The Writers' Collective

yes i do like to speak FRENglish, why do you ask??

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so continuing our tour of BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ FAVOURITE POETS, we come to the dear poet herself, Ms. LINDSEY CHILDS who told me that her favourite poet is a toss up between ARIEL GORDON and GWENDOLYN MACEWEN. both stellar choices i have to say…

ARIEL GORDON just won the Lansdowne Poetry Prize at the 2011 Manitoba Book Awards for her collection, HUMP. a great book if you have a chance to pick it up, buy it from Palimpsest here!!!

and / or, check out the uber lovely JANE DAY READER, ariel’s alter ego and lover of all things mushroom – click here!!

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as for GWENDOLYN MACEWEN… i have to admit, i knew very little about her when i woke up this morning, but i do like what i have found. just took EARTH-LIGHT out of the WINNIPEG PUBLIC LIBRARY (and they have several other MACEWEN collections if you want to check one out yourself)… find her wiki here!!!

or, the marvelous University of Toronto poetry portal – here!! a great resource in its own right, but if i can make one criticism – not enough prairie poets me thinks!

here’s a gooder:

 

DARK PINES UNDER WATER

Gwendolyn MacEwen
From: The Shadow-Maker. Toronto: Macmillan, 1972

 

This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself, this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.

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happy poetrying,

 

kate

Katherena Vermette