Maureen Glaude
Doris Fiszer
LM Rochefort
Doris Fiszer
SUNDAY VISIT
Another winter has taken more of you.
The putting in order is your life now
archived letters to explain
photographs to divide amongst us
unexpected gifts of my mother's jewelry
difficult for you to part with.
The walker you use
the railing you had installed to navigate
the steps from your dining room to your living room
not so bad, when you remember everything.
We talk of your antique clocks
you recently had repaired
so that they could chime
you enjoy winding them you say
their wood reminds you of forest
you like the sound each clock makes
counting off the hours.
Does the silence make you remember too much
I want to ask?
Better to watch the river
spectacular from
your living room window.
I remember my dream
you, with suitcase in hand,
waving goodbye.
When you remember everything
there is no place to travel.
I want you to stay
so I can see the river through your eyes
the sun shine through your window.
Spring's coming is all I manage to say.
LM Rochefort
FRACTAL SPRING
trickle of water trance fountain rain
blue
spilt soda art-spheres cluster golden tan
skin
alone like ponds fed from underground
springs
lick a tangerine tongue for a finger of
light
light(e)ning shock flash our only connection
white
dazzling the diamond in nose stud a
spark
spoon-feeding the storm competes with all
thought
summer's salvation a single
(glam) giggle
bubbles and mirrors round silver
conducive though the
concrete universal is cracked by
a drop
Maureen Glaude
FOUND
Phantom eyes mark this stone, shaped like a woman soon to give birth.
My fingers explore the rough dips and smooth slopes of its darks
and lights, an imperfect dirt lane of a manicured highway
tri-toned in grey, white-ribbon trimmed across a solid
form - cool to the touch, just right for a calming ritual.
There's a pictograph hint to this find.
By sunset I discovered it along this shore where sand sifts fine
and a beached canoe jostles in wavewash, like the upper berth
on a Skeena rail car as it skirts the Rockies in its ritual
circuit while the mountains loom weeping in the western dark.
My hands sense the secret of the granite's solid
strength; no ordinary rock, this, to kick off the highway.
A sudden shift. Below, a sound of hail stones but of higher weight.
My feet secure the safest hold they can find
As shale slides down into wistful water; this upper ground's more solid.
Confidence and serenity recovered, I witness evening's birth.
The sun's slipped away as if loosed from fumbling fingers. By dark
the ribbon-necked loons start their crying ritual.
Natives launched floating pyres on boats in mournful ritual
over bodies of water on shores such as these. The shoulder off Highway
Seven's flagged by the face of the Canadian shield, but this gouged, dark
mystery stone of mine is small, smells of the earth of ancient finds
and outshines the topaz designated for my month of birth.
It builds my spirits, like the sturdy boulders that make piers solid.
Indented in the surface, here's the slash of a solidus*
reminiscent of the one on the keyboard of daily computer rituals.
Fossils of creatures track death, not birth.
I remember "Beware of falling rocks" signs back on the highway
en route to this secluded scene that times never manages to find
where peace bleaches the memory of the real world's darks.
The hand of deity's in this landscape, the thin place that lifts my darks.
Celtic Christians make pilgrimages to keep their faith solid,
leaving prayer stones along their paths for followers to find.
I'll take home this hard smooth token for meditative rituals,
a talisman in hand for the trip back to the highway.
Something in the essence of endings gives birth.
These oval hollows - the ghost's eyes, made dark from some strange ritual
or a wish to return from ethereal to solid? Was she once a gypsy of the highway?
Answers are not part of this find. Only new questions are birthed.
* solidus - a short oblique stroke (/) between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the text in which they occur. Or a dividing line, as in dates, fractions, a run-on passage of poetry to show verse division, etc.
COLLECTED WORKS
1242 Wellington Street West (at Holland)
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The Wellington Street poets have been writing and publishing together for 10 years, since they first assembled as a poetry-writing group under the guidance of Stephanie Bolster. Now more aptly called The Wellington Street Poets and Friends, with other Ottawa-area poets joining their monthly workshops over the past few years, they are very pleased to up the ante this year and include art from five local artists on the cover and in the pages of Oblique Strokes. This is their seventh anthologized collection.
Also by The Wellington Street Poets
A Capella (1998)
Bouquet (1999)
Black Leather (2001)
All in the Waiting (2002)
A Closer Look (2004)
The Temperature of Dreams (2005)
Poems by The Wellington Street Poets and Friends
Edited by Barbara Myers
Book design, layout, and web by Adrian Jones
Cover art by Patricia Kirby
Printed by Bypress, Ottawa
Published in Canada by Fire Grass Press
October, 2007
All rights reserved
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Oblique strokes : poems / by the Wellington Street Poets and friends ; edited by Barbara Myers.
ISBN 978-0-9688660-2-3
1. Canadian poetry (English)--Ontario--Ottawa. 2. Canadian poetry (English)--21st century. I. Myers, Barbara J. (Barbara Jean) II. Wellington Street Poets (Ottawa, Ont.)
