A Woman Clothed in Words Read Online Free Page B

harebell and knapweed,
    all those plants that cling to a dry
    hillside where there are no trees.
    •
    He knows I am here beside him
    but cannot see me, he looks to the west and the east
    “I’m here I’m here, nearer than you are to
    yourself” I cry out within him and he begins
    searching carefully in his pockets for hairs
    and nail parings and other wicked fragments

Untitled
    I dreamt I was brutally mated
    to a great brush wolf
    •
    our children – all male –
    were dogfaced men
    affable and neatly dressed
    •
    when they greeted each other
    they did not whine or howl
    but tore at each other’s faces
    with blunt domestic fangs

Untitled
    the first day of summer
    you and I decide on a jour ney
    we will walk across the prairie
    from the parkland to the mountains
    •
    together we stride from town to town
    laboured with backpacks
    fighting the heat and the wind
    •
    which blows between us
    separating your voice from my ears
    your lips move
    faintly in a white cloud of grit
    you turn towards me
    and the wind’s sharp edge cleaves you
    your halves perfectly cut as though by acid
    fall side by side
    onto the tough grass
    •
    they are full of seeds and green pith
    the heat dries your pith
    and shrivels it at once the wind
    blows away your feathery seeds
    your husk is nibbled by gophers

Untitled
    here in a cabbage-tainted flat
    time celebrates itself as minutes, as days
    there are mice nibbling at the wainscot
    cockroaches climb the slop pail
    •
    within doors
    within doors at last
    we, who have spent our years
    bent in the bright fields
    or trudging over snow
    from fence to far fence,
    sit behind dusty windows
    our faces even now not quite faded
    from the lofty open sky
    •
    on the spread table
    lies the bread in its cradle
    of fluted paper
    two cups of soup
    thin as blood, red as wine
    a fish with a lemon backbone
    and olive eyes

Untitled
    as you well know
    I come from the city
    was born in this acre of quiet
    this very centre
    shut away from the press of people
    the clatter and the roar
    •
    soot blackens the walls of my garden
    even the pits of the cherries are grimy grey
    in my garden we sit together
    eating the smoke of the city
    •
    I explain how all this soot
    is good for the roses
    “see how they climb up
    over the arch” I say
    “and how their blossoms
    heavy with dirty rain
    hang down from the trellis all summer”
    and then I tell how they spring
    from the cold and yellow clay
    where their roots curl around
    ancient blades and shards
    •
    lately I’ve heard that people are leaving
    the city, escaping into the hills
    evenings they stand in the wild grass
    watching our distant glow
    as though the streets were burning
    •
    as I stand alone in the dusk expecting
    the whirr of wings, hundreds of
    birds descending to roost in my trees,
    I think I can hear in the distance
    the sound of feet running
    up and down the rows of small houses
    and the sound of your voice
    •
    “the streets are burning” you cry
    “the streets are burning”
    •
    you cry

Poetry Workshops – Some Practical Advice
    Poetry is the completest form of utterance.
    – I.A. Richards

    In a recent interview, Tess Gallagher speaks of the ’60s and early ’70s as a time of innocence when poetry groups were springing up everywhere: a time when thorough workshopping of each piece of work was important to every serious aspiring poet.

    I was struck by the nostalgic quality of her comments. Are we now in the post-workshop era? Can we never again experience that sacred family, the closely knit poetry group? Are these groups and workshops of no more use or interest to the young poets of the ’80s?

    It is true that the proliferation of small magazines has made it easier for the beginner to be published. It is true that some editors of some magazines seem to be taking their work more seriously. No longer is it enough to slap a few mimeographed pages together and call it a poetry magazine. The best among our editors have become the