Archive for September, 2015

on the shoulders of giants

Posted: September 27, 2015 in karen shenfeld
Tags: , , , ,
0

shenfeld
Good citizen, I sort the trash:
melon rinds, here;
The Sunday Times, vacant
Cheerio boxes, bottles, cans, there.

From Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
Stoppard lifted his confounded courtiers.
The Bard pillaged Saxo,
who…

Spin Procol Harum, you’ll sample Bach.

The mashup maestro counsels,
“Take, mutilate.”

“If I have stood…”

Go ahead—
Steal these words, layer the melody,
release the beat!

“Shoulders of Giants: The Dance Remix?”
Why the fuck not?

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap a potato in
a rocket’s fallen scraps.

♦

Karen Shenfeld  is the Toronto Heliconian Club’s 2015 Writer in Residence. She has three books of poetry published by Guernica Editions: The Law of Return (which won the 2001 Canadian Jewish Book Award), The Fertile Crescentand My Father’s Hands Spoke in Yiddish. Her poetry has also been published in numerous national and international poetry journals. Along with being a poet, Karen is a widely published magazine journalist, editor, and filmmaker. Her indie documentary, Il Giardino, The Gardens of Little Italy, screened at several film festivals, including Planet in Focus. She is currently working on her fourth book of poetry, two documentary films, and a screenplay for a feature, which has been optioned by Canadian director Bruce McDonald.

♦♦♦

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one forty nine

Posted: September 24, 2015 in elizabeth yeoman
Tags: , , , ,
3

yeoman

$1.49.
Compare at $3.00.
I wonder what it was.
What can you get for $1.49 these days?
A synthetic scarf or gloves from someplace like Walmart,
that before that came from someplace in Guandong
where vast aisles in even vaster factories
are filled with rows of women in pink smocks putting tags on similar items.
All that work and all that infrastructure and all that fuel to bring it here.

The same day I saw this piece of litter
I was reading about 18th century crimes that could get you transported
to Newfoundland or Australia.
So many thefts of small items of clothing: scarves, gloves, shawls.
It makes you realise
how terribly underclothed the poor were in those days,
how cold they must have been.

The same day I saw this piece of litter
I bought some shrimp at the fish shop on Duckworth Street.
“Is it from here?” I asked.
“It is, but it’s processed and packaged in China” he said.
“Packaged in China and sent all the way back to us?”
“Yes, it’s cheaper that way.”

♦

Elizabeth Yeoman  is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her scholarly work is about language, culture, history and memory. She has also published poetry and travel writing in literary magazines and presented radio documentaries on CBC Radio.

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shenfeld“From Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
Stoppard lifted his confounded courtiers.”