From Asbestos Heights. Published by Coach House Books in 2015.
As vast as the vastlands of this vast land, poet, are you to yonder skies, breads and local cheeses. I am grateful for libraries (iPad) and poetry (iPad). Lorca’s line ‘La Clooney del bello Jorge sigue…’ is where George Clooney got his stage name. Many tried to be ‘The Lorca of Canada’ but stopped when being ‘The Octavio Paz of Sault Ste. Marie’ proved sufficient. Entre la tarde Timbits y la noche. Life in Canada is just bear attack after bear attack. It always happens, as incalculable as the number of times Irving Layton used the word loins. In the animal kingdom, no creature kills for sport except the otter. In the plant world, there are few things as objectionable as balsam fir. Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays c’est $100 pour voir Bon Iver. Oddsmakers ask, what will happen sooner: will a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup or will Canadians develop new interest in the novels of Robertson Davies? The unmalled parts of Edmonton are cold, my friend, and for reasons I don’t know, the Cinnabon franchises in Montreal closed, giving the city the nickname Russia. Limited atonement, one of the five points of Calvinism, is what Canadians think of as ‘catnip.’ Heaven is the ground where the Winnipeg Victorias still play. I, of course, have never read Fifth Business, because pop music is better. But, unlike the speaker of Rod Stewart’s ‘Maggie May,’ I definitely could have tried a lot more.
