St. Transcona

St. Transcona

Original Text
John Paul Fiorentino, Indexical Elegies (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2010): 70. PS8561 .I65 I53 2010 Robarts Library
2demanding a rewrite
4is already printed
6you see them only in the spring on the early news
7This love moves toward something
9consider yourself unhaloed in a trailer park
11You can lead a tourist to the Red River
12but you can’t make him drink himself to death
13It’s Saturday evening
14I’ll be at home, fucking up locutions
15Sunday morning

Notes

1] Transcona: working-class suburb of Winnipeg, Manitoba, served by a monthly newspaper, the Transcona News and Advertiser. The district is not ascribed as a saint, although some nearby suburbs are. Back to Line
3] St. James: now St. James-Assiniboia, a large district in Winnipeg.
the Free Press: the Winnipeg Free Press (1872-), the oldest newspaper in western Canada, with politically Liberal leanings. Back to Line
5] rivers: the Red and Assiniboine rivers, forking in central Winnipeg, contribute to annual flooding in the entire region. Back to Line
8] bonspiel: tournament in curling, a slow-moving sport played by sliding circular, polished granite stones or rocks down an ice sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Back to Line
10] unhaloed: de-christened for worldly living.
St. Vital: working- and middle-class district in Winnipeg, Manitoba, affected badly by the 1950 spring flood. Back to Line
16] floodway: flood-control channel, control gates, and dikes (1968-) that divert Red River output around Winnipeg to prevent disasters such as the great flood of 1950 when a hundred thousand people had to be partly evacuated from Winnipeg. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright

Copyright © Jon Paul Fiorentino and used by permission of the poet. Authorization to republish this poem must be obtained from him in writing.