Tuesday, March 6, 2012

George Bowering

He’s The Guy 

He’s the guy they always want to be their keynote poet,
you know, who’ll we get to headline this festival?
Has a flop of brown-grey hair like W.H. Auden
without the wrinkles.  Know what I mean? Always
beats you out just when you feel the prize is yours.
People who read a little poetry love him, he tells them about
nature. And human nature, our shared views
of hayricks as opposed to the Wednesday pasta special.
Always shows up in floppy corduroys and big old hat,
Ready to dish up some Wallace Stevens without
the hangups.

                     I imagine he lives a poet’s life,
you know what I mean?  Has a favourite tree he leans on,
will stare the sunrise in the eye till the rooster
wakes up.  I hear he does something called a poets’
workshop.  He can be spied hauling tools to work,
comes out for lunch with sawdust all over his eyelids.
Once he disappointed a visiting monarch.  It wasn’t
just the tie he would not wear, the Queen liked that.
It was that serious brooding country magazine face,
wouldn’t break into a polite smile, made her brain
shuffle.

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