Lemon Hound

Sina Queyras

• Verlag: Coach House Books
• Jahr: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781770561274
• Thema: Literatur
• Thema: Kanadische Poesie

2007 Winner of the Pat Lowther Award and a Lambda Literary Award

As meditative practices focus on the axis of breath, these poems focus on the moment of action, of thought, on the flux of speech.

This is a poetry not of snapshots or collages but of long-exposed captures of the not-so-still lives of women. One sequence imagines Virginia Woolf's childhood; another unmakes her novel The Waves by attempting to untangle its six overlapping narratives. Yet another, 'On the Scent, ' makes us flâneurs through the lives of a series of contemporary women, while 'The River Is All Thumbs' uses a palette of vibrant repetition to 'paint' a landscape.

Queyras's language – astute, insistent, languorous – repeats and echoes until it becomes hypnotic, chimerical, almost halluncinatory in its reflexivity. How lyrical can prose poetry be? How closely can it mimic painting? Sculpture? Film? How do we make a moment firm? These 'postmodern, ' 'postfeminist' poems pulse between prose and poetry: the line, the line, they seem to ask, must it ever end?

Sina Queyras 's latest collection of poetry, Expressway, was nominated for a Governor General's Award and won Gold at the National Magazine Awards. Her previous collection Lemon Hound won a Lambda Award and the Pat Lowther Award. She has taught creative writing at Rutgers, Haverford and Concordia University in Montreal where she now resides.

ON THE SCENT

‘It is too late to be simple.’

Lisa Robertson

1

Here she is inside. Walls and windows. Appendages and openings. Here she is sitting on a stack of books. Here she is digging out from under an avalanche of paper. Here she is swatting words with her coattails. Here she is wondering what to do with outdated memory. Here she is boxing and unboxing. Here she is moving stuff. Here she is deleting whole files, randomly. Here she is perplexed at the mounds of paper. Here, I tell you, here she is hiding under the Xerox machine. Here she is communing with resonators. Here she is clucking the MRI tune. Here she is earplugged and eyeshadowed. Here she is tall and long in the stride, here she is a force of circulation. Here she is sideways in a windstorm. Here she is teal and persimmon. Here she is Italian plum. Here she is the palest interior of the pomegranate. Here she is. Here she is in Banana Republic. Here she is black and black. Here she is thinking of the colour blue. Here she is trying to see underwater. Here she is reading on the train to New York. Here she is wiping coffee from the seat. Here she is sitting next to seven young rappers, pants like circus tents, du-rags and ball caps piled on high. Here she is. Here she is in an office in Philadelphia thinking of the letter R. Where would we be without R, she asks? Where would we be without E? Where would we be without arms? Here she is with meringue and milquetoast. Here she is hiding behind a maple tree in October, the weather having changed too quickly and she without a sweater. Here she is walking down Bleecker thinking, how? How? How can she describe the windmill of her aorta? How tibia is her confusion? How like the Microsoft song her frustration flits and crescendos. How like the blue of the XP screen her mood flickers in the traffic-jam hour. How archaic the need to open a window and breathe.

2

There she is outside the treatment centre on Nevins. There she is geranium petals and struck matches. There she is yelling into her cellphone. There she is tangerine polyester, frills and net sleeves. There she is gold-dusted cornrows. There she is in white heels, beaks sharp on the pissed and gum-strewn sidewalk. There she is, nails like beetles. There she is about to kick some champagne-talking boy-ass. There she is, gold-chained purse slung over sandstone shoulders. There she is, her best friend’s head punctuating with uh huh and oo wee and you go girl and ain’t it so. There she is orchestrating particles of autumn, an unrestrained refrain layered into the afternoon symphony of boom-box rap and the mailman’s soul tunes, the dozen residents chain-smoking around the entrance, the honk of SUVs and delivery vans, the cussing out of this one back using and that one found abusing. There she is snapping words like stilettos into imaginary crotch zones. There she is overtired, fed up, caffeine wired, too many obligations expired. There she is chewing up her anytime minutes for this? There she is, ten seconds from despair, three feet from freedom, two dollars from a subway uptown where a new job waits. There she is, one nod from a three-room flat and a wardrobe from Lane Bryant, flying solo with her kick-ass girls and a workout pass at the Y, her life crisp as October, her life open and yappy, Fulton Street mall on a Saturday after payday in the sunshine, bouncy as a pocketful of twenty-dollar bills.

