Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Autor Alexandra Oliveren Limba Engleză Paperback – 14 oct 2013
A CANADIAN POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE NATIONAL POST
WINNER OF THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD
“Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiver—all of them sharpened to a fine point. This is an excellent and entertaining collection.”—TIMOTHY STEELE
In Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, Alexandra Oliver zooms in on the inertias, anxieties, comedies, cruelties, and epiphanies of domestic life:
They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne
or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair,
that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair
from underneath you, shoved their small fists in
your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin,
those minkish teeth like shrapnel in the air,
the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare,
their soccer cleats against your porcine shin,
that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds
escaping from a gunshot through the reeds—
and now you have to face it all again:
the joyful freckled faces lost for words
in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze
your own. It’s been so long! They say. Amen.
Oliver’s poems, which she describes as “text-based home movies,” unveil a cinematic vision of suburbia at once comical and poignant: framed to renew our curiosity in the mundane and pressing rhyme and metre to their utmost, Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway is a five-star performance from Canada’s new formalist sensation.
“Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. Lucky the reader along for the ride.”—JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT
“Brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice.”—CHARLES MARTIN
Alexandra Oliver was born in Vancouver, Canada and divides her time between Toronto and Glasgow, Scotland. Her most recent book is Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (Biblioasis). She currently teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.
WINNER OF THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD
“Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiver—all of them sharpened to a fine point. This is an excellent and entertaining collection.”—TIMOTHY STEELE
In Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, Alexandra Oliver zooms in on the inertias, anxieties, comedies, cruelties, and epiphanies of domestic life:
They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne
or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair,
that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair
from underneath you, shoved their small fists in
your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin,
those minkish teeth like shrapnel in the air,
the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare,
their soccer cleats against your porcine shin,
that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds
escaping from a gunshot through the reeds—
and now you have to face it all again:
the joyful freckled faces lost for words
in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze
your own. It’s been so long! They say. Amen.
Oliver’s poems, which she describes as “text-based home movies,” unveil a cinematic vision of suburbia at once comical and poignant: framed to renew our curiosity in the mundane and pressing rhyme and metre to their utmost, Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway is a five-star performance from Canada’s new formalist sensation.
“Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. Lucky the reader along for the ride.”—JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT
“Brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice.”—CHARLES MARTIN
Alexandra Oliver was born in Vancouver, Canada and divides her time between Toronto and Glasgow, Scotland. Her most recent book is Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (Biblioasis). She currently teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781927428436
ISBN-10: 1927428432
Pagini: 63
Dimensiuni: 130 x 203 x 5 mm
Greutate: 0.1 kg
Editura: BIBLIOASIS
Locul publicării:Canada
ISBN-10: 1927428432
Pagini: 63
Dimensiuni: 130 x 203 x 5 mm
Greutate: 0.1 kg
Editura: BIBLIOASIS
Locul publicării:Canada
Cuprins
The Promise We Made to the Earthquake
Chinese Food with Gavra, Aged Three
Ottawa Walk-in Clinic Waiting Room, 9 p.m
Preschool
Party Music
Rimsky Korsakov on Fifth Avenue
The Village Arsonist
The Widows
A Child’s Christmas in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Curriculum Vitae
Sexual History
The Classics Lesson
The Test Cape
Template for a Conversation with a Single Friend
One of These Days
Voted Best Place to Live
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Doug Hill
The Girls and the Eels
The Gulls
Using the Public Binoculars at Sherbet Lake Discovery Centre
Escaping the Ice
Mrs. Miller Lays It Out to Her Daughter at the Audition, March 23, 1985
Fixing the Old Folks’ Home
How Are You, Bunny?
