Indexical Elegies Read online

  Stifled by dust

  stunted by stricture

  When the punchline is stop

  CIVIC POEM

  The poet, not as priest, but lover

  The novelist, not as druid, but drunk

  and shaking off careerist rust

  but almost constantly shaking

  and therefore displeased

  but not completely displeasured

  and, yes, health concerns

  but no, not concerned

  and they are tired of lessons

  but the poets are pictograph sick

  and how you get back from that fissure

  but why you won’t come

  and the fissure divides the priests from the lovers

  but the druids and the drunks mix implicit

  and for some reason you like it in winter

  but the adverbs returning

  and the full rash

  but the half-life left

  and the votive, the semaphore

  but the shrinking ex voto

  and you know where to find you

  but you hate civic poems

  DYING IN WINNIPEG

  Don’t read me wrong –

  I plan on dying in Winnipeg

  In a strange way I

  believe Winnipeg is where everything always dies:

  Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets

  faith, journalists, fine-tip pens

  Earle Nelson, hockey dads

  your best friend from the old street …

  I will let the rush-hour dust or the blowing

  snow or the dance-hall fumes fill my lungs

  I will simply wait, let my side-splitting body

  fail under the flattering lights in the hallway

  Of the underfunded Concordia Hospital

  and don’t dream of visiting

  But listen, there’s a show tonight

  at the legion hall

  And I have half a liver left and

  a hatchback with a quarter tank

  I’m not hard to be had

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Elizabeth Bachinsky, Darren Bifford, Jason Camlot, Rachel Cyr, Tara Flanagan, Lilly Fiorentino, John Goldbach, David McGimpsey, Evan Munday, Sachiko Murakami, Ian Orti, Marisa Grizenko, Christina Palassio,Mike Spry,Darren Wershler.

  My family.

  Special thanks to Kevin Connolly, a wonderful editor.

  Special thanks to Alana Wilcox for her friendship, guidance and patience.

  The Nicole Brossard epigraph is from Lovhers.

  The John Berryman epigraphs are from Dream Songs.

  The Gilbert Sorrentino epigraph is from Corrosive Sublimate.

  The Charles Sanders Peirce epigraph is from ‘What Is a Sign?’

  The Robert Kroetsch epigraph is from The Hornbooks of Rita K.

  The Jessica Grim epigraph is from Fray.

  Earlier versions of some of these poems have appeared in The Walrus, Jacket, Prism, The Capilano Review, Scratching the Service: The Post-Prairie Landscape (Plug-in Institute of Contemporary Art, 2008). ‘Mentholism’ and ‘Little Grey Chevette’ were originally written for broadcast on cbc Radio One. Thanks to cbc.

  ‘Famous Grey Chevette’ is for Christopher Charney.

  ‘Transprairie’ is for Louis Cabri, who suggested the term.

  The ‘Indexical Elegies’ sequence is for Robert Allen, in memoriam.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of the novel Stripmalling, which was shortlisted for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and three poetry collections, including The Theory of the Loser Class, which was shortlisted for the A. M. Klein Prize. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches writing at Concordia University, edits Matrix magazine and runs Snare Books.

  Typeset in My Underwood and Adobe Caslon Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2010

  This print run includes a limited edition of 52 geographically challenged copies, lettered and signed by the author.

  Edited by Kevin Connolly

  Designed by Alana Wilcox

  Author photo by Marisa Grizenko

  Coach House Books

  80 bpNichol Lane

  Toronto m5s 3j4

  Canada

  416 979 2217

  800 367 6360

  [email protected]

  www.chbooks.com