Only Child Even though I’m an only child, no one can remember what time I was born. Dad was sure it was midnight, he heard the whistle of the train going north. Aunt Valada said it was early morning, just after she saw the milkman on Princess Street. Mum couldn’t recall the time. She said […]
Tag Archives: Patrick Lane
Gone for a Year, Today – Dear Patrick, Poet and Friend, Bless You. And Thanks for Your Great Kid’s Book Poem! It Cheers Me Up!
March 7, 2020 – 6:12 pm
An excerpt from Milford and Me – An Illustrated Kid’s Book (Milford in this poem/book is a small turtle) We walk along down by the turnips. There is no one but Milford and me. We’ve been sharing a cucumber sandwich is the shade of a very tall pea. There are things I don’t know about, […]
My Mistake – The Correct Version of the Poem “Leaving Green” from my Post on Canadian Poet Martha Royea, Dec. 30th, 2019 – Sorry, Martha!
December 31, 2019 – 5:52 pm
Leaving Green Montreal, hot-as-hell August 1968. I lope along an early morning side street of modest homes wearing a black boy’s body, swinging the biggest boom box you ever saw in one hand, finger-snapping time with the other, my lips mouthing Motown all around the town, oooh ya! Oh, sure, I’m watching the boy from […]
Liz McNally – # 1 in a Series on Patrick Poets – Poets I Met Through the Writing Retreats of Canadian Poet Patrick Lane
December 26, 2019 – 10:35 pm
Collect for the Homeless God of the broken night. Finder of empty doorways, shopping carts, cardboard blankets, fast food refuse, cigarette butts, dropped coins and nick of time naloxone kits. May your infinite attention be the thin layer of softness between weary bodies and cold pavement, may it be a cloak to shelter children from […]
That’s the Hard Part, Knowing the Darkness is There and Singing Anyway – The Lasting Words and Legacy of Canadian Poet Patrick Lane (1939-2019)
December 24, 2019 – 5:41 pm
God Walks Burning Through Me When I sleep the birds come to the garden With their gifts of seeds. Out of ice last year’s leaves of grass lift into night. All my songs have been one song. The palm of my hand and the sole of my foot remember everything I have forgotten. […]
Tonight, the Memorial for Patrick Lane (1939-2019) – This Morning, Remembering an E-Mail Correspondence from Fourteen Years Ago
April 20, 2019 – 10:39 am
So this is it, Lane. Not a living wake, but a celebration of all your living. And this is only the beginning. Wait until you’re dead. Susan Musgrave, editor, from You Loved Being a Stranger – 55 Poets Celebrate Patrick Lane, Harbour Publishing, 1994 There are times when I no longer know if what I […]
The Bigness of Small Poems – # 48 in a Series – Jack Gilbert and Patrick Lane
April 18, 2019 – 3:21 pm
ALONE ON CHRISTMAS EVE IN JAPAN Not wanting to lose it all for poetry. Wanting to live the living. All this year looking on the graveyard below my apartment. Holding myself tenderly in this marred body. Wondering if the quiet I feel is that happiness wise people speak of, or the modulation that is the […]
A Unicyclist of Poems – Patrick Lane – A Poem by Paulette Jiles and also an Invite to Lane’s Upcoming Celebration of Life, April 20th, 2019
April 11, 2019 – 4:48 pm
Join the local literary & UVic communities as poets & authors celebrate the life of the late Patrick Lane. This evening of poetry and tribute to the acclaimed poet and late UVic Department of Writing professor Patrick Lane will feature readings and memorials by a number of Writing alumni, including emcee Steven Price, Esi Edugyan, […]
The Bigness of Small Poems – #46 in a Series – Crozier and Lane (and Tranströmer)
March 18, 2019 – 10:29 pm
Two exquisite, yet for me enigmatic, poems by the Canadian poets Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane, partners for more than forty years before Patrick’s death eleven days ago. This broadsheet hangs in my home office and I revisit it now again. And every time I feel happily lost in a lyric mysteriousness, much the way […]
The Bigness of Small Poems – # 45 in a Series – A Small Gem by Patrick Lane (1939-2019)
March 16, 2019 – 10:09 am
The benefit of cleaning up a chaotic office! Finding this exquisite small poem by Patrick Lane. As I remember him telling me, and here my memory may be a touch thin in places, this poem was part of a larger piece and his “Beloved”, Lorna Crozier, told him this was the poem! I appreciate the […]