You Exist. Details Follow. by Stuart Ross
My rating: 4/5 cats
you twelve people who voted for this review when it wasn’t even a review, but just a link to stuart’s (admittedly, wonderful) book commercial, you are going to feel soooo silly when you realize that THIS is the actual review and some of you will remove your votes in spite and some of you will feel like if you had just waited, you could have been there when the review was actually a review and have been part of a true community, and some of you will adopt a smug hipster stance that you liked it before it was a review, but all of you will be deeply, deeply affected by the situation.
but here’s the review.
but first—full disclosure. i have met stuart ross on a number of occasions, despite his being all canadian. and when he was here last, he forced this book upon me, saying “read it, reeead it!!” and i said, “ew, poetry. begone!” and then i remembered that he knows george elliott clarke, and so i grudgingly accepted it, and forced myself to read it, hoping that someday, he would send me a parcel full of GEC himself, all contorted and captive.
and wouldn’t you know it, the poems are good.
but here’s the review2.
my favorites are
when we met
50 words 5 hours before 50 plus 50 more
sandals with straps
2010
clouds of the rich
(mostly for its line Disappointment is a spider with empty pockets, humming under the tactile moss.)
surgery
pop. 18,500
coberg commerce
poem
and
rest period, kindergarten
but i have two veryfavorites, and i am going to type them out here, even though one is very long, and stuart ross might lose money if you don’t buy this book and only read the poems here. so read these two, enjoy them, and then go buy a book or two of his.
Fennel
To prepare the fennel,
cross-cut, remove the heart,
you can smell the licorice,
save the leafy part for hutspot,
think about me briefly,
then walk the dog, feed the dog,
walk the dog. Come
to your senses and move
back home. I don’t know how
to repair the door hinge
and my back needs rubbing.
…………………………………
that one just breaks my heart a little.
but here—this one is really funny
…………………………………
late
It is late and I am awake.
The touch of another body against mine,
the temperature in the room
and the tightness in my chest
make sleep impossible. But look,
somewhere Jim Smith’s head is on the pillow,
his eyes are closed, while he sleeps
he is no better a writer then me, and also
David Gilmour, he too is asleep,
perhaps with his glasses on, he uses
two pillows, and he is no better a writer
then me, not right now anyway,
and there is a glow out the window,
on Division Street, either a cat
or a shadow blots out its centre,
and Dave McFadden is sleeping,
his eyes are closed, his brain
is travelling, but he isn’t writing anything.
(I am.) Things will happen tonight.
A car slides past. Silence, then another.
A mouse rustles under a pile of dry leaves.
That’s something Nelson Bell might observe.
But he is sleeping now, his face
on a pillow, and his eyes are closed,
like Jim’s and David’s and Dave’s.
It’s not that I’m competitive –
if people weren’t better than me,
who would I learn from? And Ron Padgett
is sleeping, and Lisa Jarnot, and Charles North,
Gabe Gudding, Jaime Forsythe, Larry Fagin,
Paul Guest, Diana Hartog, Dean Young,
and more, more heads are on pillows,
eyes clenched shut, moonlight
dampening bunched-up blankets,
and some fists are tight,
others relaxed, and no one is writing
but me. The tap is dripping,
in the kitchen or maybe the washroom,
I don’t want to interrupt
my writing to find out. And the drip
is like the ticking of a clock, and in fact
it might be the clock because
the plumbing’s not too bad in here.
And the moment that a drop of water
is actually dropping, it touches nothing.
That must be an incredible feeling.
When I was younger I could touch nothing
by jumping off the floor or else
jumping off our back porch on Pannahill Road.
Now I’m not capable of that, and
don’t have access to the backyard on
Pannahill anyway. When a drop hits, the primary sound is that of bubbles
agitating beneath the surface. When
I jumped from the porch on Pannahill,
the primary sound upon my hitting the lawn
was the agitation of worms beneath
the surface. If you cut a worm in half,
it has twice the chances of winning
a lottery, and both halves eventually grow back
like Tom Walmsley’s donated liver
and Tom’s head is on a pillow and his eyes are closed
though he is a guy who is often up very late
I suspect, watching black-and-white
boxing videos, but right now he is not
writing anything better than me, and this poem
doesn’t even have to be any good
to be better than what my favourite
writers are writing right now, which is
nothing, though it’s possible that Nelson,
who is a minimalist, would contest that,
suggesting that nothing is better than this.
…………………………………
there, those were your freebies.
now go pay for your play.
see how gloomy and poetic he looks??
……………………………………………………………..
old, sad review, for you twelve gun-jumpers:
stuart ross makes the best book trailers. cheer him up! buy his book(s)!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vayUEv…
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