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Blockbuster Poem II
This week the 'Goddess of Blissful Ignorance' visits a Vancouver balcony.
High up in 'the dating community.' Photo courtesy of agaumont from Your BC: The Tyee's photo pool.
-
Vancouver Eats Its Young
City risks driving away its up and comers.
-
Poetry as History
Maxine Gadd's 'Backup to Babylon' remembers B.C.'s bygone radicalism.
-
Poetry of Seoul
A little 'word steak' carved from my Korean menu.
[Editor's Note: This is the second of 10 current Canadian 'blockbuster poems' running each Friday in The Tyee. Find out about the idea of the series and read the previous poem here.]
Goddess of Blissful Ignorance
By Elizabeth Bachinsky
And now all the neighbourhood students are drinking
expensive-ish beer on their balconies thinking of the javelin
toss love can be (at any age, but especially) when you're
young and wearing carefully purchased footwear and
accessories. One girl thinks one day I won't remember this
balcony, like tomorrow, while another's sure she's met
her future husband, an MBA from San Francisco and dear
god what's he doing in Canada what a boon for the dating
community (he's straight I mean thank god...) while next-
door neighbours lie in bed and wonder if it isn't time
to move out to the suburbs, maybe get a chunk of property,
have a kid. Trade one noise for another.
It's not that living in a city seems superfluous when you're
in it, but only that it's superfluous when you are out of it
and conversation's lacking everywhere in the end. Consider
this cluster of stargazer lilies.Seven blossoms for two dollars
at a Chinese grocery, but their perfume's too heady for such
a small room. It's four a.m. and the clubs are turning out
the young. Shame to put the blossoms on the balcony.
From God of Missed Connections, published by Nightwood Editions (c) 2009 ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
- 'Moonrise Kingdom'
- From Financial Advisor to Occupier
- Seven Goals to Build the Conservative 'Dream'
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
3
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warbler
1 year ago
Strike 2
Hate to be the Tyee poetry critic bad boy, but really, with due respect to Bachinsky and her proven accomplishments in the field, this piece reads like something from my 17-yr-old niece's Facebook wall. Is this really the Tyee's idea of "blockbuster" poetry, Canadian style?? I'm beginning to wonder if this is less the poet and more the Tyee editor's selection criteria, because surely the two poets featured thus far have produced higher quality work. Right?
When I think of great Canadian blockbusters, names like Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen, Earle Birney, Margaret Atwood, Patrick Lane, Irving Layton, Eli Mandel, Milton Acorn, George Bowering, bp Nichol, bill bissett, Jamie Reid, Fred Wah, Daphne Marlatt, among many others -- come to mind. Has Canada's current poetry's roots been severed from these giants? Is there no soul or courage left in Canadian poetry? Has it really come down to chimp grunts (sound poetry), Thesaurus dependency/thievery and Facebook confessionals?
This is so disheartening.
I propose to Tyee that a blockbuster poem (in French) from Quebec be included among the remaining entries. That way, at least I can use my limited French skills to imagine something of blockbuster quality, even if I have to significantly create my interpretation from ignorance and imagination.
Any year now I'm expecting a collection of 140-character Tweet haikus to win the coveted GG's award for poetry. Mark my words, it's gonna happen.
snert
1 year ago
Yup!
I think this definitely is "a very large high-explosive bomb"
rbudde
1 year ago
I think the editor should
I think the editor should solicit a poem from "warbler."