Michael Goodfellow's chapbook, Arrows, was recently released by Laurus Press in Halifax. He graduated from University of King's College in May 2006 and is currently a postgraduate student at the Humber School for Writers. His poetry and criticism has otherwise appeared, or is forthcoming in, Kiss Machine, Softblow, Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, and The Dalhousie Review, where he worked from 2005 to 2006.
Stare into Speaking
The dawn is coming - it's only
A warm sun that comes with comfort
And least reality. The cold Sun cannot be focused on now -
You are unable to maintain
Focus through the cool air. The dawn
Breaks night clouds, and becomes fog, and
When the fog clears the clouds float high.
Who but the light can speak all ways,
Know so many ways to describe
The world - the voice to describe and
To change, to cut through the cold.
Who but the dawn can speak to all
Creatures and speak everything at
Once and have already said it.
When the dawn breaks through your window
I am the sun in your room and
All around you, glistening in your
Hair, all around us. Night came. The
Windows in your bedroom were large
And clear. Through the skylight I saw
Every constellation, only
Dots of light. When you ran your hands
Over my fingers, my joints were
Every star point in the sky. When
All you can see are my hands, and
When we're both there under the sky
But only you can see - it's when
Your starburst mouth shines, when I stare
Into speaking, and when you take
My hand and show me, now show me.
The Woods, the Words
I lie all night in pines. The name
Of this forest rhymes with your name.
The forest hums with the sound of
The unseen highway. The highway's
Name is a word I know you have
Known, passed, slipped through. Your name shares none
Of its letters. To find you I
Will study in greater detail,
Through these great trees like green castles,
Or beyond. -It's morning and I
Catch glimpses of you through the light-
Gleamed branches in the distance. Now
I'm running through the woods - the words
I try to turn you around are
The names of trees, the kinds of clouds,
The clothes you wear - but I can't see
Your skin, say your name - you're only
One kind, and I can't turn around.
How the Forest Fire is the Sky
How the sky's distance - the distance
Between us - can be told from fires
Burning, from the sound of flames and
The wind that surrounds them, from a
Bird overhead silent for a
Minute before the wind dies down
And the smoke stops blowing. It won't
Stop burning. In the fire I have
Stared and seen faces and people
I knew. In the clouds I look and
See objects or sheep, and people
Lost in the explosions of air
Crashes. And how it can be all
Of the oxygen can fly sound
Less from tree to fire, from tree
Limb to limb. Or how I'm searching
Everywhere. Not just looking, how
I listen each night for the wind
When the waves come in, and for you,
For the storm that will drown this all.
So, I'd like to start with a comment made near the end of your Late Nights with Wild Cowboys, in the poem "Jawbone." You express real fear and anxiety over the prospect of having your life and love be objectified, turned into summary, a bowdlerized rendering that "[leaves] nearly everything out." More than that, though, you are worried about how we ourselves are complicit in this sort of exclusionary act. I guess what I'd like to ask first, then, is: do you imagine poetry as a means of letting things in rather than keeping everything out? And what are you aiming to let in, exactly?
I really do think of poetry in that way, in terms of providing a space -- an opening -- in which it might be possible to say the things that are hard, and perhaps impossible, to say otherwise; in which to express that inarticulate feeling that you get sometimes...continue reading
Steve McOrmond's new collection of poems begins with a caution. In the style of TV content warnings, "Advisory" lists potential disturbing content to come: "themes which could threaten the viewer's sense of security," "Evidence of fatalism and irreligion," and the typical forewarnings about sexuality, violence and "language." Here McOrmond displays the dual cautionary and playful perspectives that interact throughout the book, switching from warnings about a drowning and an animal attack to the line, "The following program may contain scenes not suitable for language."
The poem raises the expected questions about what we censor and screen in popular media. What is considered objectionable, and why? Placed at the start of a collection whose title references Armageddon, "Advisory" leads the reader to expect a certain discomfort.
With that warning, the book moves to the title...continue reading