3

The girls run from one end of the paved playground to the other. In chadors they chase smaller boys who kick a soccer ball back and forth yelling Can’t play. Can’t play. The girls run and hurl themselves, landing again and again in each other’s arms. The girls stop and yell Let me kick! The boys leap and leap into the air, legs cool in soccer shorts and Nikes. The girls in their long pants chase and are not distracted by hopscotch, not inclined toward chalk marks on pavement; they want the pleasure of skin in air, they want the satisfaction of forcing shapes against the sky. The boys kick against the fence where a small girl has cornered an even smaller girl and, one hand on her hip, the other poised to strike, scolds How many times do I have to tell you, girl? How many times do I have to say? How many times do I have to slap you silly? The smaller one slumped, face covered as the older one tongue-lashes and finally knees her in the face. The girls run past the yelling girl unfazed. The girls slam against the fence, fingers curled where moments ago sparrows perched to gulp crumbs from stale sandwiches. The girls stop and hang, undisturbed by the yelling. The girls look into each other’s eyes. The girls fling their heads back and laugh.

4

The women plug themselves in. They work hard. They untwist bread bags and dole out dabs of butter. They choose low-fat milk. They have bought digital cameras. They join food co-ops. They find recycling sources. They mail things diligently. They see the sun as unlimited potential. Aureole and blister, thumbs and jelly, websites and manifestos. The women are red. They are preoccupied with shoes. They subscribe to green. Thoughts extend like awnings. Inscription and tongue, wireless cards and upgrades, the women circulate petitions. They forward articles about Björk and Rachel Corrie. They organize demonstrations, worry over hoarfrost on lemon groves. They delegate. They multi-task. The women press their foreheads against granite.

The women are blue. They consider heels an option. They have unplugged Ani and plugged in Radio-head. They are amused. They toast veggie dogs and buy organic; some of them embrace beef. They wear Birkenstocks, they smoke cigars, they wear their hair long or they shave it. They find time. They buy soy. They surf. They bookmark Bitch, Slut, Whore. They are sworn to transgress. They diss meatloaf and socks with sandals. They buy appliances. Everyone is witty. They blend fabrics. They make their own porn. They know the eighteenth century.

The women are burgundy. They discover obscure cases of women. They take notes. They take classes. They discover points of departure. They cut a wide swath. They dream of seducing Björk. They are not tongue-tied. They are not fooled by nature. They create gardens of air, orchid and oxalis. Some have discovered Lucinda Williams. They read Stein. They are not good girls. Some women are prismatic. Everyone is just liberal enough. The women often unplug themselves. They penetrate. They let their hair grow. They find a good masseuse. They have never read Mary Daly. They go shopping for shoes. They are divided by shoes. They cannot get over shoes. The shoes corral them. The groups divide further.

The women are pink. They shop for appliances. They fix cars and join car clubs. The women wave at each other across the gaps. They are always running out of batteries. The women strut and feather themselves. They buy hair products. They buy eye cream even if they love wrinkles. They have all read The Handmaid’s Tale and tucked it away neatly. Despite everything, race continues to divide. The women are plugged in. The women carry their laptops into gardens. The women embrace only so much integration. Some women are salmon. Some women have turned in their diamonds for pens. The women have credit cards. They are relieved feminism is over. They are proud of their humour. They don’t wear tampons lightly. They blend colours. They feel bad about Martha Stewart. They have given up on Madonna. They meditate. They read. They don’t do the right thing. They make gardens in matchboxes.

Miracles of green, they are mechanical. They find ways to breed with women. They start businesses, they discuss tax rates, pass on words of advice. They cajole and banter. They have potlucks. They are all disappointed with Hilary. They have barn raisings; no roof is too high, or too wide. Beam and lathe; hammer and throng. They masturbate and seduce. They have appliances and they know how to use them. They wear spaghetti straps and heels. They wear overalls and boots. They spit. They gesticulate. Their hair is shale and limestone. They attend lesbian baby showers. Civil and chardonnay: unbelievable cunning. They worry about footwear. They get excited about leather. They remember Barbie. They work out. They run. They do seven kinds of yoga. They buy magazines and try new diets. They consider law school. They are not afraid of engineering. They are great shoppers. They demand value.

The women are red. The women are full of themselves. The women kibbutz and spritz. They spin discs. They worry about piercing. They buy books online. They regret there is no more need for women-only spaces. They remember women’s bookstores with only a tinge of regret. They are full bodied, they are sweltering, they are rock and graphite, purloined and vegan, heavy hipped and encyclopedic. They are annotated. They invite the optic. They embrace titanium. They shed their skin daily. Others gather it. There are bags of us in a basement. Earth is there too, aluminum, and feather.

5

The mothers were feminists. The mothers marched. The mothers wore purple and read Betty Friedan. The mothers listened to Janis Ian and Ferron. The mothers dropped out. The mothers went to Michigan and danced topless. The mothers used menstruation cups. The mothers tie-dyed everything and cooked meals from Moosewood. The mothers had committee meetings. The mothers subscribed to Ms. and believed in affirmative action. The mothers wore Birkenstocks and dreamed of living in Vermont or Saltspring. The mothers ate dried fruit and brown rice. The mothers lived in the suburbs and shopped. They fought t...