Taking Care
What You Want the Doctor to Tell You
Over a Fabergé Owl
The Toy Catalogue of the Afterlife
The Ghosts of the Space Dogs
The Released Ones
Lost Twins
Bad Influence and Senior Kindergarten
The GO Train Arithmetic Song
Modern Camera
Explaining Filial Piety to My Brother in the Bar
A Serbian Man in a Bar Said
If I Knew
The Enigma of Fate
Eulogy for Ken Spada
Final Request
The Hand of Scheveningen
Chinese Food with Gavra, Aged Three
Ottawa Walk-in Clinic Waiting Room, 9 p.m
Preschool
Party Music
Rimsky Korsakov on Fifth Avenue
The Village Arsonist
The Widows
A Child’s Christmas in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Curriculum Vitae
Sexual History
The Classics Lesson
The Test Cape
Template for a Conversation with a Single Friend
One of These Days
Voted Best Place to Live
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Doug Hill
The Girls and the Eels
The Gulls
Using the Public Binoculars at Sherbet Lake Discovery Centre
Escaping the Ice
Mrs. Miller Lays It Out to Her Daughter at the Audition, March 23, 1985
Fixing the Old Folks’ Home
How Are You, Bunny?
Taking Care
What You Want the Doctor to Tell You
Over a Fabergé Owl
The Toy Catalogue of the Afterlife
The Ghosts of the Space Dogs
The Released Ones
Lost Twins
Bad Influence and Senior Kindergarten
The GO Train Arithmetic Song
Modern Camera
Explaining Filial Piety to My Brother in the Bar
A Serbian Man in a Bar Said
If I Knew
The Enigma of Fate
Eulogy for Ken Spada
Final Request
The Hand of Scheveningen
Recenzii
“An incredible feat of vision and voice … technically, nothing is out of Oliver’s grasp. Her go-to iambic pentameter can swallow anything in its path. Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway should go a long way toward establishing Oliver as one of the country’s best stanza makers, with a fluidity and ambition aspiring to Dylan Thomas or Yeats … When she succeeds, she succeeds entirely.”—Michael Lista, "On Poetry"
"Theatrical, funny, formally ingenious, Alexandra Oliver’s poems revel in their extravagance. A slam poet turned formalist, Oliver takes a cue from Larkin’s “Pleasure Principle,” her poems little machines precision-crafted for the reader’s pleasure."—National Post
"Oliver writes as though wit were her middle name ... she is an assassin clever and precise as a clock.”—Michael Dennis
"Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiver—all of them sharpened to a fine point. In satirical work like “The Classics Lesson,” she is mordantly funny. Yet she can also treat her subjects quietly and with touching understatement, as in “Chinese Food with Gavra, Aged Three.” Ms. Oliver is, moreover, technically resourceful in the best sense. For example, in “Doug Hill” the verbal repetitions of the pantoum form perfectly suit the obsessive voice of the romantically disappointed protagonist. This is an excellent and entertaining collection."—Timothy Steele
"It is sometimes argued that our disjunctive times need to be mirrored by disjunctive forms: only aesthetic disorder can respond to our experience. Such a simplicity is disproven by Alexandra Oliver’s Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, in which disjunctions of many kinds (such as the one in her title) are brought to order by the poet’s refining passion and corrosive wit. Here are brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice."—Charles Martin
"Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. With these she tackles nothing less than the unsettling hazards, absurd encounters, and oddball ironies of our modern predicament to make poems that bite and entertain. That they are also by turns tender, sad, and rueful speaks not only to her range but to the underlying intensity of feeling. For Oliver’s considerable formal skills are always employed to prod and direct poetry’s energies to keep pace with the contemporary world. Lucky the reader along for the ride."—Jeanne Marie Beaumont, author of The Burning of Three Fires and Curious Conduct
"Theatrical, funny, formally ingenious, Alexandra Oliver’s poems revel in their extravagance. A slam poet turned formalist, Oliver takes a cue from Larkin’s “Pleasure Principle,” her poems little machines precision-crafted for the reader’s pleasure."—National Post
"Oliver writes as though wit were her middle name ... she is an assassin clever and precise as a clock.”—Michael Dennis
"Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiver—all of them sharpened to a fine point. In satirical work like “The Classics Lesson,” she is mordantly funny. Yet she can also treat her subjects quietly and with touching understatement, as in “Chinese Food with Gavra, Aged Three.” Ms. Oliver is, moreover, technically resourceful in the best sense. For example, in “Doug Hill” the verbal repetitions of the pantoum form perfectly suit the obsessive voice of the romantically disappointed protagonist. This is an excellent and entertaining collection."—Timothy Steele
