Poetry Month with MQUP

April is poetry month, to celebrate we are sharing some of our favourite poems from a few of the titles in our Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series.

From Trio
Shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, 2016.
By Sarah Tolmie

See you and raise you. Raise you like an island
Hove in sight. Raise you like the window under
A kite. To an angel down from Paradise.
Raise you to the power of the infinite.
All games of chance bore me to death, so
I raise you like a feather on my breath.
No one bets against the gods but fools
And they have nothing else to do, except
Rule nations and shoot to win at pool.
Not so I you. You are the real deal.
I’ve spun you high on fortune’s wheel
Because you deserve to be there, in my view.
And then, seeing what you have become
Just staying in the game, I’ve won.

From Cast From Bells
By Suzanne Hancock

Give me something upturned, something shiny, something to believe in for a while
Give me the day I finally remembered this is mine and only mine
Give me your ears, and your voice in mine
Give me a cupped palm, a warm wind
Give me a way inside

Give me new words to say new things
Give me your humming breath on my neck
Give me footfalls on the stairs after absence and the subsequent stir
Give me back one of those first days, those perfectly foolish days when everything hard was forgotten

Give the stubborn morning its own life; and let it want to know me

From Where We Live

By John Reibetanz

Grounded
from the German of Durs Grünbein

Never liftoff, these pecs
weak as emu or ostrich.
Ribs too hefty, gormless
limbs not springy enough.
Standing at the window, elbows
akimbo, tracing a gull’s
plunge, hurts like a toothache.
Arcs, ovoids, ampersands
floor you, number one on
the endangered list, Long-
Necked Invalid. Only
a penguin can stand it, wings
twitching, dreams lofty.

From The Unlit Path Behind the House
By Margo Wheaton

Fireflies
Tonight, they are low green
notes in the field, a barely
audible humming

reminding you
of all that you know

about inwardness.

You came out here
to rescue patio chairs from an
oncoming storm,

get a read on the sky before
heading to town.

Now, you’re leaning
against the balcony rail, tuned
to the roaming cadence
of their coming

and going,

breathing slower,
your body a page

upon which the singing
world writes.