An Anthology of Poetry from Canada and Ireland EDITED BY John Ennis, Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, School of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology Randall Maggs Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Corner Brook Stephanie McKenzie Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Corner Brook Published by the Centre for Newfoundland & Labrador Studies School of Humanities Publications Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland WIT wishes to acknowledge the financial assistance received towards the publication of this book from Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership, The Ireland Business Partnerships and Foras na Gaeilge. Contents Acknowledgements XLI Genesis of the Text XLIV Poemes en francais, poemes du Quebec XLVI An Ghaeilge XLIX A Note on Translation L A Note from the Editors LII Three Voices LIV Poetry from Canada Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm stray bullets (oka re/vision) 3 partridge song 3 rainstorm in volcano: eight poems for rain 4 sturgeon 6 Jeannette C. Armstrong History Lesson 7 Threads of Old Memory 8 Rocks 12 Tammy Armstrong Hockey 15 No One Goes with the Exhibition Boys 16 Martine Audet -' "Les labours blancs ..." 18 "De certains reves ..." 18 "II nous semblait parfois ..." 19 VIII The Echoing Years Margaret Avison Balancing Out 20 Ramsden 21 Ambivalence 21 He Was There / He Was Here •.:....::.....':..:'.. 23 Remembering Gordon G. Nanos 23 On a Maundy Thursday Walk...:... .. .. '.'•. ..:. 25 Lament for Byways 26 Ken Babstock Marram Grass . 28 Essentialist 29 Windspeed 30 Late Drive Toward Innisfil i 31 A Berth in the Stern 32 Anurima Banerji Summer or, I Want the Rage of Poets to Bleed Guns Speechless with Words <v 34 Mike Barnes Stirring a Can of Soup on the Stove ...:...38 Stephanie Bolster . Aperture,. 1856 39 Whose Eyes 39 from In Which Alice Poses for Julia Margaret Cameron, 1872 " Cordelia 40 Two Deaths in January, 1898 ..... 41 Close Your Eyes and Think of England 42 Portrait of Alice with Christopher Robin 43 Roo Borson River ,..,.,. .44 Rivers to the Sea 47 from Autumn Record "Once, early in the morning ..." 48 Tim Bowling Grade One 49 Watching the Academy Awards in the Bar of the Patricia Hotel 50 An Anthology of Poetry from Canada and Ireland IX Dionne Brand from thirsty "This city is beauty ..." 51 from Land To Light On "If you come out..." 52 "I look at that road ..." 52 "All I could do . ." 53 "I have to think again ..." 53 "no wonder I could get lost there ..." 54 "In the middle of afternoons ..." 54 "Look, let me be specific ..." 55 "One gleeful headline ..." 56 "in the middle of traffic ..." 57 "the girl starts the morning ..." 57 "a Baptist priestess preaches . ." 58 "Maybe this wide country . " 58 "Light passes through me ..." 59 "I feel like my aunt hunkered ..." 60 "I saw her head up the road ..." 60 "that night we wanted to fly ..." 61 "She came in a hurry to leave ..." 62 "In this country where islands vanish ..." 63 Jacques Brault "c'est un soir pas ..." 64 "Neige d'un soir..." 64 "Ce n'est plus le moment..." 64 Bucolique 65 Diana Brebner The Blue Light of the Neutron Pool 67 The Green Canoe 69 from "At the Schwarzschild Radius" ' 3. "The beautiful long-haired boys ..." 