Fresh, funny, and imbued with infectious energy, this poetry collection tells a story of growing up and living in the North.

Northerny

Concise, idiosyncratic reviews of books that happen to cross my path. Mostly Canadian, mostly poetry.

Reviews of Books I Got for Free or Cheap

Name That Garden

On Reading, in 2023, a Confusing Entry for “Old Crow, Y.T.” in The Junior Encyclopedia of Canada (1990)

The Deal

I felt pride at
the doctor’s telling
me I’ve a small
waist and a high pain
tolerance. Pride is
venal. 

Two Poems

I need to think
of something about
this big
and in
two colors,
he says and I
say, what?

Articulate Skin, or, Top Three Favourite Raccoons

The poets are scrubbing out the university toilets at 6 a.m. before the start of classes and
the poets are doing the professors’ taxes.

The Jobs of the Poets, and How To Work

before

(a stone, a rock)

you should say
your thoughts


best if left

In school in 1989

at 3 p.m. the teachers all

wrote “P.L.O.”

in the chalkboard’s corners

Please Leave On

when rivers and streams get blown
across the continent. short-lived. a bad
weed (said it outright). pitted in
the outline. this blot is kidney-shaped.

Mustard Family

Eumillipes persephone

Going away is a destination.
What follows, flows. Train
or tram, flight path, cart road.
A spill of brick. A soft shoe. Go.


Itinerary

Here’s the how of holding:
the things we hold:
cards, convictions, close.

Hold on, hold off, same thing

A contemporary witch can ride a canister of compressed
air by directing the outflow against
the teeth of a plastic comb while clutching a coal-
black kitten. The astute reader notes the conundrum:

Askew

Sometimes I talk too fast and …

[five lines missing]

Transcribed on Leaves and Thrown Into the Wind

He made our home of flour and salt

I put ash on my forehead to clarify the skin

Courtship of Land and Sky

children are like fungus—
alive, that’s something
you can say about them.

increase

pine needles align
iron filings
magnet rain

TO CAR PARK

Some people don’t like their food to touch.
 
Some like to rub up on the corners of buildings—can’t turn the block without squeezing the stone.

Contact Forces / Quickness / 11 Conversations

The mind is a bird
breaking its beak on the pane
harrowing the walls

Quiz: Which Metaphor Are You?

Is a poem a song? I do

not hear the singing of it;

an intonation; there’s

a cockatoo that meows like a cat.

Song of My Speech Impediment

When we integrated under the curve and the fuel
ignited, when push came to
rubber glove, and in all the kitchens
food fell from plates

Cold War Wash Day

automate everything especially murder
killing condemn except at scale


Automate and Salivate / Convergence

This isn’t the house I grew up in.
We’re both set in our ways.
I’ve walked on trails that pass uncomfortably close to trees.
I’ve walked on trails that humans don’t use.
I found the head of an animal with fur still on.

Dawn Macdonald

Books

Selected work

Projects