Compatibilist (by Ken Babstock)
Original Text:
Ken Babstock, Airstream Land Yacht (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006).
This
poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from a volume on the Canadian Shortlist 2007).
1Awareness was intermittent. It sputtered.
2 And some of the time you were seen
3 asleep. So trying to appear whole
4 you asked of the morning: Is he free
5 who is not free from pain? It started to rain
6a particulate alloy of flecked grey: the dogs
7wanted out into their atlas of smells; to pee
8 where before they had peed, and might
The rest of the poem cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.RPO poem Editors:
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition:
2011