The Vancouver Book Club's Spring Selection is Rob Taylor's poetry collection The Other Side of Ourselves and to get you into the right frame of mind we're running a photo contest in the weeks leading up to the April 29th event.
Scroll down to the bottom of the post to read this week's poem and find out how you can enter.
Last week's poem "The Horse Grazes" was a short and lovely piece about horses and rope and holding on. It inspired some of you in really interesting ways.
"Grazing Shadows" by Tara Lowry
"Tethered" by Tara Lowry
"Held by the Wind" by Tara Lowry
By Matthew Lawless
"Endless Rope" by David Jez
"In circles until there is no more rope" by Carissa D'andrade
"It is holding the wind to the sky" by Carissa D'andrade
"There is plenty of rope, it is tied to many things –" by Carissa D'andrade
Photo by Jess Cowan
All photos submitted will be entered into a prize draw at the April 29 event.
Week 6
While we're (hopefully) now into spring, here's something to remind you of what has passed.
Advent
On the bus home I watch the city, move away from it –
Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks.
I remind myself the world needs unbeautiful things –
it does not need poets, cannot sustain them. And we don't want it to.
I remind and remind;
snow considers falling.
Large packages jostle shoppers in and out of the neighbouring seats.
The hostages are polite today, apologise softly.
We need garbage men. We need physicists.
The blare of Chinatown gives way to East End Christmas lights,
patches of darkness. No one boards anymore.
We speed up, the city abandons its pursuit.
I stretch out my legs. We do not need poets.
Dangle my feet. We need shoes.
I am smiling as I step to the pavement.
Wind swirls behind the bus, dies away.
I smile at the woman with the sinuous walk. She smiles back, as always.
I smile at the boy on his way home from hockey practice, loaded with gear.
He is training for prehistory. His stick growls along the pavement behind him.
He watches me in silence, as if no longer afraid.
- – - – -
To enter:
1) email the photo to us at [email protected]. Put “TOSOO Photo Week 6" in the subject line.
OR
2) post the photo on the web and send us a tweet @VIA_Reads with the link and #TOSOO
Please make sure photos are at least 600 pixels wide. Photos must be your own work or you must have permission of the photographer.
The deadline to enter photos for this week’s poem is next Wednesday, April 11, 2012. We’ll post the photos, and the next poem, on Friday.
