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Re:union
is an attempt to engage sincerely with a ridiculous world. It’s a bundle of lyrics, prose, and postcards. Addressing figures ranging from Ayn Rand to the Wu-Tang Clan, and mining political convictions, personal loss, loves (old-fashioned and brand new), the poems in this collection reach you in ways that are direct and affecting. “An excellent set of nimble-witted poems.” — The Coast
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 28, 2014
An inspired and melancholic collection of poems that grows from memories formed in St. Catharines, South Korea, Boston's Logan Airport, Sackville, New Brunswick and sadly, Buffalo, New York. Miller recalls breaking hearts, missed kicks, reviled kiss attempts in a series of letters, lyrics, prose, and poems. Somewhere ODB, Grandad, and Joanna all read this book and smile.
January 23, 2022
Dear Ayn Rand,
Thank God you're dead, in dollars you've sewn up. For all you knew, we're all you.
Stuff the all. I'm doing me, while they do them. They do jokes about Stalin, talk sincere about anarchy.
A is A, whatever will be will be. I was behind, but now I see.
Seriously, take me. I'm in a bad state; all states are bad.
Can you lift, rising tide? Boats over the skyline suppose walls were built to fall.
I have shored these lines against an expensive grave
Freedom gone postal
Freedom to say, poetry is passé
Business won't go out of business
Business won't go out of business
These letters, lyrics, look
you at your word.
* * *
Dear Andrew,
You leap into my living room
scatter books and cats
gleaning
where I winter
winter I wear
words arrive slowly
bundled in hesitations
* * *
Have the fun we might
impromptu Montreal
hindsight forgets its arrival
The other man in my aisle while we idle
rereading Atlas Shrugged
to his child.
* * *
The Canada Malting silos cannot see
the woman assault her suitcase
she is in the frame
"Just fill in the empty spaces,"
a photographer friend advises
Ok.
* * *
Just one:
I didn't catch your eye at breakfast
It landed in a falafel at not-my table
You threw your eye? A bit desperate
even for the sake of metaphor.
Then again
You pre-empted me.
* * *
Dear Laura,
Once upon a time
I wrote a poem after our only brunch date at Jane's
necessarily failing to describe your eyes
in ridiculous rapture, on my bed - scribbling
Now I'm in a bus station in Buffalo,
recalling things that I never sent
A dilemma that didn't become one
Walking the four miles from Toronto Island
to our neighbourhood for the night
Following Pavement, mustard, beaches, wine boxes,
David Foster Wallace, poutine stops. Oh, and that private ferry
"The Heat of the Moment" played
You kept quoting my line:
"Passive is the only aggressive I've got."
* * *
Dear ODB,
You were right about the raw
it wears through me
I like it too.
* * *
Dear Karen,
The dead don't need the writing on our walls
Lou Reed gone before the fried egg sandwiches came
wasn't aware he went on past Berlin
where there's a zoo, there's a real big zoo
when we go every animal will know
we're speculating upon their birthdays.
* * *
Bringing a black eye to my protest
in the food court of the Mic Mac mall
to call a genocide a genocide
Lola saw her first snow this afternoon
her head upturned as if grateful
could she know where anything comes from.
* * *
Dear Frank O'Hara,
I'm trying you out in the deli. Cornered beef on rye. Might make up my mind. Your consumptive enthusiasm has me unsure. My friend Bart says it's about poetics in which case you're pathetic. The art of buying isn't hard to master. Too happy today though to turn myself into a municipal election. Spoiled ballots and too much coffee.
Then I'll decide to detour through the Public Gardens but it will be Central Park. People with their redundant get-lost sunglasses. I am! My phone buzzes with a baseball game tonight. If I ever find my way back, beyond the Frisbee, the supine yard sale. Smiling, sapped of anxiety.
Thank God you're dead, in dollars you've sewn up. For all you knew, we're all you.
Stuff the all. I'm doing me, while they do them. They do jokes about Stalin, talk sincere about anarchy.
A is A, whatever will be will be. I was behind, but now I see.
