“poem” broadside #343 : “IT'S WINTER IN OTTAWA” by John Newlove

IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA

The streets are full of overweight corporals,

of sad grey computer captains, the impedimentia

of a capital city, struggling through the snow.

There is a cold gel on my belly, an instrument

is stroking it incisively, the machine

in the half-lit room is scribbling my future.

It is not illegal to be unhappy.

A shadowy technician says alternately,

Breathe, and, You may stop now.

It is not illegal to be unhappy.

IT’S WINTER IN OTTAWA

by John Newlove

produced in part as a handout during the first

Arc Poetry Walk, curated and hosted by rob mclennan,

walking around Centretown as part of WORLD POETRY DAY,

March 21, 2018

above/ground press broadside #343

Canadian lyric poet John Newlove (1938-2003) has been called a “powerfully influential presence” in the Canadian poetry scene, and is respected for the scrupulous honestly of his bare-bones poetics. And although Newlove lived in BC and Ontario for much of his life, he was always considered a Saskatchewan poet. He lived in Ottawa for seventeen years, longer than he lived anywhere, residing at 105 Rochester Street in Chinatown until his death.

Reprinted from A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove

edited by Robert McTavish; Ottawa ON: Chaudiere Books, 2007

Courtesy of Chaudiere Books