The active stack of books I’ve been in the midst of, in no particular order because the order shifts continually.
Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works, edited by Jenny Penberthy (my, what a gratifying hunger spot hit) p. 150
they tell me get a job and earn yourself
an automobile – I’d rather collect my parts
as I go: chair, desk, house
and crankshaft Shakespeare.
Generator boy, Paul, love is carried
if it’s held.
and 20 years later, p. 283 in Wilderness
You are the man
You are the other country
and I find it hard going
You are the prickly pear
You are the violent storm
the torrent to raise the river
to float the wounded doe
Tocking Heads by George Bowering. (politics in poetry in Canada. who knew that was permitted).
Every Woman Counts, Governor-General Says
Hear that? One, two, three, four, five, six
seven, eight, nine, ten male premiers
in this country.
Hear that? One female prime minister in
one hundred and thirty-three years.
Hear that? Knit two, purl one, knit
two, purl one….
He takes titles and is silly to funny effect. Poetry that non-poets can like too. Another snippet?
Matches Made in Heaven
In the other place
everyone has a light,e
and they’re smoking all the time
[end snip]
O Cidadán by ErÃn Moure (sitting with this I’m getting why people get so fond of her writing.) p. 8
my heart you see its yellow corn
Girl I am, interpret
Or the one I walked with when I first saw your soft engrave
Hot Paris day of an arrival into Montparnasse with K
“walking into the her salt”
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. (a palette clearing fluff. Amusing. I don’t get any of the cross-fiction context references. bet it would be a lot more amusing if I did.)
Within Hours (gorgeous artifact) by Joseph Massey (samples at 2nd link of the unadorned minimalism yet not harsh or sweet or telegraphic, hard balance to stand on)
Global Mother Tongue: The Eight Flavours Of English by Howard Richler (which is etymology lists from OED, not anything sociological or regional as the title implied – which I would have known had I read a review more closely).
The Language of Inquiry by Lyn Hejinian (I lack the hooks to grasp a lot of this but Metonymy, interesting.)
Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s Soul: Stories of Feline Affection, Mystery and Charm by Mark Victor Hansen (which wins for longest title and shortest sections both; it’s Reader’s Digest-like)
Eyeshot by Heather McHugh (long hankered after this, and consumed quickly but good for a reread or few. such interesting sound plays and concept mashups.)
The Retort Room
It had tottered for years on the water’s
lip and lap. Some squatter-pigeons occupied its nights,
dreaming of drowning in glottals. Then suddenly
the trucks arrived and hauled away
enormous rusted remnants of
the cannery’s cookery. Inside a week,
the great stained concrete that had poured down
fifty years and twenty feet into the tide
[end snip]
Peter F. Yacht Club #8, which did the Ottawa launch lately.
At it, James Moran, Anita Dolman, and Sandra Ridley who read (double-take) more than was in that issue from her. Maybe it comes in her title for next year.
Current Arc (ok, bottom of the pile hasn’t stirred yet.)
Kingsway by Michael Turner. (soon, soon)
small world.