"It is sometimes argued that our disjunctive times need to be mirrored by disjunctive forms: only aesthetic disorder can respond to our experience. Such a simplicity is disproven by Alexandra Oliver’s Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, in which disjunctions of many kinds (such as the one in her title) are brought to order by the poet’s refining passion and corrosive wit. Here are brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice."—Charles Martin
"Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. With these she tackles nothing less than the unsettling hazards, absurd encounters, and oddball ironies of our modern predicament to make poems that bite and entertain. That they are also by turns tender, sad, and rueful speaks not only to her range but to the underlying intensity of feeling. For Oliver’s considerable formal skills are always employed to prod and direct poetry’s energies to keep pace with the contemporary world. Lucky the reader along for the ride."—Jeanne Marie Beaumont, author of The Burning of Three Fires and Curious Conduct
Notă biografică
Alexandra Oliver holds an M.A. in Drama/Cinema Studies from the University of Toronto and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Stonecoast. Since emerging onto the Vancouver poetry scene in 1992 and being named the following year as one of the Top Ten Young Artists of the year by The Vancouver Sun, she has gone on to receive two Pushcart Prize nominations, as well as a CBC Literary Award nomination. She has performed her work at places as diverse as Lollapalooza, The National Poetry Slam, the CBC Radio National Poetry Face-Off, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York, the Spectacular Obsessions Fellini Retrospective at the Bell TIFF Lightbox and the Italian Contemporary Film Festival in Toronto. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and publications worldwide, including Orbis Rhyme International, Nexus, The Atlanta Review, The New Guard, Light Quarterly, Future Cycle Poetry, The Raintown Review, and The Vancouver Sun, as well as About.Com's Poems After The Attack anthology, a collection discussing and reflecting upon the aftermath of 9/11. Her first book, Where the English Housewife Shines (Tin Press, London, UK) was released in April, 2007.She is also co-editing (with Annie Finch) an anthology of metrical poetry. Oliver has taught poetry and led workshops in high schools, colleges, libraries, cultural organizations and prisons, and was one of the Directors of the Edgewise Electrolit Centre, an organization created to promote Canadian poetry and new poets through the use of new media. Her interests include form, ekphrasis, translation, performance, and creating poetry syllabi for ESL speakers, seniors, victims of violence, and at-risk youth. Alexandra divides her time between Toronto, Canada, and Glasgow, Scotland, where she teaches poetry through the Govan and Craigton Integration Network and acts as a Staff Writer for the Glasgow Film Theatre.
Extras
The Promise We Made to the Earthquake
I’m going to turn my back on death, forsaking
Fatalistic nothingness. I’ll make
A human heart from rogue tectonic plates,
A way to make the flocks of birds return.
I’ll wait until the church has ceased to burn,
The arms to pull away from iron gates.
I’ll do it all with love, for its own sake.
I swear I’ll do it when my hands stop shaking.
I’m going to turn the world back by a day,
Raise the walls and conjure sheets of glass
From mournful piles of sand and broken streets.
I’ll tell my neighbor what he means to me,
Give back his toaster, skis and new TV.
I’ll make the rude wind raise tarpaulin sheets
And let them part until the children pass
To parents resurrected from the clay.
I’m turning over fifty-two new leaves.
I’m going to speak with kindness to my wife
And leave my blonde receptionist alone.
I will not steal my brother’s medications,
Fake illness at my in-laws’ celebrations,
Or work my office intern to the bone.
I fell apart so I could make my life
A purer thing within a den of thieves.
I swear to you that, when the ground stops shaking,
I’ll put this day behind me like a dream.
I’ll step out with my ordinary hands,
Clear lumber and lay bricks for twenty years,
Re-irrigate the gardens with my tears,
Endeavour to be one who understands
How our own better nature can redeem
A country from the hell of earth’s own making.
The Classics Lesson
I told him about Galatea
The joyful, animated queen;
He told me, make it short I have
Three discs of porn I haven’t seen.
I told him she was fashioned by
Pygmalion’s skilled and lonely hand;
He told me, that’s the kind of thing
A guy could never understand.
I told him that he whispered pleas
And vows into her chilly ear;
He told me, where’s the damn remote,
And who forgot to buy the beer?
I told him that he brought her shells
And little birds and shining stones;
He told me, get a pad and pen.
I’ll need them if my agent phones.
I told him that he laid her out
In purple on a gilded chaise.
He told me, I’ll be working late
Tonight, and for the next five days.
