new from above/ground press: Parapagus, a poem by Roland Prevost

Parapagus

(a poem in ten parts)

Roland Prevost

$4

[ censorship confers ] x { prehistory }

We are reduced to call upon the eye and ear.

A backfield dig unearths two gleaming pre-human

Skulls.  Scattered artefacts lie between them.  

Hard dirt under cracked fingernails: dark, dry. 

Comparisons of brain cavities, occipital angles,

Jawbones.  To them we’d seem: Graceful. 

Fragile.  Nervous.  Perceptive.  Even when they

Lived, sheathed in silence, their eloquent tools

Spoke necessities for them, as still now.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

December 2012

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Roland Prevost’s poetry appears in Arc poetry magazine, Descant Magazine, Ottawa Arts Review, Peter F. Yacht Club, Ottawater (online), among others. He has three previous chapbooks: Metafizz (2007, Bywords), Dragon Verses (2009, Dusty Owl), Our/ Are Carried Invisibles (2009, above/ground). He’s also been published in two poetry collections by Amanda Earl’s AngelHousePress, Whack of Clouds (2008) and Pent Up (2009). Roland won the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award. He was, for a few years, the managing editor of 17 seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, as well as poetics.ca, both online. He studied English and Psychology at York University and the University of Manitoba. He lives, writes poetry, short stories, a lifelong journal, composes and records songs, and peers through telescopes in Ottawa.

This is Roland Prevost's second above/ground press chapbook, after Our/ Are Carried Invisibles (2009).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

[Roland Prevost launches Parapagus alongside Shannon Maguire and Craig Calhoun in Ottawa at The Factory Reading Series on Saturday, December 15, 2012]