Poem by Andrew Steinmetz

Eyewear welcomes fellow-Montreal-born Andrew Steinmetz to its glossy pages this Friday, especially as his poem furthers our "barber" theme from last week's feature (and also happily echoes the conceit of an early poem of mine).

Steinmetz was born in Montreal in 1965. He is the author of a memoir, Wardlife: The Apprenticeship of a Young Writer as a Hospital Clerk (Véhicule Press, 1999) and two collections of poetry, Histories (Signal Editions, Véhicule Press, 2001) and Hurt Thyself (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005).

Wardlife was short listed for the 2000 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction as well as for the 2000 Quebec Writers Federation (QWF) First Book Award and Mavis Gallant Prize for non-fiction. Histories was short-listed for the 2001 QWF A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry.

As a singer-songwriter, he performed and recorded with Weather Permitting and Good Cookies, two indie rock bands.

Presently he is the editor of Esplanade Books, the fiction imprint at Véhicule Press. He lives in Ottawa.

Only The Barber

Only the barber
is amused
by these roots of free verse.
Because we are birds
of the same feather.
Laughing, he splits hairs.
Comb in lips, he squeezes my bangs
so I look like some school girl in barrettes.

Our eyes migrate out the window,
they meet, then dive
into the mirror.
Scissors up his sleeve,
he flutters into rhyme.
In the salon, he knows what to cut
and what to leave
in quatrains on the floor.

poem by Andrew Steinmetz
reprinted with permission of McGill-Queen's University Press

Comments

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