Longlisted for 2020 CBC Poetry Prize for 'Tucson Boots'
Tucson Boots
We bought the red boots
in Tucson
the pearl grey Stetson
in Oklahoma City
the beaded buckskin jacket
in Casper
the hand-tooled wild rose billfold
in El Paso
No receipt Paid cash We were at liberty
Wearing those red boots I think about
how cold the desert is at night
and what it must be like to hole up under spikey creosote –
no coat or shoes or water
When you put on the Stetson
do you consider roiling rivers
coyotes or the implications
of summer snow on the baranca?
We are at liberty Columbian coffee, clementines from Spain
The morning papers itemize
the valuables los inmigrantes leave behind –
hoodies, t-shirts, a Yankees cap
twin rosaries, a wedding ring, a tooth
report how border guards cut sign
spotted seventeen – whole extended family
barefoot
then lost the trail. Nothing where they looked
but nets of starlings
funnelling their way north to Tamalpais
Tucson Boots
We bought the red boots
in Tucson
the pearl grey Stetson
in Oklahoma City
the beaded buckskin jacket
in Casper
the hand-tooled wild rose billfold
in El Paso
No receipt Paid cash We were at liberty
Wearing those red boots I think about
how cold the desert is at night
and what it must be like to hole up under spikey creosote –
no coat or shoes or water
When you put on the Stetson
do you consider roiling rivers
coyotes or the implications
of summer snow on the baranca?
We are at liberty Columbian coffee, clementines from Spain
The morning papers itemize
the valuables los inmigrantes leave behind –
hoodies, t-shirts, a Yankees cap
twin rosaries, a wedding ring, a tooth
report how border guards cut sign
spotted seventeen – whole extended family
barefoot
then lost the trail. Nothing where they looked
but nets of starlings
funnelling their way north to Tamalpais
Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2019 for 'Chironomy'
|
Chironomy My father’s hands drew forms from living wood. Oak beams became the level planes of sideboards, bookshelves, kitchen tables crude timber turned to bevelled bowls and spindles, white pine and ash revealed the shapes of animals - tortoise, egret, pronghorn. My father’s hands plied saws and blades and pulls and tillers untethered hounds, soothed skittish colts healed and hewed and harvested weighed up the worth of russet pears, rainbow trout. Wind-kissed and dappled they displayed the temperament of crack high wire acts – Blondin at Niagara Phillipe Petit traversing Manhattan in the mist. Long shadows sectioned out the days. I saw him lift an adze and set it down. Snow fell. The orchard shone and when at last he couldn’t speak his hands divined a rough chironomy conducted chants whose melodies said tundra, pampas, chaparral each one a chorus hymning conquest and escape. |
|
Poet-in-Residence Bursary, Poetry Ireland/Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, 2017
First Prize, Second Prize and Commendation
The Glebe House Harmony Community Trust Poetry Competition
November 23, 2016
Short-listed Nominee, The Governor General's Award for Poetry November 1992
for Blue Light, Bay and College
|
Blue Light, Bay and College The way the street crosses itself in a wirework of steel and shadow is right and not right. It is natural the sun sets behind us. Mid-March and this is further north than you have been in my country before. I should be able to explain the shifts that signal a change of season, decipher bright signatures of resumed spaces. How to account for the angle of a glass wall, the refraction of light into light, trapezoid that baffles even the photographer’s eye? There is no saying away the strangeness of things outside ourselves suddenly, here. |
Longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize for 'Tucson Boots'.
Recipient of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, 2019 for ‘Chironomy’.
Finalist for Grist 2018 Pro Forma Poetry Contest, 2018.
Finalist for The Walrus Poetry Prize, 2017 for ‘Moon With Contrail’.
Shortlisted for The Montreal Poetry Prize, 2017 for ‘You Have to Love Them Enough to Let Them Be Wild’.
Listen to 'You Have to Love Them Enough to Let Them Be Wild' at
https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/poems/you-have-to-love-them-enough-to-let-them-be-wild
Poet-in-Residence Bursary, Poetry Ireland/Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, 2017.
First Prize, Second Prize and Commendation in the Glebe House Harmony Community Trust Poetry Competition, November 23, 2016 for ‘Basil and the Air Scoop’, ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘My Father’s Last Word’.
Honourable Mention, WB Yeats Society of New York Poetry Competition, March 2016 for ‘The Fulminologist’.
Anne Szumigalski Editor's Prize, April 2002.
Short-Listed, 1999 Canadian Poetry Chapbook Manuscript Competition, Toronto, June 1999.
Finalist, National Poetry Contest, Toronto, May 1998 for 'A Tree Asleep at the Centre of a Field'.
Nominated for Governor General's Award for Poetry 1992 for Blue Light, Bay and College.
Editor's Choice Award for Poetry, University of Toronto Review, Spring 1985.
Arts Council of Northern Ireland Support for the Individual Artist Award, December 2014.
Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve Grant, February 2007, 2008, 2010.
Ontario Arts Council Writer's Grant 1977, 1980, 1988.
Recipient of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, 2019 for ‘Chironomy’.
Finalist for Grist 2018 Pro Forma Poetry Contest, 2018.
Finalist for The Walrus Poetry Prize, 2017 for ‘Moon With Contrail’.
Shortlisted for The Montreal Poetry Prize, 2017 for ‘You Have to Love Them Enough to Let Them Be Wild’.
Listen to 'You Have to Love Them Enough to Let Them Be Wild' at
https://www.montrealpoetryprize.com/poems/you-have-to-love-them-enough-to-let-them-be-wild
Poet-in-Residence Bursary, Poetry Ireland/Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, 2017.
First Prize, Second Prize and Commendation in the Glebe House Harmony Community Trust Poetry Competition, November 23, 2016 for ‘Basil and the Air Scoop’, ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘My Father’s Last Word’.
Honourable Mention, WB Yeats Society of New York Poetry Competition, March 2016 for ‘The Fulminologist’.
Anne Szumigalski Editor's Prize, April 2002.
Short-Listed, 1999 Canadian Poetry Chapbook Manuscript Competition, Toronto, June 1999.
Finalist, National Poetry Contest, Toronto, May 1998 for 'A Tree Asleep at the Centre of a Field'.
Nominated for Governor General's Award for Poetry 1992 for Blue Light, Bay and College.
Editor's Choice Award for Poetry, University of Toronto Review, Spring 1985.
Arts Council of Northern Ireland Support for the Individual Artist Award, December 2014.
Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve Grant, February 2007, 2008, 2010.
Ontario Arts Council Writer's Grant 1977, 1980, 1988.
