12/10/2020 POETRY: GREGORY BETTSTHESE ELEPHANTS IN CANADA I memory is a mammoth failure a trauma dream a Zoroastrian declaiming upon a dead star weeping on a palimpsest of archipelagos on all that remains land written upon by rising seas animals run to land when the sea spills over its speech II overwhelmed by rising I spill my coffee onto the once fecund table as it pools disorder into the shape of an elephant’s ear I gaze into the lifeless dream to hear a scattering of sound reflection III alive a brown melted glacier going tidal the hot ocean of this elephant’s sneeze a disorder of all senses uncaging unguent memories drip out into the void of human space Gregory Betts is the author of Sweet Forme (2020), a collection of visual renderings of the sound patterns in Shakespeare’s sonnets (published by Australia’s Apothecary Archive, available here: https://bit.ly/383XaTl). He is the digital curator of bpNichol.ca and a poet-professor at Brock University. His next book is Finding Nothing: Vancouver Avant-Garde Literature, 1959-1975, due out in February 2021 with University of Toronto Press.
12/10/2020 POETRY: MEREDITH QUARTERMAINFLAGPOLES AT THE OLD EXPO GROUNDS jogger shoes flap flap flap bike chains jingle skateboards rush push on and on words surge to phone faces to laces no, I know, but it’s something I’ve really noticed a language I can’t understand the bolt of weeds through planks the mark of orange plastic cones a couple on yellow steps watch a play on a rotting stage its clatter of empty flagpoles its loom of concrete stadium once the water’s edge now Edgewater Casino spinning wheels spinning Highway ’86 yachts, trucks, ATVs giant Swiss-watch McBarge world in motion world in touch press on, carry on, keep on odds on asphalt odds on helicopter odds on geodesic I don’t think the psychiatrist warned them they thought they heard the deer they felt they were similar just look at the criteria look at the architecture the water’s push against land their nightclub they wanted to, they wanted very much they rallied, they studied, they held summits yet they knew they weren’t for plants they weren’t for wildlife videos they were for the stage they were on track for the house edge Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking won a BC Book Award for Poetry, Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award, and Recipes from the Red Planet was a finalist for a BC Book Award for fiction. You can also find her work in Best Canadian Poetry 2009 and 2018. Her fourth book of poetry, Lullabies in the Real World, was published in 2020 by NeWest Press. From 2014 to 2016, she was the Poetry Mentor at Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio Program.
12/10/2020 POETRY: ARCHANA SRIDHARFOXES IN MICHIGAN hundreds of pelts drip off a flatbed truck spilling faces and paws velvety tongues within our reach flap in the backdraft to the mouth of the mighty Route 66 their innards still pastel pink like Johnson’s baby oil bottles sticky from slaughter dried musk-laden riverbeds lead us to distant edges splendid piles of matted fur splayed voyageurs just foraged in the woods below hawks’ nests not knowing their future hides tanned, skins cured suspended in a forever-sleep of glass-bead eyes dashed hopes and highway lines Archana Sridhar is a poet and university administrator living in Toronto. Archana focuses on themes of meditation, race, motherhood, and diaspora in her poetry and flash writing. Her work has been featured in The Puritan, Barren Magazine, The /tƐmz/ Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook "Renderings" is available through 845 Press, and her writing can be found at www.archanasridhar.com.
|
ISSN 2563-0067 © Copyright 2023 | Watch Your Head Contributors Sign up for our Newsletter Buy our print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020). |