PS8295.7.O8O25 2007 C811'.6080971384 C2007-905965-1
Iris Anderson, a native of Winnipeg, has written hundreds of poems, most of which she can't find. However, she gains courage from the words of one of her favourite poems, "Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them."
Jacqueline Bourque. Writing poetry allows Jacqueline to explore the edges of life and give free rein to her expression. Her poems have been featured in the anthologies a cappella and A Closer Look, and her own Crazed Red Vessel. Drawing is a recent endeavour that she is pursuing at the Ottawa School of Art. Of Acadian origin, she grew up along the ocean shores of New Brunswick.
Frances Boyle retains strong ties to Regina and Vancouver. She has published both poetry (in Arc, CV 2, and In Fine Form, An Anthology of Canadian Form Poetry) and fiction (in Room of One's Own and The Fiddlehead). Her writing has received awards in Ottawa Public Library, Canadian Authors' Association and CV 2 contests.
Mary Lee Bragg was born and educated in Calgary, but has lived in Ottawa since the 1980s, doing research and policy work on official languages for the federal government. She has published one novel (Shooting Angels, 2004), and plans to continue writing in retirement. She is married to poet Colin Morton.
Janet Clarke has taught English to adolescents for many years. She recently joined the Wellington group and is beginning to get a feel for what so many others know: that writing poetry becomes a joyful necessity.
Doris Fiszer grew up in Ottawa and has always enjoyed the writing process. As a member of The Wellington Street Poets, she has worked under the guidance of Stephanie Bolster, Terry Ann Carter, and Barbara Myers. She has produced two chapbooks and collaborated on four anthologies. Her poems have appeared in The Voice and bywords.ca. She is currently teaching English at Algonquin College.
Maureen Glaude (Nov. 23, 1953 - July 18, 2007). An active member of Ottawa's writing community for the past decade until her untimely death this year, Maureen was a valued member of The Wellington Street Poets and contributed to two earlier chapbooks as well as this one. Her work was recently published in The Voice. Her poem "Daffodils" took second prize in the Ray Burrell contest, 2005.
Catherine Matthews' creative writing was nurtured on Prince Edward Island where she wrote and published widely until returning to Ottawa in 2003. Now, from a lozenge-green cottage on the Outaouais she is writing again. Most recently published in Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land, The Acorn Press, 2001.
This is Wendy Reuben's second chapbook with the group (her poems also appear in The Temperature of Dreams). "Finding time and space for poetry can be a struggle; however, poems come from a place not satisfied by other activities. As a member of The Wellington Street Poets, this need to write is both nurtured - and honoured."
LM Rochefort is an Ottawa-based "slash careerist" who loves to write poetry and enjoys work as a consultant in various fields such as community mental health programs / business incentive travel / property management / communications / and personal development. Being mother to two great teenagers and partner to an amazing man is the sometimes solid / sometimes sagging / line on which it hangs: kinks, knots and all.
Dawn Steiner began writing poetry with The Wellington Street Poets under the guidance of Stephanie Bolster in 1997. She has produced three chapbooks The Ties that Bind (1999), Freeze Frame (2000) and Reflections (2001). Currently working on a collection of her poems, she continues to be inspired by the exceptional individuals she has the pleasure to work with in the classroom everyday.
Canadian visual artist Jacqueline Ballhorn is well known for her colourful paintings in watercolour, mixed media, and acrylics on canvas. A native of San Francisco, California until the age of 18, her background includes solo and group exhibits in Canada since 1989. Although her paintings have a spontaneity about them, they are actually well thought-out works based on balance and composition. She specializes in portraits, urban landscapes and floral compositions. jballhorn_paintings@rogers.com
Jacqueline Bourque. Drawing is a recent endeavour that she is pursuing at the Ottawa School of Art. Of Acadian origin, she grew up along the ocean shores of New Brunswick.
This work ("Redwood Forest #2" on the cover) by Patricia Kirby is part of her 2007 Spirit Tree series. She makes water media art as well as collages and teaches classes in Ottawa. She was juried into the Foyer Gallery in 2005 and shows work at the Parkdale Gallery and Santé Restaurant/Gallery. Her work hangs in collections in North America and Europe. patriciakirby@rogers.com
Dale Taylor studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts and has been an art and drama teacher for many years. She is presently the arts consultant for the Ottawa Carleton District School Board. Her most recent exhibition, "Wave Dreaming", was at the Atrium Gallery in 2001. In 1997 Dale spent a year in Australia where she lived with the sound of the surf breaking in front of her beach house, watching dolphins and whales. This inspired her to make visual images of the experience of actually being inside the waves.
Kenji Toyooka is an Ottawa-based artist who began painting five years ago, at a time when he had gotten disenchanted about his life as a computer programmer. After getting inspiration from a 6-month trip to Mexico, he had his first show in 2003 and has since broadened his style to encompass colourful naturalistic portraits, to abstract graphic work, to surrealism, and much in between. He treats every work as differently as possible to explore the multitude of experiences involved in painting