Thursday, October 29, 2015

new from above/ground press: The Charm, Jason Christie

The Charm
Jason Christie
$4

we're no longer speaking

we are no longer speaking.
terms in which we might
continue speaking include:
a bundle of wool sweaters,
trees recently felled --
get specific they say,
and who, i say, is they,
they say i say, and so
we are no longer speaking
in terms that reflect
our disposable coffee
cups, plastic bottles, and
pink hair curlers, our dirty
diapers, curdled milk, and
mountains of cigarette
butts, our empty graves
with all that mud piled
beside, and our rotten
carrot mound, packages
and packages of blanched
almonds we never knew
what to do with, and
our GPS device, old
flip phone, VCR, and
cassette tapes, fruit
flies, Pac Man T-Shirts
we barely wore, down
we stumble as our words
catch in our throats and
we realize we're no longer
speaking to each other,
only to the virtual assistant
hanging on our every pause.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
October 2015
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy


Jason Christie lives in Ottawa with his wife and toddler. He is the author of Canada Post (Snare), i ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract), Unknown Actor (Insomniac), and a co-editor of Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (Mercury). He has two other recent chapbooks from above/ground press, which were both nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award: GOVERNMENT (2013), and Cursed Objects (2014). He is currently writing poetry about objects.

This is his fourth chapbook with above/ground press, after 8th Ave 15th St NW. (2004), Government (2013) and Cursed Objects (2014) [currently shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Award].

[Jason Christie will be launching The Charm as part of the pre-small press book fair reading at The Carleton Tavern on Friday, November 6, 2015, alongside Catina Noble, Michael e. Casteels, Claire Farley and Christian McPherson]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

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