Ottawa and some poems.

I’m returning to Bowen Island after a week in Ottawa working and visiting friends and the old haunts we occupied back in 91-94 when we lived there. Some things are the same, like The Manx pub which opened the same week we arrived right at the end of our block. Or good old Octopus Books, now in the Glebe where I bought Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s latest book The Theory of Water. Of course much in Ottawa has changed since the early 90s, and it is fun to find new places like The Rowan where, among other things, we ate a plate of salt-roasted carrots that had been grilled. It was one of the finest things I have ever tasted.

Being back in Ottawa also brought me to a state of mind that was a little bit slower. We lived there long before smart phones and social media had been invented. I spent many days in Ottawa writing poems, reading journals and lingering over words. I served a short stint as an associate editor of ARC magazine, so I always associate Ottawa with its literary scene.

During this trip, I travelled with the latest issue of Poetry and a couple of poems stand out.

Try. Elegy at Middle River by Courtney Kampa which threw me to the ground.

Or how about this one from Rigoberto Gonzales called The Luna Moth Has No Mouth which is both astonishing and true.

Gonzales, by the way, won the Ruth Lilly Poetry prize and in his reflections on his craft published in the October edition of Poetry, he remembers a line he wrote years ago which someone quoted on Twitter: “what is a kiss? The sound loneliness makes when it dies.” That is some lovely.