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    Helsinki Drift
    Helsinki Drift
    Helsinki Drift
    Ebook93 pages25 minutes

    Helsinki Drift

    By Douglas Burnet Smith

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    About this ebook

    Actress Mae West once said "I’ve been things and seen places." Poet Douglas Burnet Smith might well be able to lay claim to the same boast. In his latest collection of verse he takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through Amsterdam’s antique streets and canals, Tuscany’s sun-soaked landscapes, Paris’s Gallic gabble of monuments and madcaps, and the title poem’s Finnish auditory and aural delights. In one poem we play Scrabble with Dadaist Tristan Tzara. In another work, "Sophia," we encounter "the mangy wisdom of wild dogs on every street,/skulking, pawing rabid piles of garbage/choking gutters, begging at the front doors of restaurants/like reeducated ideologues." In still another verse the poet’s persona contemplates Italian artist Giotto in Colorado, citing "the copper hogbacks" in which "he sees layered/trecento shale-engraved depictions of Egypt and the Exodus." And everywhere his Muse takes him, Smith injects his stopovers with fresh perspectives, lending credence to seventeenth- century English essayist Sir Thomas Browne’s dictum: "Ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateMay 16, 2002
    ISBN9781770706460
    Helsinki Drift
    Author

    Douglas Burnet Smith

    Douglas Burnet Smith is the author of ten previous volumes of poetry. His most recent book is The Killed (Wolsak & Wynn). He has been nominated for the Governor General's Award and has won numerous prizes for his writing, including The Malahat Review's Long Poem Prize. Currently he divides his time between Paris, France, and Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he teaches at St. Francis Xavier University.

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      Book preview

      Helsinki Drift - Douglas Burnet Smith

      HELSINKI DRIFT

      ALSO BY DOUGLAS BURNET SMITH

      Thaw (1977)

      The Light of our Bones (1980)

      Scarecrow (1980)

      Living in the Cave of the Mouth (1986)

      Ladder to the Moon (1987)

      The Knife-Thrower’s Partner (1989)

      Voices from a Farther Room (1993)

      Two Minutes for Holding (1995)

      The Killed (2000)

      Chainletter (2001)

      HELSINKI DRIFT

      travel poems

      DOUGLAS BURNET SMITH

      Porcepic Books

      an imprint of

      Beach Holme Publishing

      Vancouver

      Copyright © 2002 by Douglas Burnet Smith

      First Edition

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto, Ontario.

      This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, 226–2040 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 2G2. www.beachholme.bc.ca This is a Porcepic Book.

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of the British Columbia Arts Council. The publisher also acknowledges the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities.

      Editor: Michael Carroll

      Design and Production: Jen Hamilton

      Cover Art: Detail of Keitele by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Oil on Wood. © National Gallery,

      London, England. Used with permission.

      Author Photograph: Bernice MacDonald

      Printed and bound in Canada by AGMV Marquis Imprimeur

      National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

      Smith, Douglas, 1949–

         Helsinki drift

         Poems.

         A Porcepic book.

         ISBN 0-88878-429-5

         I. Title.

      PS8587.M526H44 2002           C811’.54           C2002–910163–8

      PR9199.3.S55153H44 2002

      CONTENTS

      I  TIED BOAT

      Late Departure

      Arrival Lounge Anxiety Anti-Haiku

      Lake District Rhyme, Stone Cottage

      Clouds over Teignmouth (Keats’s Apparition Anti-Haiku)

      Tennyson Down

      Loch Fyne

      Tied Boat

      Keats House, Hampstead

      II  A POSTAGE STAMP

      Amsterdam Short List

      263 Prinsegracht

      A Postage Stamp

      On a Bridge over the Adige

      Scalla della Ragione

      Fiesole Lament

      Tuscan Scorpion

      III  IN ANOTHER STATION OF THE MÉTRO

      Foreign Hands

      Bar les Pipos

      Mona Lisa in the Louvre Anti-Haiku

      In Another Station of the Métro

      Dragon Tattoo and Piercing

      Akhmatova’s Paris Recurring Nightmare Anti-Haiku

      Playing Scrabble with Tristan Tzara at the Trois Maillets

      Too Late for Stars

      Place de la Contrescarpe (I)

      Les Philosophes

      Place de la Sorbonne

      July 14

      Place de la Contrescarpe (II)

      Place des Abbesses

      Haiku Double

      Song of

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