Ariadne’s note:
The World Poetry Café Radio Show with host Ariadne Sawyer proudly welcomed the talented poet Lisa Shatzky in a fascinating interview with her poems, writing tips and life on a boat with a dog who thinks who is a cat. The welcome music by Clara Hsu
unfortunately did not work, but will try next week. Also sorely missed was host Israel Mota. Music by Bach, played by Yo Yo Mah and Victoria Musician Swan Walker. To hear this interesting show CLICK HERE!The World Poetry Café is asking for new members! Please go to www.coopradio.org and become a member of our show.
Lisa Shatzky’s poetry has been published in The Vancouver Review, Room Magazine, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, The Nashwaak Review, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, Canadian Literature, Canadian Woman’s Studies, The Prairie Journal, Jones Ave., The New Quarterly, Monday’s Poem, and six chapbooks by Leaf Press (edited by Patrick Lane) along with anthologies across Canada.
Her most recent poetry book “Blame it on the Moon” was published by Black Moss Press in November 2013.http://blackmosspress.com/productcat/poetry/
Her poetry book “Do Not Call Me By My Name” was published by Black Moss Press in August 2011 and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Poetry Award in Canada in 2012.
Shatzky has also had prose published in a book called “Living Artfully: Reflections from the Far West Coast published by The Key Publishing Group in September 2012, as well as poetry published in a Bowen Island anthology published by the Bowen Island Arts Council in 2013 called “This Island We Celebrate”.
When not writing she works as a psychotherapist on Bowen Island, B.C. where she lives on a boat with her partner Don and her children and various cats and a dog who thinks he is cat.
Suppose
Suppose on a Monday afternoon
brewing traffic and deadlines, the elevator
gets stuck between the fourth and fifth floors and you stand with strangers in a space
smaller than any room in your house.
the man in front of you shifts back
and forth looking at his watch and the boy beside you wears only purple and a Mohawk haircut with a guitar on his back.
Next to him a woman stands on duty in a stiff blue dress buttoned high
carrying a bag of oranges imported from Spain.
Suppose this was all there was for the next two hours.
Suppose the shifting man now faces you, his eyes far away oceans you might have seen somewhere.
Suppose the Mohawk boy spits on the ground and can’t stop saying fuck.
Suppose the woman on duty unbuttons her collar and few oranges spill out gushing the room bright and bold.
Suppose you find an unfinished poem
in your backpack, the one you would never share
except for now, a poem about someone you thought you loved and never told and now it’s too late.
And the man with the ocean eyes says it makes him sad and pulls out a harmonica to offer his heart
and the boy stops saying fuck and tunes the guitar and everyone watches his fingers coaxing the strings
Their glory, a glory so tender the woman takes off her jacket and says it’s hot in here and you stumble
Through the unfinished poem telling them everything you meant to tell someone else
And the harmonica undresses the words
And the boy melts the guitar and the woman
Hums and murmurs something about yes, yes, I know that song and the elevator reveals
Itself for what it really is; an abandoned hermitage found again or a snatched up moment in paradise
Or the one small thing we felt
Brave enough to do that day
And no one wants to be rescued,
Not yet, not yet…
Lisa Shatshy (c)
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