I told him that he went to pray
For someone like his sculpted one
He said, the baby wrecked your boobs;
If I were you, I’d get them done.
I told him that he hurried home
And pressed her to his pounding heart.
He said, the therapist was right –
I think we need some time apart.
I told him that she came to life
And both lived loving evermore
He told me, damn, I’m out of smokes.
I’ll go and get some at the store.
He told me, I forgot my keys.
He told me, hey, it’s ten below.
He told me, open this damn door.
I told him no. I told him no.
Template for a Conversation with a Single Friend
I’ll call you back when Junior is in bed
(Addressed to Isa/Janet/Winifred).
My hands are full of turkey parts and string;
I know you want to talk about the thing
That happened at the staff retreat with Ted.
I have to see the kids are bathed and fed.
Of course I’d rather talk to you instead.
I’m sure he doesn’t view it as a fling –
I’ll call you back.
I’m sure he only means to clear his head.
You can’t expect a man to go to bed
With someone from the office and then ring.
You have a lot to give. Stop hollering,
Stop saying that you wish that you were dead.
I’ll call you back.
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne
or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair,
that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair
from underneath you, shoved their small fists in
your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin,
those minkish teeth were dancing everywhere,
the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare,
their soccer cleats against your porcine shin,
that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds
escaping from the gunshot through the reeds –
and now you have to face it all again:
the joyful freckled faces lost for words
in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze
your own. It’s been so long! They say. Amen.
Doug Hill
I want the sun to swallow up Doug Hill,
Said the tenth grade student (through her tears).
He said he loved me, but he never will;
I can’t go on like this for sixty years.
Said the tenth grade student, through her tears,
He said he needed time and he would call.
I can’t go on like this for sixty years.
I can’t go on. I can’t go on at all.
He said he needed time and he would call.
He brushed the leaves from off his pants and rose.
I can’t go on. I can’t go on at all,
I thought, and reached in darkness for my clothes.
He brushed the leaves from off his pants and rose
The next day. Back at school, they looked at me,
I thought. I reached in darkness for my clothes,
Feeling bare and horrible and free.
The next day, back at school. They looked at me,
But all I saw was him, though he was gone,
Feeling bare and horrible and free.
I am the one the tigers fell upon.
And all I see is him, though he is gone.
I see him in the locker doors, the sky.
I am the one the tigers fell upon.
I want the bell to ring. I want to die.
I see him in the locker doors, the sky;
He said he loved me, but he never will.
I want the bell to ring. I want to die.
I want the sun to swallow up Doug Hill.
Modern Camera
This is the setting for when you're inside.
This is the setting for candlelight.
This is the setting for sunrise and sunsets.
This is for portraits of people at night.
This is the setting for servings of food.
This is the setting for things under glass.
This is the setting for files and documents.
This is the setting for flowers and grass.
This is the setting for watching explosions.
This is the setting for watching the match.
This is the setting to hold to the spyhole
And watch children cry when you've fastened the latch.
This is the setting for trembling hands.
This is the setting for earthquakes and fire.
This is the one for the tyrant-in-training
(You cower below them and tilt the lens higher).
This is the setting for rocks and hard places
This is the setting for blood and ablution.
And this button here is the one that you press
When shooting yourself is the only solution
I’m going to turn my back on death, forsaking
Fatalistic nothingness. I’ll make
A human heart from rogue tectonic plates,
A way to make the flocks of birds return.
I’ll wait until the church has ceased to burn,
The arms to pull away from iron gates.
I’ll do it all with love, for its own sake.
I swear I’ll do it when my hands stop shaking.
I’m going to turn the world back by a day,
Raise the walls and conjure sheets of glass
From mournful piles of sand and broken streets.
I’ll tell my neighbor what he means to me,
Give back his toaster, skis and new TV.
I’ll make the rude wind raise tarpaulin sheets
And let them part until the children pass
To parents resurrected from the clay.
I’m turning over fifty-two new leaves.
I’m going to speak with kindness to my wife
And leave my blonde receptionist alone.
I will not steal my brother’s medications,
Fake illness at my in-laws’ celebrations,
Or work my office intern to the bone.
I fell apart so I could make my life
A purer thing within a den of thieves.
