Ariadne’s Notes: The World Poetry Café Radio Show had a wonderful interview May 25,2017, on CFRO 100.5 FM at 1:40 pm PST with the talented poet Michelle Elrick about her new book then/again, exploring her descriptions of home and the carrying of memories.
Thanks also to our wonderful team: Producer and host, Ariadne Sawyer, MA, co-host Elaine Woo, also a published author from Nightwood Editions, publicist Nathaniel Moore, super tech, Victor Swartzman and special volunteer Sharon Rowe.
Listen to the SHOW HERE!
Notes from co-host Elaine Woo:
“Michelle, author of then/again, Nightwood Editions 2017, engages us with the meaning of home, pushing the limits of the meaning of home, finding belonging in others or in a feeling of familiarity and comfort. She, too, discusses her literary legacy in other poets and in song.”
Image made By Scott Munn
Michelle Elrick is the author of two books of poetry including newly released, then/again (Nightwood Editions, 2017). Her writing has appeared in Geist, CV2, Event, Poetry Is Dead and on CBC television. She was the recipient of the 2011 John Hirsch Award and was a finalist in the 2015 CBC Literary Award for Poetry. She lives and writes in Halifax, Nova Scotia.Courtesy of Nathaniel Moore Publicist, Harbour Publishing Co Ltd., Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.,
Poem:
expect something and nothing at once: a car coming down the road,
a tilted x, a feeling of enough enough/a rapture love. count: two
days without sleeping, three hours spent hiding, seventeen years of limiting love and one long highway, the way it dips and caresses
the shouldering hills. wait with squint and exhaustion: breath
condensed on a cold brass hinge, elds scraped clean of snags
and novelty. wander in/out of rooms with a mirror under your chin.
climb out of the bed, the window, the car and threadbare drapery
of blue velour: gold exponential on the carpet. don’t talk, listen to the curve of this particulate. stare at the cabin past the dim
of trees: its red roof, the taste of warm tomato.
the mountain rises under your knees: algae, juniper. humming
hydro electric box: (red rover, red rover) call and careen, your name
still ringing, still ringing, drawing circles around your face, around
the many lips of the rose’s middle. gulls follow the tractor, picking out dew worms. sunset between Olympic and North Shore,
grazing red and spo ed land of white and orange stars. clouds pass
behind the tree: you say the name of the book you are reading, I touch your leg under the table, we leave the condom on the desk.
(how many brothers/sisters do you have?) mathematics of hunger,
of silence, noise. the universe expands beyond dead stars shining.
asymptotic crush. the things that used to be true.
by Michelle Elrick (C)
excerpt from the poem “square” from the book then/again (Nightwood Editions, 2017)
