12/10/2020 POETRY: MEREDITH QUARTERMAINFLAGPOLES AT THE OLD EXPO GROUNDS jogger shoes flap flap flap bike chains jingle skateboards rush push on and on words surge to phone faces to laces no, I know, but it’s something I’ve really noticed a language I can’t understand the bolt of weeds through planks the mark of orange plastic cones a couple on yellow steps watch a play on a rotting stage its clatter of empty flagpoles its loom of concrete stadium once the water’s edge now Edgewater Casino spinning wheels spinning Highway ’86 yachts, trucks, ATVs giant Swiss-watch McBarge world in motion world in touch press on, carry on, keep on odds on asphalt odds on helicopter odds on geodesic I don’t think the psychiatrist warned them they thought they heard the deer they felt they were similar just look at the criteria look at the architecture the water’s push against land their nightclub they wanted to, they wanted very much they rallied, they studied, they held summits yet they knew they weren’t for plants they weren’t for wildlife videos they were for the stage they were on track for the house edge Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking won a BC Book Award for Poetry, Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award, and Recipes from the Red Planet was a finalist for a BC Book Award for fiction. You can also find her work in Best Canadian Poetry 2009 and 2018. Her fourth book of poetry, Lullabies in the Real World, was published in 2020 by NeWest Press. From 2014 to 2016, she was the Poetry Mentor at Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio Program.
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