Ariadne’s Notes: The World Poetry Café CFRO, 100.5 FM, featured a new book by Jenna Lynn Albert with her new book Bec  & Call published by Nightwood Editions on November 1-2 pm PST. Hosts Ariadne Sawyer and Diego Bastinutti , super tech Victor Swartzman and special volunteer Sharon Rowe. Also featured was  a good news update on Rahmat Haidari and a story by Sharon Rowe.

The second guest , Ayn Inserto called in from the US  at 1:30 pm PST with her brand new CD The Rabbit Hole which will be the next feature. 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW BY CLICKING HERE! 

Jenna Lyn Albert is a poet, cat enthusiast, and proud acadienne. A graduate of the University of New Brunswick’s Creative Writing program, her poetry has appeared in The Malahat Review, The Puritan, Riddle Fence,The Antigonish Review, The Temz Review and CV2. Albert lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she is a member of The Fiddlehead’s editorial board and a first reader for Goose Lane Editions’ Icehouse poetry imprint. Her debut collection of poetry, Bec& Call, is out now with Nightwood Editions.

Poem:

Tongue-in-cheek

The dinner plate is white and square
like the fancy ones from restaurants,
the tablecloth white and oval and even.
There’s a small salad fork to my left
and my sister’s place is set the same,
tiny utensils for two petite minettes
with bon appetites, each of us eyeing
the up-cycled jam jars of racinette
that we can’t drink until O Captain!
My Captain! has his food served to him,
our supper following tout de suite.
Here we’re given cloth napkins, not
paper, and I hate using them because
they are white and clean and folded.
Pépère made our meal tonight: seafood,
his specialty, the potatoes and fish dish
all white, cut into bite-sized pieces
that barely stand apart from the dishes
they are heaped on. My sister and I eat
the white meat and starch, les poissons,
les poissons, hee hee hee, haw haw haw
but Pépère gets the last laugh, smile
all gums, dentures waggling, he asks
how we like our cod tongue and cheek.
Mid-mastication, we pause. Pardonne-
moi? He swish-swishes his teeth back
to their proper position, says nothing.
A muffled retch comes from my sister,
running for the salle de bain faster
than Mémère can Ostie d’calvaire,
Claude, and there’s tongue in my cheek
and cheeks on my tongue and it’s not
long before I’m kneeling with my sister
over the toilet, the tile not nearly
as comfy as the prie-dieux at church.

 Jenna Lynn Albert (C) All rights reserved.