Seriously, take me. I'm in a bad state; all states are bad.
Can you lift, rising tide? Boats over the skyline suppose walls were built to fall.
I have shored these lines against an expensive grave
Freedom gone postal
Freedom to say, poetry is passé
Business won't go out of business
Business won't go out of business
These letters, lyrics, look
you at your word.
- Neolettrism
* * *
Dear Andrew,
You leap into my living room
scatter books and cats
gleaning
where I winter
winter I wear
words arrive slowly
bundled in hesitations
- Disciples
* * *
Have the fun we might
impromptu Montreal
hindsight forgets its arrival
The other man in my aisle while we idle
rereading Atlas Shrugged
to his child.
- Overlaid
* * *
The Canada Malting silos cannot see
the woman assault her suitcase
she is in the frame
"Just fill in the empty spaces,"
a photographer friend advises
Ok.
- Anachronisms
* * *
Just one:
I didn't catch your eye at breakfast
It landed in a falafel at not-my table
You threw your eye? A bit desperate
even for the sake of metaphor.
Then again
You pre-empted me.
- Regrets of a Harpoon-Shy Harpooner
* * *
True art has nothing whatsoever to do with disgusting emotional exhibitionism.- Slavoj Žižek
Dear Laura,
Once upon a time
I wrote a poem after our only brunch date at Jane's
necessarily failing to describe your eyes
in ridiculous rapture, on my bed - scribbling
Now I'm in a bus station in Buffalo,
recalling things that I never sent
A dilemma that didn't become one
Walking the four miles from Toronto Island
to our neighbourhood for the night
Following Pavement, mustard, beaches, wine boxes,
David Foster Wallace, poutine stops. Oh, and that private ferry
"The Heat of the Moment" played
You kept quoting my line:
"Passive is the only aggressive I've got."
- Singularity
* * *
Dear ODB,
You were right about the raw
it wears through me
I like it too.
- Ohh Baby
* * *
Dear Karen,
The dead don't need the writing on our walls
Lou Reed gone before the fried egg sandwiches came
wasn't aware he went on past Berlin
where there's a zoo, there's a real big zoo
when we go every animal will know
we're speculating upon their birthdays.
- If You Want To
* * *
Bringing a black eye to my protest
in the food court of the Mic Mac mall
to call a genocide a genocide
Lola saw her first snow this afternoon
her head upturned as if grateful
could she know where anything comes from.
- Inaugural
* * *
Dear Frank O'Hara,
I'm trying you out in the deli. Cornered beef on rye. Might make up my mind. Your consumptive enthusiasm has me unsure. My friend Bart says it's about poetics in which case you're pathetic. The art of buying isn't hard to master. Too happy today though to turn myself into a municipal election. Spoiled ballots and too much coffee.
Then I'll decide to detour through the Public Gardens but it will be Central Park. People with their redundant get-lost sunglasses. I am! My phone buzzes with a baseball game tonight. If I ever find my way back, beyond the Frisbee, the supine yard sale. Smiling, sapped of anxiety.
- Poem
October 16, 2018
I ~adored~ this piece of work,
Granted, I fit directly into the niche of this work--a big fan of philosophical allusions, young, jaded and always looking for the hilarious, even in the tragic. Geordie was a fantastic prof, but this is definitely where he shines most. The majority of these poems made me exclaim, some made me guffaw, a choice few had me shedding tears; every single one made me feel privileged to be getting such an honest and heartwrenching insight into another human's mind and heart.
In a strange way, these poems made me feel seen, and I will forever be thankful for that, as well as aspiring to do the same with my own work.
Granted, I fit directly into the niche of this work--a big fan of philosophical allusions, young, jaded and always looking for the hilarious, even in the tragic. Geordie was a fantastic prof, but this is definitely where he shines most. The majority of these poems made me exclaim, some made me guffaw, a choice few had me shedding tears; every single one made me feel privileged to be getting such an honest and heartwrenching insight into another human's mind and heart.
In a strange way, these poems made me feel seen, and I will forever be thankful for that, as well as aspiring to do the same with my own work.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews