Category Archives: Poetry

sans Hypatia sans

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Francois Lachance

In a message to a friend, I mis-transcribed the title of the poetry collection as Le Spleen de Pouchkeepsie instead of “Poughkeepsie”. That “C” should have been a “G”. It just so happens that the typeface is Hypatia Sans and … Continue reading →

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Broken Chains

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Inspired by Lucas Cranach’s The Judgement of Paris, our poet liberates the word’s syllables. She exhibits herself to us with a goddess’s instinctive                               certitude. She holds her                          wrists back, servile and opaque, as                          if submitting herself to man- acles. Her … Continue reading →

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House and Garden

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Francois Lachance

From a poetry workshop. House & Garden in the shadows after the dishes before the night cap sitting in the house viewing the garden snow drifts insulate our slumbering bulbs as we keep vigil as ever we did. This was … Continue reading →

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Theatre of Quotation and Gesture

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Francois Lachance

But soft, the story starts anew. It is the last line of the last poem in Randall Mann’s Breakfast with Thom Gunn. And its somewhat Shakespearean tone befits the poem “Fictions” which it concludes for it combines a lullaby sentiment … Continue reading →

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intimate time

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Daphne Marlatt. Liquidities in the section “Some Open Doors” closes the poem “innuendo” with these suggestive lines his laugh her shrug the time it takes intime fake brass reflects used shine of coffee mug she lifts to wipe his place … Continue reading →

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Landscape Translations

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Canadian sketch after Lachlan MacKinnon Deep as forever Great river of stars Above cabin in the woods Inspired by MacKinnon’s opening to “A Suffolk Sketchbook” in Small Hours Deep as forever the great field of stars over the cottage garden. … Continue reading →

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Realigning Evoba

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Francois Lachance

I have been particularly struck by squares in Steve McCaffery’s Evoba. These emerge out of lists and give rise to operations of -sculpting- or -dropping- and here are three given new arrangement by decontextualization and quoting — two other forms … Continue reading →

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New Lines On Aging

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Lines from a new Sappho poem – 2004 Cologne – 2005 Britain – Martin West’s translation appearing in the Times Literary Supplement [but my once tender] body old age now [has seized;] my hair’s turned [white] instead of dark; Lachlan … Continue reading →

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Through Stonyground

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Francois Lachance

In Slow Curve Out, Maureen Scott Harris has as one of the opening poems an elegy to Alex Wilson, landscape restorer and author. She concludes the poem with the recollection of first hearing of Alex’s illness at Stonyground. The location … Continue reading →

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Lief To Be Alive

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Charles Bernstein in the introduction to Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word in a description come injunction invites the reader to enter into a site of openness. The most resonant possibilities for poetry as a medium can be realized … Continue reading →

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