70 Morning on the Guitar 71 Port 72 Nicole Brossard (translated by Robert Majzels and Erin Moure) Typhon dru /. Typhoon Thrum . 74 Mark Callandn The Delicate Touch Required for China 80 X The Echoing Years Anne Carson New Rule 82 Shadowboxer 83 Father's Old Blue Cardigan ; 83 from TV Men . Antigone (Scripts 1 and 2) .84 from Akhmatova (Treatment for a Script) - Mandelstam ; ......:. 86 Akhmatova Comes to the Wall ....:.... 86 Because.of His Mother, Because of Her Son 87 Akhmatova Repents (1950) .... X ........ 87 The Poison Son. is Back ... ....... 88 Thucydides in Conversation with ' Virginia Woolf on the Set of The Peloponnesian War . 89 from The Beauty of the Husband II. But a Dedication Is Only Felicitous 91 V. Here Is My Propaganda 93 VI. To Clean Your Hooves 95 Short Talk on Defloration 96 ' • • ... I..1... Francis Catalano , "Vus d'en bas . ." ......;,... 97 neo-liberalisme a clavier (aire de rapprochement de deux solitudes)... 97 "Les idees fondent comme du beurre ..." 98 "Amerique terre archaique ..." : 99 "Homo lupus est. ." .' ......... 100 Hermenegilde Chiasson de Repertoire 101 George Elliott Clarke Identity I 110 Child Hood I 110 Reading Titus Andronicus in Three Mile Plains, N.S Ill Duet ...112 Hard Nails 113 Spree 114 Trial II .... 114 Look Homeward, Exile .115 Four Guitars 116 Night Train . 119 Blues for X 119 Rev. F. R. Langford's Miracle ......:. 120 A Sermon to the Undecided 120 The Sermon of Liana 121 An Anthology of Poetry from Canada and Ireland XI Leonard Cohen "Paris again ..." 122 Too Old 122 Layton's Question 123 Robert Appears Again 123 Pardon Me 124 The Party Was Over Then Too 124 Butter Dish 125 The Collapse of Zen 126 "Oh and one more thing ..." 127 A Note to the Chinese Reader 128 Don Coles Kingdom 129 Night Game 130 Sampling from a Dialogue 132 Forests of the Medieval World 133 from The Edvard Munch Poems Death and the Maiden 135 What They Didn't Like 136 Self-Portrait at 3.15 a.m 138 "There are no words to remember, but I do have that gaze" 139 Reading a Biography of Samuel Beckett 141 Romance 143 Lorna Crozier Dust 147 Not the Music 148 Mrs. Bentley 148 Dictionary of Symbols 149 Variation on the Origin of Flight 151 The Memorial Wall 152 South Dakota Refuge 153 Skunks 153 Home Care 155 Small Gesture 156 You're So Covered with Scars 156 Hoping to Fix Up, a Little, This World 157 Beth Cuthand Post-Oka Kinda Woman 158 For All the Settlers Who Secretly Sing 159 Zen Indian 160 XII ; . , The Echoing Years Mary Dalton To Be Sold 162 I'm Bursting to Tell: Riddles for Conception Bay 163 Jean^Paul Daoust .,.' . < (translated by Daniel Sloate) • .•.••;••• ;..'i de Lesceridres bleues I from Blue Ashes \ .'/' ' "Mainteriant. .77 "Now . ."....'.'.' '..'..".'.'...'.'.'".'. .169 Degan Davis . Hockey '..'.. .....:..... '.".''.'.'.'. ^.........'.'... 175 Monique Deland "la question toujours la meme . ." 176 "certains lendemains ..." 176 "mes mains frileuses ..." 177 "La nuit a rejoint la ligne ..." 177 "J'accumule des retailles . ." 178 "Une voix sans corps annonce . ." ... ,.., 178 "la joue sur l'oreiller ..." ... '..'...'.,... 178 Jean-Marc Desgent , .",.,••.. , . 65:...:...:. ...•.:.........'.;....;..;...'.;..'.'/..;...'.. 179; Les premiers paysages 179 Le monde des monstres est banal 181 Je vois l'intelligent theatre '...'.'. 182 Joel Des Rosiers i (translated by Hugh Hazelton) ,: "le 26 Octobre 1951 ..."