I swear to you that, when the ground stops shaking,
I’ll put this day behind me like a dream.
I’ll step out with my ordinary hands,
Clear lumber and lay bricks for twenty years,
Re-irrigate the gardens with my tears,
Endeavour to be one who understands
How our own better nature can redeem
A country from the hell of earth’s own making.
The Classics Lesson
I told him about Galatea
The joyful, animated queen;
He told me, make it short I have
Three discs of porn I haven’t seen.
I told him she was fashioned by
Pygmalion’s skilled and lonely hand;
He told me, that’s the kind of thing
A guy could never understand.
I told him that he whispered pleas
And vows into her chilly ear;
He told me, where’s the damn remote,
And who forgot to buy the beer?
I told him that he brought her shells
And little birds and shining stones;
He told me, get a pad and pen.
I’ll need them if my agent phones.
I told him that he laid her out
In purple on a gilded chaise.
He told me, I’ll be working late
Tonight, and for the next five days.
I told him that he went to pray
For someone like his sculpted one
He said, the baby wrecked your boobs;
If I were you, I’d get them done.
I told him that he hurried home
And pressed her to his pounding heart.
He said, the therapist was right –
I think we need some time apart.
I told him that she came to life
And both lived loving evermore
He told me, damn, I’m out of smokes.
I’ll go and get some at the store.
He told me, I forgot my keys.
He told me, hey, it’s ten below.
He told me, open this damn door.
I told him no. I told him no.
Template for a Conversation with a Single Friend
I’ll call you back when Junior is in bed
(Addressed to Isa/Janet/Winifred).
My hands are full of turkey parts and string;
I know you want to talk about the thing
That happened at the staff retreat with Ted.
I have to see the kids are bathed and fed.
Of course I’d rather talk to you instead.
I’m sure he doesn’t view it as a fling –
I’ll call you back.
I’m sure he only means to clear his head.
You can’t expect a man to go to bed
With someone from the office and then ring.
You have a lot to give. Stop hollering,
Stop saying that you wish that you were dead.
I’ll call you back.
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne
or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair,
that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair
from underneath you, shoved their small fists in
your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin,
those minkish teeth were dancing everywhere,
the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare,
their soccer cleats against your porcine shin,
that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds
escaping from the gunshot through the reeds –
and now you have to face it all again:
the joyful freckled faces lost for words
in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze
your own. It’s been so long! They say. Amen.
Doug Hill
I want the sun to swallow up Doug Hill,
Said the tenth grade student (through her tears).
He said he loved me, but he never will;
I can’t go on like this for sixty years.
Said the tenth grade student, through her tears,
He said he needed time and he would call.
I can’t go on like this for sixty years.
I can’t go on. I can’t go on at all.
He said he needed time and he would call.
He brushed the leaves from off his pants and rose.
I can’t go on. I can’t go on at all,
I thought, and reached in darkness for my clothes.
He brushed the leaves from off his pants and rose
The next day. Back at school, they looked at me,
I thought. I reached in darkness for my clothes,
Feeling bare and horrible and free.
The next day, back at school. They looked at me,
But all I saw was him, though he was gone,
Feeling bare and horrible and free.
I am the one the tigers fell upon.
And all I see is him, though he is gone.
I see him in the locker doors, the sky.
I am the one the tigers fell upon.
I want the bell to ring. I want to die.
I see him in the locker doors, the sky;
He said he loved me, but he never will.
I want the bell to ring. I want to die.
I want the sun to swallow up Doug Hill.
Modern Camera
This is the setting for when you're inside.
This is the setting for candlelight.
This is the setting for sunrise and sunsets.
This is for portraits of people at night.
This is the setting for servings of food.
This is the setting for things under glass.
This is the setting for files and documents.
This is the setting for flowers and grass.
This is the setting for watching explosions.
This is the setting for watching the match.
This is the setting to hold to the spyhole
And watch children cry when you've fastened the latch.
This is the setting for trembling hands.
This is the setting for earthquakes and fire.
This is the one for the tyrant-in-training
(You cower below them and tilt the lens higher).
This is the setting for rocks and hard places
This is the setting for blood and ablution.
And this button here is the one that you press
When shooting yourself is the only solution
Descriere
"Here are brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice."—Charles Martin