A SHEAF BY THE LATE P. M. SAMSON
COMMENTARY BY BARNARD SWALLOW
devised by Jon Cone and K.Lipschutz
$6
KINDERGARTEN MEMOIR
Sky, light, a ton of snow.
Time to get, time to go.
Father has his large coat on.
Mother has her plaid.
Orange Crush can
on a stool, spinning at the counter.
Milkman Anchorman Linebackerman.
Hold my hand, but only till the corner.
(-_-)
Fire drill, fire plug, fire escape.
Where’d you put the dog?
My truck, not your truck.
Barking in the fog.
My friend, not your friend.
The flag halloos the wind.
Flags fly in place.
Is a flag a hummingbird?
(-_-)
Pie-eyed May Day in the deep dish bath.
“Pie-face! Pie-face!” down the garden path.
Easter picnic eggshells know
how dumb it is to have a sister.
Father flies to Houston. Armadillo
sounds like Old Man Karl’s goiter feels.
Grace, a neighbor. Grace, before.
Corned beef hash for dinner.
░ ░ ░
COMMENTARY
A child of the North plays pick-up sticks with the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of his inception. The particulars do not shock, yet the reader is by subtle means advised to buckle up in the backseat and take in the passage of time. That chestnut of Creeley’s containing the rare line in a poem that leant itself to the name to a movie comes to mind. Ultimately, the specificity of the main course evokes a nostalgia infiltrating the sequence as it shifts into gear.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
January 2026
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Cover Photo: Colette Jappy
P. M. SAMSON was considered the backbone of the Creative Writing Department at OSU from 1978 until his untimely death in 2021. He published sparingly but left a trove of writings just now beginning to see the light of day thanks to Buckeye Press, an imprint of Kenyon College. Among his contemporaries, he was closest with Baron Wormser and John Hollander, both of whom championed his work. The autobiographical sheaf presented has been termed “a revelation” by no less than William Logan, éminence grise of the University of Florida. Oddly, the historical details in the sheaf bear scant relation to the known facts of Samson’s life.
BARNARD SWALLOW holds advanced degrees. His criticism has been published widely. He is the authorized biographer of Baron Wormser (literary executor of P. M. Samson’s estate). Swallow appears sporadically in the TLS, contributing light verse under his “Saturday-night-and-Sunday morning moniker” Bunny Jean Swallow. An avid football fan, he is also the editor of Them That’s Hired and Them That’s Fired Up: Selected Correspondence by legendary coach Bum Phillips (LSU Press).
JON CONE, born in Charfield, England, is a Canadian writer who lives in Iowa. He attended the University of Western Ontario for undergraduate and graduate degrees, and later Vermont College of Fine Arts. His numerous published works include New Year Begun: Selected Poems (2022), Liminal: Shadow Agent, pts 1 & 2 (2021), Family Portrait with Two Dogs Bleeding (2009). From 1991 to 1998, he edited the international review World Letter (Iowa City).
K.LIPSCHUTZ (formerly klipschutz) is the author of eight collections, including This Drawn & Quartered Moon (Anvil Press, Vancouver, BC, 2013), Twilight of the Male Ego (2002), and The Erection of Scaffolding for the Re-Painting of Heaven by the Lowest Bidder (1985). He has co-written approximately 120 songs released by Chuck Prophet, including eight on Wake the Dead. (Oct. 2024). In addition to this book, the two have collaborated on the manuscript Conversations about Cats and the full-length play Beckett and Borges Work It On Out (currently unproduced).
This is Jon Cone's second title with above/ground press, after Against Perfectionism & other poems (2025).
To order, send cheques (add $2 for postage; in US, add $3; outside North America, add $7) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
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