owen lucas

Each poem in CV2’s spring 2014 “Poetry Only” issue is listening deep into the stirred silence of the page. Where once there was emptiness, a poem; where once there was attention, voice: 25 poets careening for your ear! Here reside disturbed ponds, otter-tailed exclamations, interstellar field static, oceanic fault lines, silent synapses, glacial angels, northern ghost-farms, skeleton councils, phantom dollhouses, sub-island descents, and debt, much debt—inherited, historical, environmental—to reconcile.

The “disturbed ponds” belong to one of my contributions to the issue, an ekphrasis poem on Peter Doig’s painting White Canoe. Also included: a poem on the Klimt painting Bewegtes Wasser, which I address to the Nibelung Alberich from the Ring Cycle (maybe a jump, but I think 1898 Vienna would have dug Wagner). Lastly, a poem from the Revenant sequence I wrote in 2012, in which an estranged husband and wife communicate through dreams over the course of one night.

This gig is significant to me for a couple of reasons. For one, I earned a little money from it, which is new for me. At the same time, CV2 has an air of legitimacy that I’m not used to. It’s not put together with staples and it has grants from a bunch of Canadian arts councils. A few people might actually be reading it! Still trying to work out why Canadians like me so much.  Anyway, here is the issue. More news coming soon.