A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People

Gabe Foreman

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781770562844
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People is not your average reference book. It turns a series of sociological case studies into a functional encyclopedia that doubles as an achingly funny collection of poems. "Bridesmaids, " "Day Traders, " and "Number Crunchers" are all dutifully cataloged in a series of luminously strange, compellingly original lyric and prose poems.

WOOLGATHERERS

Your dad looks pretty serious
when he shouts above the clamour
of his red and rattling mower
from his flat, suburban lawn, half-cut,
with clippings on his knees,
‘Her beak will spin a spool of wool
for every ghoul she sees!’

The reader’s father makes a cryptic remark.

The rotor clogs with mulch and stalls.
Dad leaves it where it dies.
He grabs two chairs, cracks two beers,
and stares into my eyes.

I lay floating on my back several feet beneath the surface of the ocean.

His hat is straw, he wears no shirt,
just shorts of tattered jean.
He hasn’t shaved his beard for days.
He stinks of gasoline.

He tells me of a tranquil spot
he’d fished some months before,
‘with trembling aspen on the satin
hills around the shore.’

The water clotted with tasselled objects that blazed green as the sun stabbed down.

The lake was blue, the clouds were few,
the hills appeared to float
when a fist rose from the icy deep
to hook your father’s boat.

And yanking downward on the stern,
a wrist like twisted cable
was fastened to a squat misshapen
creature from a fable.

As the beings eclipsed one another, shafts of light broke through the gaps.

A naked demon lurched aboard,
your dad goes on to say.
It thumped into his vessel’s hull
and stood up, in a way.

That twisted monster raised its fist
and scowled at your dad.
‘I was a captain,’ moaned the ghoul,
‘the best the sea had had!’

The light illuminated stray particles in the sea, and glowed in the long, transparent strands that entangled my ankles and hands.

‘When canvas bloomed from masts
that clenched the deck like living trees
I was the last skipper of that clipper,
fastest on the sea.

‘We’d voyaged ’til the polar chill
gave way to jungle heat.
We parked the ship off Eden’s coast
and captured pigs to eat.

‘We’d shot across the choppy tops
of crooked straits and bays,
Then fought a headless hurricane
and rode its back for days.

I was a marionette strung inside a fortress of jellyfish.

‘We journeyed ’til the ports we sought
were islands in the mind
wrapped in thick, forgetful mist –
impossible to find.’

Your father swigs a tidal swig,
and coughs a little cough.
He drops the bottle in the grass
picks up where the ghoul left off.

My awareness swallowed by our slow descent.

‘The clipper’s crew, they prayed,
but now the sun refused to set.
The sea grew flat, as green as grass,
then darker – with regret.’

‘For the wind had died, the canvas hung
like towels on the line.
Their food ran out. All hands began
complaining all the time.’

‘Now mutiny, a brawl on deck –
the crew had gone insane
when a Tree of Choices sprouted up
inside the captain’s brain.’

As we went, the surface faded, and we glowed with a soft blue tone of our own.

‘And from its single branch
a snowy pelican set sail.
She circled the beleaguered ship
and landed on the rail.’

A vent in the flank of an undersea mountain burped a cluster of cold bubbles as we passed.

‘She swung her pterodactyl gaze,
dropped her sturdy neck,
then brought up something hairy
and spat it on the deck.’

Your dad presents me with a blob
the captain left for him:
a tangled mass of dirty string
that reeked of pelican.

An enormous crab saluted from a chimney of coral.

‘Behold that wayward shorebird,’
your father urges me.
‘Her beak will spin a spool of wool
for every ghoul it sees.’

A forest of giant red ferns swivelled, and sleek albino eels shot across the ocean floor, flashing through the blackness of our kelped and rusted wrecks.

When I head into the house
to take a leak at last,
I see above the sink, a face
reflected in the glass:

It is my own. That’s no surprise.
Familiar sight to see.
But wound around my neck I glimpse
the end of your dad’s story.

WORKING STIFFS

– See Zombies

XENOPHOBES

– See History Buffs

ZOMBIES

– See Working Stiffs

ZOOKEEPERS

Have you heard the one about how hunters in helicopters
chase wild jokes across the flats? How they rifle
feathered darts into the herd, then sling
the groggy fallen off to urban zoos
– and how limp each witty punchline gets
once penned?

Out of context, unable to fend,
a joke makes no sense, just heaps of crap
for some kid to point a dripping milkshake at
and l...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• ACCIDENTS
• ADULTERERS
• AMATEURS
• AMBULANCE CHASERS
• ANDROIDS
• ANIMAL LOVERS
• ANKLE-BITERS
• ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGISTS
• BACKYARD ASTRONOMERS
• BAD APPLES
• BARGAIN HUNTERS
• BLIND DATES
• QUEUE JUMPERS
• BOOKIES
• BOY SCOUTS
• BRIDESMAIDS
• BUNS IN THE OVEN
• CHIROPRACTORS IN THE OFF-HOURS
• CHOSEN ONES
• COLLAGE DROPOUTS
• COLONELS OF TRUTH
• CONTROL FREAKS
• COUCH POTATOES
• DAY TRADERS
• DEFECTORS FROM THE FREUDIAN CAMP
• DETECTIVES
• DISH BITCHES
• DOODLERS
• DOORMATS
• EMPLOYERS
• EMPTY NESTERS
• ENTOMOLOGISTS
• EULOGISTS
• EXPATRIATES
• EXTRA MOUTHS TO FEED
• FALL GUYS
• FREQUENT FLYERS
• GHOULS
• GROWN-UPS
• HISTORY BUFFS
• HOUSE-SITTERS
• IDENTICAL TWINS
• INNOCENT BYSTANDERS
• JURORS
• KLEPTOMANIACS
• LATE BLOOMERS
• LEXICOGRAPHERS
• LITTLE BUNDLES OF JOY
• THE LOVESICK
• MATCHMAKERS
• MILLIONAIRES
• MISSING PERSONS
• NARRATORS
• NAVEL-GAZERS
• NIGHT STAFF AT THE HAIKU INFIRMARY
• OLD FLAMES
• ONE-NIGHT STANDS
• ONLY CHILDREN
• OPTIMISTS
• OPTOMETRISTS
• ORACLES
• ORDERLIES
• ORGAN DONORS
• ORNITHOLOGISTS
• PAPER BOYS
• PARK STATUES
• PENNY-PINCHERS
• PERVERTS
• PETTY OFFICERS
• PIANO TUNERS
• PLAYERS
• PLOUGHMEN
• SAINTS
• SHOULDERS TO CRY ON
• SITTING DUCKS
• SNOOPS
• SOCIAL BUTTERFLIES
• STEPMOTHERS
• STEVEN
• STICKS IN THE MUD
• STOCKBROKERS
• SUSPECTS
• SWEETHEARTS
• TEST PILOTS
• TOUGH COOKIES
• TRANSPLANT SURVIVORS
• UNDERDOGS
• WEREWOLVES
• WIDOWS
• WINNERS
• WOOLGATHERERS
• WORKING STIFFS
• XENOPHOBES
• ZOMBIES
• ZOOKEEPERS
• ZYGOTES
• APPENDIX
• LAST WORDS
• A NOTE ON THE TEXT
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR