Stray

Allison LaSorda

• Publisher: icehouse poetry
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780864929792
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Allison LaSorda's Stray shows the formation of a considerable poetic talent. These poems are sun-bleached, at once gritty, raw, and playful. LaSorda can conjure childhood memories of beaches and ice cream, ponder the elemental force of the ocean, and plumb the depth of loss in a coal mine disaster. Bringing to mind the poetry of Robert Hass and Louise Glück, LaSorda presents the messiness of daily life with emotional honesty and humour.

Stray examines intimacy, memory, and decay, often betraying existential bewilderment. Deft word play and musical sense underscore the absurdity these poems explore, while surprising rhymes and unexpected images resound in deeply personal narratives. In this dazzling debut, LaSorda both disarms her readers and breathes fresh life into Canadian poetry.

BIRD

The First One’s Always Free

If you were still mine,

my sweet Jubilee, I’d bother

to come up with sap to spew.

I can’t name a specific thing

I’d do for you, but maybe

knowing is better than doing.

Who in their right mind

doesn’t want to be defined

by each person they’ve left?

Jubilee, remember our meet-cute?

Can you see beyond prophecy

and follow the interstate away

from a house of ill repute?

I can’t, so tell me to cool it

or refill me with the oh yous

you do so well, uncultured

ten-month pearls, words

clip-on gold for want of praise.

Sweet, when you left I broke down

from the upside, lurching past

the space within a barren cleft.

If we’d rather deal in dialects

or muck around in sludge

we sling to share, why bother?

Out of the Chorus

My barynya is just extraordinary.

I beat my body like a drum. Sarafans

swirl until vermilion embroidery blurs

to great frenetic effect for a wannabe tsar.

I would rather have been a ballerina,

but I inherited the folksy costume.

The audience gathers theatre side.

Years of sad salt buildup

crusted around my eyes, fusing

with gold leaf for an alarming mask.

I was born in the eyelashes of a hurricane:

it rained dog pelts, relieving my mother

from the sounds of pulsing monitors.

She knew my dancer’s destiny.

I’d squatted and leapt in utero, charting

the records broken in every test.

We out-Cossack the Cossacks, my partners say.

Arm-flapping, toe-tapping Lezgi eagles and swans,

hordes of one-trick ponies — we’re disciples

of attention, raised and kept solely to perform.

I can’t speak. My body spells out lockup for me.

Weather

The weather vane on the coop behind our house

always points south. The joint is rusted.

No forecasts worthy to report.

Our school bus cir...

Table of contents

• FISH
• BIRD
• MEAT
• Acknowledgements