust
stunted by stricture
When the punchline is stop
CIVIC POEM
The poet, not as priest, but lover
The novelist, not as druid, but drunk
and shaking off careerist rust
but almost constantly shaking
and therefore displeased
but not completely displeasured
and, yes, health concerns
but no, not concerned
and they are tired of lessons
but the poets are pictograph sick
and how you get back from that fissure
but why you won’t come
and the fissure divides the priests from the lovers
but the druids and the drunks mix implicit
and for some reason you like it in winter
but the adverbs returning
but the half-life left
and the votive, the semaphore
but the shrinking ex voto
and you know where to find you
but you hate civic poems
DYING IN WINNIPEG
Don’t read me wrong –
I plan on dying in Winnipeg
In a strange way I
believe Winnipeg is where everything always dies:
Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets
faith, journalists, fine-tip pens
Earle Nelson, hockey dads
your best friend from the old street …
I will let the rush-hour dust or the blowing
snow or the dance-hall fumes fill my lungs
I will simply wait, let my side-splitting body
fail under the flattering lights in the hallway
Of the underfunded Concordia Hospital
But listen, there’s a show tonight
at the legion hall
And I have half a liver left and
a hatchback with a quarter tank
I’m not hard to be had
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Elizabeth Bachinsky, Darren Bifford, Jason Camlot, Rachel Cyr, Tara Flanagan, Lilly Fiorentino, John Goldbach, David McGimpsey, Evan Munday, Sachiko Murakami, Ian Orti, Marisa Grizenko, Christina Palassio,Mike Spry,Darren Wershler.
My family.
Special thanks to Kevin Connolly, a wonderful editor.
Special thanks to Alana Wilcox for her friendship, guidance and patience.
The Nicole Brossard epigraph is from Lovhers.
The John Berryman epigraphs are from Dream Songs.
The Gilbert Sorrentino epigraph is from Corrosive Sublimate.
The Charles Sanders Peirce epigraph is from ‘What Is a Sign?’
The Robert Kroetsch epigraph is from The Hornbooks of Rita K.
The Jessica Grim epigraph is from Fray.
Earlier versions of some of these poems have appeared in The Walrus, Jacket, Prism, The Capilano Review, Scratching the Service: The Post-Prairie Landscape (Plug-in Institute of Contemporary Art, 2008). ‘Mentholism’ and ‘Little Grey Chevette’ were originally written for broadcast on cbc Radio One. Thanks to cbc.
‘Famous Grey Chevette’ is for Christopher Charney.
‘Transprairie’ is for Louis Cabri, who suggested the term.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of the novel Stripmalling, which was shortlisted for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and three poetry collections, including The Theory of the Loser Class, which was shortlisted for the A. M. Klein Prize. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches writing at Concordia University, edits Matrix magazine and runs Snare Books.
Typeset in My Underwood and Adobe Caslon Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2010
This print run includes a limited edition of 52 geographically challenged copies, lettered and signed by the author.
Edited by Kevin Connolly
Designed by Alana Wilcox
Author photo by Marisa Grizenko
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