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Ecw Press - Stuart Ross

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181 pages

English

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This book spans nearly 25 years in the career of one of Canada's most original poetic voices. Poems are drawn from Stuart Ross's three ECW books, as well as previously uncollected work from chapbooks, postcards, and leaflets, and a selection of new poems appearing in print for the first time.

Sujets

Poetry

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	20 juin 2003
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781554902446
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Hey, Crumbling Balcony!
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (editor; The Mercury Press, 2003)
Me the Pope (Proper Tales Press, 2002)
Time to Kill Boss (editor; Proper Tales Press, 2002)
Razovsky at Peace (ECW Press, 2001)
Primitive Bubble And (editor; Proper Tales Press, 2001)
Poodle (Proper Tales Press, 2001)
Home Shopping (Room 3o2 Books, 2000)
Farmer Gloomy s New Hybrid (ECW Press, 1999)
The Results of the Autopsy: 13 Little Love Stories (Proper Tales Press, 1999)
Mr. Joe (Proper Tales Press, 1998)
Sitting by the Judas Hole (Proper Tales Press, 1998)
Language Lessons with Simon and Marie! (as Estuardo Rossini; Proper Tales Press, 1998)
Henry Kafka and Other Stories (The Mercury Press, 1997)
Poemas 4 Cuentos 1 (Proper Tales Press, 1996)
The Inspiration Cha-Cha (ECW Press, 1996)
Justice, Sympathy, A Poodle (Proper Tales Press, 1995)
The Mud Game (with Gary Barwin; The Mercury Press, 1995)
Say Fway Luh Looz (Proper Tales Press, 1995)
Kruger (Proper Tales Press, 1994)
The Pig Sleeps (with Mark Laba; Contra Mundo Press, 1993)
Little Black Train (Proper Tales Press, 1993)
Runts (Proper Tales Press, 1992)
In This World (Silver Birch Press, 1992)
Mister Style, That s Me (Proper Tales Press, 1991)
Guided Missiles (Proper Tales Press, 1990)
Smothered (Contra Mundo Press, 1990)
Ladies Gentlemen, Mr. Ron Padgett (Proper Tales Press, 1989)
Bunnybaby: The Child with Magnificent Ears (Proper Tales Press, 1988)
Paralysis Beach (Pink Dog Press, 1988)
Captain Earmuffs Agenda (The Front Press, 1987)
Wooden Rooster (Proper Tales Press, 1986)
The Pod Poems (Proper Tales Press, 1985)
Skip Biff Cling to the Radio (Proper Tales Press, 1984)
Father, the Cowboys Are Ready to Come Down from the Attic (Proper Tales Press, 1982)
When Electrical Sockets Walked Like Men (Proper Tales Press, 1981)
Bad Glamour (Proper Tales Press, 1980)
He Counted His Fingers, He Counted His Toes (Proper Tales Press, 1978)
Hey, Crumbling Balcony!
Poems New Selected
Stuart Ross
Copyright Stuart Ross, 2003
Published by ECW PRESS 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E IE2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS .
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Ross, Stuart, 1959 - Hey, crumbling balcony!: poems new & selected / Stuart Ross.
ISBN I-55022-574-X
I . Title.
PS855.0841H49 2003 C8I3 .54 C2002-905899-6 PR9199.3.R5993H49 2003
Editor: Michael Holmes / a misFit book Jacket and Text Design: Dana Samuel Jacket Illustrations: Stuart Ross Typesetting: Dana Samuel Production: Mary Bowness Printing: Marc Veilleux Imprimeur
This book is set in Scala and Scala Sans
The publication of Hey, Crumbling Balcony! has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada

