Here is a poem by the late Canadian poet John Newlove (1938-2003) from A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove, edited by Robert McTavish, with an afterword by Jeff Derksen, published by Chaudiere Books in October 2007. “IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA” appeared earlier as “LEONARD, IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA” in a fetschcrift for Leonard Cohen edited by Ken Norris and Michael Fournier, published by The Muses’ Company, and was, admittedly, the main reason I spent my last seventeen or eighteen dollars on the collection, for that, and his poem “THE CAT.” It was mainly for the first. The second poem was good, but not nearly as good as the other. And I thought, the least poem of the later chapbook, THE TASMANIAN DEVIL and other poems (above/ground press, 1999). Newlove acts as apologist for the pessimism that too many have seen in his work, to the exclusion of so much else, including the dry humour of “the machine / in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.”
IT'S WINTER IN OTTAWA
The streets are full of overweight corporals,
of sad grey computer captains, the impedimentia
of a capital city, struggling through the snow.
There is a cold gel on my belly, an instrument
is stroking it incisively, the machine
in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.
It is not illegal to be unhappy.
A shadowy technician says alternately,
Breathe, and, You may stop now.
It is not unreasonable to be unhappy.
related notes: see my earlier piece on more of Newlove's poems here; or this one;
IT'S WINTER IN OTTAWA
The streets are full of overweight corporals,
of sad grey computer captains, the impedimentia
of a capital city, struggling through the snow.
There is a cold gel on my belly, an instrument
is stroking it incisively, the machine
in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.
It is not illegal to be unhappy.
A shadowy technician says alternately,
Breathe, and, You may stop now.
It is not unreasonable to be unhappy.
related notes: see my earlier piece on more of Newlove's poems here; or this one;