/ "on October 261951 <:. <:" i 183' "mon pere assembla ..."/. "my father assembled..." 184 Tenfance est d'immortalite ..." / "childhood is immortality..." .. 185 "pour Guillane . I "for Guillane..." 186 "il fut difficile de quitter .. ."./"it was hard to leave ..." •. .187 Adam Dickinson When We Become Desirable ... I.. / V..' 189 Believing the First Words You Hear 189 Fort Smith Fire Brigade 190 An Anthology of Poetry from Canada and Ireland XIII Helene Dorion "En ce temps-la . ." 191 "Une maison briile ..." 191 "Recommence devant moi ..." 192 "Tu refais le voyage ..." 193 "Le monde devore nos paupieres ..." 193 Marilyn Dumont Circle the Wagons 194 The White Judges 194 Letter to Sir John A. Macdonald 196 Leather and Naughahyde 197 Let the Ponies Out 197 The Sky is Promising 198 Louise Dupre "La, voila ta demeure ..." 201 "Tout est possible a l'ombre des jardins ..." 201 "Tu peux encore lever la main ..." 202 "Rien ne suffit a ton regard ..." 202 "Cela arrive toujours sans prevenir ..." 203 "Tu releves ta robe ..." 204 "Tes morts, tu en es venue ..." 204 Paul Dutton One Plus 205 Lost Way Lost 205 Kit-Talk 206 Strata 206 Thinking 207 Dreaming 207 Jazzstory 208 Succession 209 Obscure 210 Truck 211 Content 212 Night 212 Several Times Table 213 Shy Thought 214 Words 214 Gary Geddes Subsidies , 216 Junk Food Pastoral 217 XIV The Echoing Years Susan Gillis Distant Islands (But of course they were further apart) 219 Habitat (South elevation) :'•:• 219 Habitat (We stand here looking) :,:. 220 River (Dear X.) 221 Goh, Poh Seng The Girl from Ermita '.. >..."... 222 Lorna Goodison Brunetto Latini .....:. ...\..:..... 228 Questions for Marcus Mosiah Garvey ............ i 231 Crossover Griot 231 Poor Mrs. Lot 232 Susan Goyette This Contradiction of Passion 233 Sisters 234 More Widow Than Queen Victoria 234 Sinking ...-..- 235 A Chinese Lantern for Audrey .....:...:.:..: 236 Catherine Greenwood The Diving Girls' Prayer 23y In Service to a Dream :.. 238 Pearl Farmer's Wife 239 Dream Thief 239 Louise Halfe Der Poop 242 In Da Name of Da Fadder 243 Pahkahkos 244 Nohkom, Medicine Bear 246 You've Got to Teach White Women Everything 247 from Blue Marrow "Father, these robes I wear confuse me ..." 248 Richard Harrison Coach's Corner 250 Elegy for the Rocket 251 An Anthology of Poetry from Canada and Ireland XV Ray Hsu Early Work: An Eclogue 252 from Inferno XXXII-XXXIII "Our bread-famished mouths ..." 253 Dora (Confession, 0:93 Seconds) 253 Catherine Hunter Two Thousand and Two 254 Patrick Lane Drought 1980 257 Weasel 257 Monarch I 258 The Happy Little Towns 259 The Dream of the Red Chamber 261 Tania Langlais "sa facon, la sienne ..." 262 "quand elle retire sa petite robe ..." 262 "s'il fallait que tu meures ..." 263 "rien ne se raconte plus ..." 263 "tu lisais l'autre nuit..." 264 "je suppose que §a va finir ..." 264 "n'en pouvant plus je l'ai ecrit..." 265 "je ne soigne personne ..." 265 "le desorde ca prend combien de boites ..." 265 Irving Layton The Swimmer 266 Fishermen 267 On Seeing the Statuettes of Ezekiel and Jeremiah in the Church of Notre Dame 268 The Fertile Muck 269 Berry Picking 270 An Old Nicoise Whore 270 To the Girls of My Graduating Class 272 Song for Naomi 273 The Predator 274 Aran Islands 275 XVI The Echoing Years Nadine Ltaif (translated by Christine Tipper) La Simurghiade / Simurghiade .'.