Corked (2014)

I was hoping to hear Catriona read from her latest book, Corked (2014), after I read Ted Byrne's thoughtful review of it in the most recent issue of The Capilano Review, but I read too long (something I never do!), and Catriona only read from her latest project, "Reveries of a Solitary Biker" (a collaboration with composer Jacqueline Leggatt and clarinetist François Houle).

Ted's review brought to mind another book that "spoke" from the perspective of a domestic (slave) labourer: Alice Randall's response to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936) -- The Wind Done Gone (2001).

Catriona did not have any copies of Corked with her, so after the reading I walked to Paper Hound and purchased one.

The bulk of Corked is made up of poems that begin "Dear Proust," but here is one from the opening section, a poem I read more than once on the bus ride home:


"16"

I'm so catty in green.
Will such hides express one
single shout of greening
rosemary? My hat's green
so green

Will's laugh zooms for lichen's
jagged wood, out-ditched hiding
and hugging (this hat's really
a gem), the wild jag I dance
heists my love's knot. My snazzy
hat's a jumping hide

Grabbed by some wanting,
decked much within green's
reasons -- my hat has grown
so going -- kind swarthy cruising,
kind bunting blooms, it all
rings green around here. My hat's
so damn green.