(flood basement

by Jeremy Stewart

Jeremy Stewart's first book, (flood basement , is a young poet's search for and discovery of his place in the local landscape. The poet is haunted by the legacy of colonialism and propelled by the struggles of a community seeking its own identity. (flood basement is the raw, shocking and innocent journey of an emerging artist in a seemingly inflexible world. In this collection Stewart shares a collage of fragments that amount to a portrait of the Prince George of his youth, a transcription of a midnight audio journey, and an introspection of the fluctuating and sometimes fragile identity of the writer. Stewart's work pushes the boundaries of innovative and experimental poetry while weaving a visual narrative of the world in which he lives.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Jeremy Stewart's latest book is an experimental novella called "In Singing, He Composed a Song," (University of Calgary Press 2021).

Stewart is the winner of the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry for Hidden City (Invisible Publishing). Stewart is also the author of (flood basement (Caitlin Press 2009). His work has appeared in Canadian Literature, PRISM International, filling Station, Open Letter, Geist, and elsewhere.

Stewart lives in White Rock, British Columbia with his partner and their children. He once dropped a piano off a building.

Reviews

[Nadine Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an innovative and moving compilations of poems. I look forward to more from this interesting poet.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I lay me down to sleep
now, I'm being harangued
they're pulling off my shoes (my soles to keep)

eyes found me right justified and sans serif
not in the 7-11, but outside, always
keeping my hands in my ripped-off pockets

my language a modulation of the wrappers
"may contain traces of partially hydrogenated
modernist tradition" now lying in the parking lot

cast-off and outworn, a recycled bicycle under
the wheels of a new F-350, sparks flying little
children swearing in the magazine aisle, looking on

burnt garbage for warmth, rearranged remains
found, left-bracketed but not right, unfinished
and though they blast Indian classical, I am inexorable

- pg. 15

* * *

(street lamp buzz)

orange street lamps speak low
zzzzzzzzzzz
in their sleep
they make snow pink now
pink street lamps make the snow seem candy sweet
white street lamps are coldest / calculating a murder scene / your movements
made mechanical zzzzzzzzzzz
blue street lamps / night flowers bloom solarized
transport you into a gegenlichtaufnahmen movie frame of mind.
Yellow street lamps rot the teeth out of your skull.
They turn on when you walk by

they burn out when you walk by.
They know to wake up in the morning and hang
out waiting for the bus.
They know to snore
they are friends to traffic
signals and walk figures.
They know to not work all the time.


Postscript.
zzzzzzzzzzz


(Lamp) post-postscript.
zzzzzzzzzzz

- pg. 29

* * *

(Queen of the Queensway Drag Queens)

RIP

F----- (F----) P-------

you were the Queen, alright, you were so damn hot
people didn't even know you were Queen

and on a damn cold morning, when they were opening up
you were found out in the alley

the papers couldn't print the news, but the word
got around downtown, a legend by sundown

the Big Man was wasted after a visit to the Columbus, and damn
if the peelers didn't work him up a hankerin'

Queensway autumn black and lamp-orange October wind unwound
the window to pick up a faux fur long bleached hairdo stranger, baby

the Big Man took the Queen for a ride, the Queen took the Big Man
for a ride, and who know just how far they got together

the Queen, a shocker, street-walker, smooth-talker, the Big Man got more
than he bargained for, but he was prepared to cut a deal

that was the coldest, hardest, ugliest winter
the city had ever known.

- pg. 34

* * *

could that be a
parka if it was worn
by a m m man of a very
small height Answer Yes but
it would be a very poor fitting
parka


(no. 2 pencil on the splintered wooden
door of a bar, now gone under)

- pg. 47

* * *

(side A / tape heads click into place)

from over my back fence
I can see the work of the mad window smasher

I can see the moon and the sunflower

neighbour: "Hi"
How you doing?
neighbour: "Fine, you?"
I'm doing fine, it sure has been beautiful, hasn't it?
neighbour: "Oh yeah."

I had imagined starting from the beginning

(the walk signal is on)

the time between when I left my house and arrived
at the beginning wouldn't been a meditation
a sharpening
bu now I see that to approach the beginning
is the walk I'm on

and the flickering street lamp that never turns on or off
is the meditation

the last of the cottonwood cotton breathes
through the intersection
of 20th & Spruce

already, the sound of the heads clicking into place
and the wheels beginning to turn
and the hiss of my cassette deck
has become a weight

- pg. 74