Walk a while in any direction and you'll find a field or an empty bottle or a pop can filled with purple gas It's not big enough to be a real city but, heck, there's a mall you could walk across it with three long-legged strides, but no one does They got them new VLTs at the motel bar and it's always the mayor's wife plugging quarters, with one eye closed and her daughter's hips swaying up the stairs beside the beer vendor entering red-curtained rooms peering out the window to pavement and weeds chain-link fence around the back lot Talk about the weather the crops the price of milk ask the girl at the greasy counter not a girl really she's been there twenty years but ask her anyway about the straight line of road about her bubblegum lips about the shallow lake, its cavernous floor that swallows your foot ask her where the water comes from where it goes and why on earth
29.0: PASTORAL
Poetry Editor Stuart CookeReleased December 2008
Index of Poems
Contributor Notes
Cover Image: David Prater
The second in another binary pairing, PASTORAL was meant to be Cordite's answer to SECRET CITIES but, with the introduction of open comments on the poetry in the issue, quickly transformed into a strange and captivating example of web 2.0 dialogue. Compelling, even.
This is so ominous small town The Postman Always Rings Twice. Spooky. Like the dusty, simple language. Had to read it over to try and sneak past the dread. Good, strong writing.
Rachel, good to see another Canadian holding the ranks here, and as fitting as the pastoral theme is, it made the transition perfectly smooth. Your poem is utterly Canadian, could have been written in any small prairie town, and I'm a Saskatchewan boy myself, from one of those small town we all tried to escape so I know. So thanks for submitting, it was a great pleasure to reminded of home.
I read that you're in Vancouver now, and I am not sure if you are involved, but if not head down to the Kootenay School of Writing and get involved. It's really not a “school” but a collective, utopian experiment, and it's one of my great regrets from living in Vancouver that i didn't get involved at the time. Also, Lisa Robertson and the likes are all there (or she may have just moved to Paris, as was the plan) working with everyone, so it's suppose to be wonderful and academic and involved.
thanks again.
matthew