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Field Marks: The Poetry of Don McKay (Laurier Poetry) by Don McKay
Excellent Book
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published January 3, 2006
35 people want to read
About the author
Don McKay
57 books24 followersDon McKay is an award-winning Canadian poet, editor, and educator.
McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.
In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books, one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96.
In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]
McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.
In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books, one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96.
In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 23, 2022
What I remember
about the Great Blue Heron that rose
like its name over the marsh
is touching and holding that small
manyveined
wrist
upon the gunwale, to signal silently -
look
the Great Blue Heron
(the bidboned wrist).
* * *
Along the scarecrow's arms & head & shoulders sit
the blackbird
laughing.
"This is an image of a scarecrow
thinking about blackbirds" they
laugh, thinking of themselves as the thinking
of the scarecrow - ha!
hilarity
fills the air around the scarecrow.
This could almost twist the stitched
mouth into smiling.
To his blackbirds he seems suddenly
bemused.
* * *
What is there to say
when the sky pours in the window
and the ground begins to eat its figures?
We sit like dummies in our kitchen, deaf
among enormous crumplings of light.
Small wonder each thing looms
crowding its edge.
In silent movies everyone overacts a little.
It would be nice to breathe the air inside the cello.
That would satisfy one
thirst of the voice. As it is
only your ribcage speaks for me now,
a wicker basket full of sorrow and wish, so tough
so finely tuned we have often
reinvented the canoe
and paddled off.
It would be nice to write the field guide for those riverbanks,
to speak without names of the fugitive
nocturnal creatures that live and die in our lives.
* * *
The wolf at the door
and the wolf in the forest and the work
work work of art. The scrape,
the chop, the saw tooth
tasting maple. The cradle, the cup, the muscle
in your mother's arm and back
and pelvis, muscle flexing in the air
between two people arguing,
two people loving, muscle
pumping blood. Gut
summoned to speak. The rotary cuff, the wrist,
having learnt the trick of witching wands and locks,
the heft, the grain, the web,
the rub of moving parts.
And the tiny sea in the ear
and the moth wing in the mind, which wait.
* * *
astounded, astonied, astunned, stopped short
and turned stone, the moment
filling with its slow
stratified time. Standing there, your face
cratered by its gawk,
you might be the symbol signifying aeon.
What are you, empty or pregnant? Somewhere
sediments accumulate on seabeds, seabeds
rear up into mountains, ammonites
fossilize into gems. Are you thinking
or being thought? Cities
as sand dunes, epics
as e-mail. Astonished
you are famous and anonymous, the border
washed out by so soft a thing as weather. Someone
inside you steps from the forest and across the beach
toward the nameless all-dissolving ocean.
about the Great Blue Heron that rose
like its name over the marsh
is touching and holding that small
manyveined
wrist
upon the gunwale, to signal silently -
look
the Great Blue Heron
(the bidboned wrist).
- The Great Blue Heron, pg. 4
* * *
Along the scarecrow's arms & head & shoulders sit
the blackbird
laughing.
"This is an image of a scarecrow
thinking about blackbirds" they
laugh, thinking of themselves as the thinking
of the scarecrow - ha!
hilarity
fills the air around the scarecrow.
This could almost twist the stitched
mouth into smiling.
To his blackbirds he seems suddenly
bemused.
- Lependu nearly materialized by his blackbirds, pg. 11
* * *
What is there to say
when the sky pours in the window
and the ground begins to eat its figures?
We sit like dummies in our kitchen, deaf
among enormous crumplings of light.
Small wonder each thing looms
crowding its edge.
In silent movies everyone overacts a little.
It would be nice to breathe the air inside the cello.
That would satisfy one
thirst of the voice. As it is
only your ribcage speaks for me now,
a wicker basket full of sorrow and wish, so tough
so finely tuned we have often
reinvented the canoe
and paddled off.
It would be nice to write the field guide for those riverbanks,
to speak without names of the fugitive
nocturnal creatures that live and die in our lives.
- Another Theory of Dusk, pg. 27
* * *
The wolf at the door
and the wolf in the forest and the work
work work of art. The scrape,
the chop, the saw tooth
tasting maple. The cradle, the cup, the muscle
in your mother's arm and back
and pelvis, muscle flexing in the air
between two people arguing,
two people loving, muscle
pumping blood. Gut
summoned to speak. The rotary cuff, the wrist,
having learnt the trick of witching wands and locks,
the heft, the grain, the web,
the rub of moving parts.
And the tiny sea in the ear
and the moth wing in the mind, which wait.
- Early Instruments, pg. 33
* * *
astounded, astonied, astunned, stopped short
and turned stone, the moment
filling with its slow
stratified time. Standing there, your face
cratered by its gawk,
you might be the symbol signifying aeon.
What are you, empty or pregnant? Somewhere
sediments accumulate on seabeds, seabeds
rear up into mountains, ammonites
fossilize into gems. Are you thinking
or being thought? Cities
as sand dunes, epics
as e-mail. Astonished
you are famous and anonymous, the border
washed out by so soft a thing as weather. Someone
inside you steps from the forest and across the beach
toward the nameless all-dissolving ocean.
- Astonished -, pg. 48
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews