Ganymede's Dog

John Emil Vincent

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780773559097
• eBook ISBN:
  9780228000594
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Took all this time to actually in fact bite our own tail to learn that that hurts; I guess it was worth it. / Developed a taste for tails.

The prose poems of Ganymede's Dog startle myths back to life, whether Ganymede's abduction by Zeus in the form of an eagle, his abduction by a century's worth of Budweiser labels, Sophocles's boozy boy-chasing, or the dancing plague of 1518.

John Emil Vincent teases his materials into surreal, joyous, dirty, sometimes gruesome animation. His revelations arrive in the guise of other characters, and throughout, there are dogs. Dog-themed philosophy, dog-headed saints, dog-worshipping island rituals, and just plain dogs invite the reader to puppy-pile with Petronius, Catherine the Great, and Saint Christopher in a sapiosexual orgy with autocorrect handling the towels.

Deeply infused with gay culture and mythology, Ganymede's Dog is a collection of smart, knowing, allusive, often ironic poems that ponder the boundaries of legend and the privileges of youth and beauty.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• I.
• Ganymede’s dog
• In blazing black and white
• That everything’s unfair has a certain justice to it
• That nothing’s fair has a certain justice to it
• That nothing’s fair has a certain justice to it
• Only as good as the team managing your brand
• Realist paradise
• The Dancing Plague of 1518
• Quirk earnings
• Three hunky punks and one true gargoyle
• The disposition of angels
• Wings
• Goya’s dog
• II.
• Introduction of Budweiser to the gods
• Metronome dependent
• The beauty of the way, the goodness of the wayfarers
• Charming spot, inspiring prospects
• Collapse of the wave function
• Russian doll prison
• The obscure charms of the lately extinct cunning folk of New Brunswick
• Lest ye be
• Maybe if i shout at you you’ll trustin what i’m saying
• The Darkest Before Dawn Daycare
• Listening injury
• Breeding habits of the Spectacled Tyrant
• The New Vague
• Nimroddery
• The hour between wolf and dog
• First casualty of the Canadian Ketchup Wars
• How to survive the next Great Canadian Name Famine
• The minced oath
• III.
• The playfulness of skeletons, the sadness of bones
• Santa Anna’s lost leg
• The Kazooist of Tiddlesworth
• Cynics
• Out-riddling the judge
• From your lips to Christ’s ears
• The traditional piñata
• The standard lay of the case
• I am making all things new
• Hercules and the Moon Men
• The privilege of youth and beauty
• Draco’s law
• Conversation in an unremarkable stairwell of the Met
• Shocking tales of redundancy
• The final decision of Gaius Petronius Arbiter
• IV.
• A short necessary treatise on humility
• I prefer the person talking herself out of something over him talking himself in
• Crazy wisdom
• The Museum of Clarity
• Drinking fountain tour of the city
• But god plain forms with elegance does crown
• You forget it in people
• The final renovation
• Takes a lot of pills to make Jesus
• Typical toxic playbook
• Young cuckoo seeks nest, bring own feathers
• The Greeks regretting the invention of theatre
• Translated to bird
• Sky burial
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS