There

by Roy Miki

Poetry. While incorporating photos and photomontages, Roy Miki's THERE explores the mergins connecting social and individual language. Canada, Asia, and Europe provide the local conditions where the authorial "i" engages both with globalization and with the collision between otherness and spatialization. THERE explores the margins connecting social and individual language, echoing a multiplicity of voices drawn from conversation, advertising, historiography and scientific proceedings. Miki's 2002 book Surrender won the Governor-General's Award. This is his fourth book of poetry.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published November 30, 2006

About the author

Roy Akira Miki was a Canadian poet, scholar, editor, and activist most known for his social and literary work.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do instants
Affect or effect?

The protocol
Calls for briefing

The time scheme
Falls on command

The brow beats
The chest harbours

Estimation gathers
Out to the tail gate

Howls of discontent
Meet the airwaves

Sagacity doubles
As city saga

Fine tunes
Like rustling

- Do Wonder, pg. 11

* * *

- the semis roll down the highway
regardless of the copse of birches

the swaying axis reformulates the
hum of the train's horn across fields

of standing water borrowed from
a poem that is dispersed in a flood

of some phonemes linked by the
candid throw of dice across the bridge

on one side the multiple rows of tiny pine
standing upright in the space invented

Why is it possible to make known the
otherwise impossible calculation of indents

the bruised fruit of the loam in drainage
networks the extent of freeways on the ropes

even in a conspicuous daylight the size
of the seizure would be unmistakable

the cow in the pasture gesticulates in a wink
that he needs to perform a rescue mission

Arrivez arrivez arrivez in the earlobes the
faint patter of letter feet across the plein

pulling into Alexandria he remembers the
Atlantic Hotel and the forays of forged tristes

Look there's a blue house sinking in the earth
all its insides cry out for the dream of resistence

he thinks of the V formation of the geese
in the graying sky outside the left window

his fingers on the keyboard as the train sways
the black wave of lines in the peripheral -

propels an uneasy truce

- The Alliance of Telephone Wires, pg. 17-18

* * *

The 7 am slant light
across the brown oak

Table a blithe window
frame alight by a blue

Jay across the compressed
headlines of the daily news

The spectral ingenuity of
a company duly noted

Jay pecking the grass
with the flashy garb of

Orioles not to mention
speckled flickers sashaying

Around the clustering design
of aerial message markers

The sparrows mock the maker
of poems going nowhere fast

- A Wakeful Morning, pg. 48

* * *

the idea
is sent afar

nestled among
the bramble

buoyant as
the rushes

*

the questions
form among

the deeds
best left

in the cold
midnight air

*

sedate folders
in the sedge

nestling as
function

form not
far behind

*

rolling hills
top the mist

see saw of
valves open

waves drift
on the make

*

true blue
misfortunes

residual leaves
frost on panes

no game plan
no gain blame

*

heels dug in
rulers are no

measure the
boat docks

at 2 wonder
what gives

*

try to hold
to the plan

as faulty
as the segment

may be
installed

*

all the truisms
put together

even in
bouquets

cannot weather
the delay

*

used to be
all the hollering

went on unabated
until the bent twig

unannounced
held court

- Alibis, pg. 64-67

* * *

There is the location
in front of the computer

The technology dissipates
and the ache of the temporal

exudes a fine mist that conjures
the diaphragm of rolling hills

minted fevers that produce
crab apples by the bushel

Tart folds in the evening walks
on the boardwalk the ferris wheel

whirls in overdrive as the street
talk moves the crowd past

- There, pg. 85