2009 is the tenth anniversary of my first full collection of poems, Budavox, published by DC Books in Montreal, in 1999. The collection represented the work I'd been publishing and performing in the decade 1990-1999, during the time I ran first the New McGill Reading Series (with Bill Furey), then Vox Hunt Cabaret, in Montreal, before moving to Budapest, in late 1997. The title is taken from a famous very tall retro-style sign (now gone) in Budapest, on the Budavox Building. Budavox was a telecommunications company in Hungary. The poems in Budavox explored themes of sexuality, nostalgia, travel, poetics, violence, desire, and popular culture. The book was well-received by critics at the time, and was selected by Geist - then perhaps the hippest culture magazine in Canada - as "one of the five best books" of the year, and sold fairly well, for a book of poetry. I do hope that readers of Eyewear who are interested in poetry will seek it out, to see if it has stood the test of time.
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.
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