Nick Thran's first collection of poetry, Every Inadequate Name (Insomniac Press, 2006) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award. His poems have appeared in numerous publications across Canada, including Arc, Geist, Maisonneuve, The National Post and The Walrus. The following two poems are from his second collection, Earworm, which was published in March of 2011 with Nightwood Editions.
Bear, lion and tiger make unlikely brothers.
Macy’s fire smokes shoppers out.
Boy stuck with needles in month-long ritual.
Fatal collision of coast guard vessel, pleasure boat.
Macy’s fire smokes shoppers out.
Prince William homeless for a night.
Fatal collision of coast guard vessel, unlikely brothers.
Karaoke assault suspects kicked out of court.
Prince William homeless for a night.
Conjoined twins celebrate third birthday apart.
Karaoke assault suspects kicked out of court.
Detective pulls gun during a snowball fight.
Conjoined twins celebrate third birthday apart.
Beluga gives birth for the second time in a week.
Detective pulls gun during a snowball fight.
Police catch infamous Christmas Tree Thief.
Beluga gives birth for the second time in a week.
Boy stuck with needles in month-long ritual.
Police catch infamous Christmas Tree Thief.
Bear, lion and tiger make pleasure boat.
I have bureaus set up in the cities she frequents.
Wired the chinchilla coat I gave as a gift
when she turned six hundred and five.
I get reports from my staff of her goings-on:
the wing-burst of kestrels in Prague,
the new neon signs in Milwaukee.
I have an accordion file full of the moments
the world has caught fire in her presence.
I must look like a drunken polka musician
late at night in my office. It’s hard on our kids.
I’ve given up on overseeing the design
of my series of homes in the shapes of chandeliers
to hang under big city causeways and bridges.
I prefer using the payphone to using my cell.
A staffer says the smell of cinnamon is hovering
in the air in Dakar. A staffer says they spotted her
slow dancing with the butcher in Montreal,
the customers clapping, stomping and smiling.
She comes home twice a year. There’s a marble sink
built into our foyer. I tell her how gorgeous she looks.
She lets me wash both of her hands.
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