Core Samples Launch!

A heartfelt THANKS to everyone who joined us for the launch of Core Samples: Poems from Northwestern Ontario on Wednesday 11th May 2011 7 pm at the Prince Arthur Hotel

If you missed us, don't despair. Books are still available. Check out our page on purchasing Core Samples. Also, please meander through our blog to find out more about our poetry group, Para-Tactics, and our first collaborative
book, Core Samples.


About Sue Blott


Sue and her son, Dane, at Kakabeka Falls, Ontario
Born in Yorkshire, England and a writer in many genres, Sue Blott considers herself a poet at heart. She’s won prizes in NOWW’s annual contests and participates in Random Acts of Poetry. As a member of the Thunder Bay Writers’ Guild, she’s had fiction published in two short story anthologies. She feels especially fortunate belonging to a poetry group with the established, talented poets in Core Samples.





Prize winning poems by Sue Blott:

Lovers’ Lane


I’ve nicknamed my walking path
Lovers’ Lane this spring.

A messy crow’s nest
perches on a hydro tower
and two crows teeter
on spruce tree tops
like charred stars.
They flap black wings
and caw caw a warning
as the dog and I stroll by.

Between railways tracks,
a pair of Canada geese
crane ringed necks
to watch us pass.
Further along another pair,
less brave,
waddle over steel tracks
and down an embankment
as they scold us
with their honking.

In a driveway
on an intersecting street,
a red-clad toddler
be-bops to the road.
Behind, her parents cluck,
“Come here. Stay close!”

All the birds quiet
and still themselves
to listen.


What Else?


On the back steps, my black dog lies,
fur drenched by the rising sun.
With his eyes closed, his nose twitches
sensing seasons change.
What else to do, this August morn,
but sit beside him sipping tea?

A Mingling Moment


As Emily Brontë walked Yorkshire Moors
with her mastiff, Keeper,
braving fierce northern gales,
which must have ripped through
all her best woollen clothes
to ravage her innermost folds,
so I walk on cracked-egg tarmac
with my black mongrel, Rascal,
down to the Kaministiquia River,
frozen with whorls like heart prints,
beyond which Mount McKay looms
and beckons with native mysticism.
A rattle of bridge iron
and a drone of transports
combines with a moan from ice floes;
I imagine it is Emily’s skeleton creaking
while her spirit emits a restless groan.
A poem comes whistling on the wind.
“Here, Keeper!” I call and,
in a mingling moment,
see a purple span of heather,
hear sheep bleating
and feel the yearning of  a poet’s soul
by a river in northern Ontario.


Rogue


October: our anniversary month.
To celebrate our bond of dog and human,
we’ve gone with the wind
on a walk together
towards a gold-cloaked mountain.
As a nameless soul
from Animal Control,
a newspaper ad dubbed you
‘A Perfect Gentleman.’
More appropriately,
I could have named you
Shadow, Sweep or Blackie,
but I saw a glint in your eyes
of  a reckless spirit
and the tilt of your chin
reminded me
of defiance, Rhett-Butler-style.
So, I called you
Rogue.

 

Parallel Tracks


Solitary walks
by railways tracks
keep me close
to my father who,
solitary, walks
in open fields
and schoolyards.



2 comments:

  1. i adore the way your words evoke long forgotten memories in my head, never stop.

    ReplyDelete