Skip to main content

Poem by Steve McOrmond

Steve McOrmond’s poetry has appeared widely in literary journals and magazines across Canada, as well as online at Jacket (Australia) and Nthposition (UK). His work also appears in the anthology Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets (Nightwood, 2004).

His first book of poetry, Lean Days (Wolsak and Wynn, 2004) was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, which recognizes the best first book of poetry published by a Canadian in the preceding year. A second (fine) poetry collection entitled Primer on the Hereafter came out in 2006.

Originally from Prince Edward Island, McOrmond (pictured here) currently lives in Toronto. Eyewear is very glad to have him here, as he is undoubtedly one of the forty or so most compelling younger poets now writing in Canada today.


Stockholm
(for Matthew & Charmaine Tierney)

To dwell between the snowy fastness
and the ice-locked sea, in a city of blondes.

One must have heard the existential scream,
hands over ears, the huge Os of mouth and eyes.

Know it can begin with nothing more extreme
than the flat’s creaky floors, the old radiator ticking.

A fragile ecosystem: The furless, burrowing heart
and the Allen key of the mind.

Eventually, one might acquire a taste for hardcore
pornography and cod roe paste in squeeze tubes.

Held hostage in the bank vault of winter,
the captive will identify with the captor.

However peacefully it seems to fall,
there is suppressed violence in the snow.

poem by Steve McOrmond
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A  poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...
15 comments
Read more

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
3 comments
Read more