DISTRIBUTION CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ONL7G 5S4
PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA
CONTENTS
POEMS NEW
The True, Sad Tale of Benjamin Peret as It Relates to Me
Poem
Calendar Boy
Burial
Dinnertime
Poem of Welcome, 1953
Two Days Later, a Strange Quiet Fell upon the City
Frank Stella and Joe Hardy
Road Trip, Southern Ontario, 1999
I Am Sitting Here
My Girlfriend s Slender Neck
The Sun
Corrective Perjury
Laundry
Blind
The Children of Mary Crawl Back at Night
Poem for Randy Newman s Birthday
Laurie s Loss
Selecting the Proper Casket
Night Sonnet
A Ukase for Peace
Sonnet (Storm Cat)
The Mud Above, the Sky Below
Rescue Efforts
That Which Is Not the Decoy Is Found
Love
Do Not Ask Where I Started
The Catch: Footnotes
POEMS SELECTED
The Adjoining Room, or Witness to the Execution
Soldiers of Misery
Sheila s Bare Shoulders
If We Say Berlin
Fragments
Modern Times
Dreams of Kim Novak
The Payoff
Who Knows?
Poses: For Beginners and Advanced
In the Car
E.V.M.
The Telephone Call
The Stupid Poems
Bunnybaby: The Child with Magnificent Ears
Yikes!
Three Scoops, Waffle Cone
Ladies Gentlemen, Mr. Ron Padgett
Wait for the Rattle
The Laundry Boy
Paralysis Beach
Tengo Fuego
Little Black Train
The Uneven Century
City of My Dreams
Cottage Country
Reconsidering Things
The Clamour
What He Thought When He Thought
1993
Sonnet
Se or Cuerpo
Frank Poem #1
I Have Something to Tell You
Sitting by the Judas Hole
Lost Expedition
Stubborn Furniture
Around the Building
Recreating Jim
Some Kind of Slowdown in the Intersection
Looking into My Illness
Minor Altercation
Poem
Coffee Break
Passed Over
The Monument
Happy
Billiards and Poison 151
After Blackfly Season 153
In This World 154
A Message to the Populace
But, Mister, They No Have Bowling Balls Before Christ 158
The Ring 159
Landscape
One of Those Lakes in Minnesota
The Shopping Mall
Carcass Status
Train to Ottawa in Peacetime
Bulletin
After the Event, but Before the Thing That Happened
40 Lines of Explanation
The Big Chair
Red Beret
The Cow
Home Shopping
The Shape of Things to Come
The Rec Room
Hospitality
Monkeys
Sue o Perdido
Razovsky at Peace
Poodles on Pedestals
We Got Punched
Meaningless Encounters with Random Citizens 202
After the Shiva
Me and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi Go to Mars
Invitation to Love
The Catch
Razovsky at Night
Razovsky on Foot
Razovsky Rides a Cloud
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
POEMS NEW
...I am still The black swan of trespass on alien waters.
ERN MALLEY
The True, Sad Tale of Benjamin Peret as It Relates to Me
Hey, balcony crumbling outside my window,
whose concrete organs plummet to the parking lot below,
know this: Benjamin Peret died in 1959
and in that year I was born.
He was photographed
in a toreador s get-up,
and thus was I born, hat and all,
waving a cape at Dr. Bernie Ludwig,
I ve the pictures to prove it.
Hey, thunder of threat
that knocks the dark clouds
as if they were billiard balls
and sends poodles cowering
behind the furnace,
know this: because Benjamin Peret
croaked the year I was born,
I could not befriend him, and still
I cannot, though I try,
and I howl his name
and employ other ululations,
and I doodle his initials
on a torn piece of napkin
lodged in the throat
of an elderly neighbour
carried to the supermarket on the back of a camel
to buy six fresh eggs and a bag of prunes.
Hey, captains of industry
with your goggles and capes, your
superpowers, your considerate stationery,
I was dropped onto this planet
the year of the death
of Benjamin Peret and so
I am not his friend, nor yours,
and my mammy put me in a school for dunces
and I am a dunce, take note of my cap,
give me a dollar, a dime,
a roll of cabbage, a
piece of paper and a
reason to bespoil it.
Poem
the cricket apparatus
is no longer
functioning. Please
insert your noise
into the bleeding
night
Calendar Boy
He woke up.
He showered.
He was showered with Pulitzer Prizes.
Outside it was raining.
A thing got wet.
He pulled his window closed.
In his apartment,
the smell of his grandfather
who had died twenty years earlier.
He fried onions in a large pan.
The day got over.
He went to sleep.
Burial
They buried the puppy run down by the jeep.
They buried the gun that killed the teacher.
They buried the bird that fell from the sky.
They buried the mother.
They buried the father.
They buried the tangled necktie.
They buried the lightbulb that wouldn t dim.
They buried the broken blender.
They buried the capsule containing the artifacts.
They buried the frightening book.
They buried the brother who died in his sleep.
They buried the raincoat.
They buried the dollar.
They buried the songs that had long sustained them.
They buried the pen that ran out of ink.
They buried the river they d swum in as children.
They buried Vancouver.
They buried the flower.
They buried the moustache, the beard, and the spectacles.
They buried the answers.
They buried the hatchet.
They buried the shovel and fell to their knees.
Dinnertime
A man was so big, so big
he broke all the china
in the china shop, he
made things fall over. The
bookshelves sagged. The
children sobbed. A tiny bird
whizzed out of the clouds and
perched on his ear. Flap your
wings, the big man said,
and carry me up to the sky.
The bird spoke no English -
it just pecked at his scalp. Dinner
time always brought such
comfort. Tomorrow the man
would diet - no, he d build
an electric chair. Aye,
he d build an electric chair.
Poem of Welcome, 1953
Hello there, little green men
lined up like firewood
asleep in your capsule.
You have come far
and now must rest.
What do you eat
on your planet?
Do you have jobs?
Do your little green children
play in the streets?
Do you have streets?
Does your culture
celebrate capital?
Do you have movie stars?
If I handed you a book
would you know what it is?
If I danced for you
(and I am a superb dancer)
would you mistake my gestures
as hostile and vaporize me?
I am a man
and this place is Earth.
Have a doughnut.
Walk our roads
both paved and dirt.
Little green men, are there more
where you come from
or is your planet dead
and only you have escaped?
Do you have noses?
Do you bear gifts?
I dreamed last night that when me and Kevin
reached the top of the mountain,
he began vomiting water, convulsing.
What are you dreaming?
Do you know Kevin?
If I gave you Earth money
would you vaporize someone
I don t like?
You are little and green.
You are more famous than Abba.
Two Days Later, a Strange Quiet Fell upon the City
I cannot sleep,
and this is why:
In front of a shoe