Monday, September 30, 2013

Tuesday Poem - Tenants by Jon Paul Fiorentino



TENANTS
An odd dream
with only characters, no self. Yes, I am
aware it’s not interesting.


There were three men and one
woman in a shared apartment, itself
an odd dream.


Each of the tenants’ rooms was
decorated peculiarly, contained its own narrative
aware it’s not interesting.


The first was draped in pure simulacra –
the woman’s with wallpaper of a photocopied letter telling of
an odd dream.


in which the third was adorned with anachronistic
Xmas and the last with just one sad halogen placed
where it’s not interesting.


The simulacra slayed me – here was this man
with mad props of bed, books, art. Present in so little,
dreaming an odd dream
unaware it’s not interesting.


I have bumped into Jon Paul Fiorentino at the Queensland Poetry Festival twice! That's twice we have co-incided. And this time I picked up his excellent, droll book – Needs Improvement. You can invest in a copy from Coach House Books, Toronto, ON.


Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of the novel Stripmalling, which
was shortlisted for the Paragraphe Hugh Maclennan Prize for Fiction,
and five previous poetry collections, in-cluding The Theory of the Loser
Class, which was shortlisted for the A. M. Klein Prize. His most recent
poetry collection, Indexical Elegies, won the 2010 CBC Book Club
‘Bookie’ Award for Best Book of Poetry. He lives in Montreal, where
he teaches writing at Concordia university and edits Matrix magazine.


http://www.jpfiorentino.com/








2 comments:

  1. It 's an interesting and unusual poem. and the use of the word simulacra...just makes it. I like it.

    ReplyDelete