Canada, (b. 1962)
(:field)
- Each hog compartmentalized by heavy metal framework,
- its snout snorkelling loudly in the corn offering.
- Bleached albino skin with pinkish froth of pig-hair,
- shadow of grace which trails above each animal
- like its disgusted, unhinged spirit. The story of
- some willow-thin teenage girl who turns
- three successive offers of marriage in
- the mid-twentieth century, finally living
- (obese, immobilized) with her aged mother,
- driven slowly mad the child spite of senil-
- ity, the eaten rice pudding, the slap in the
- face
- when a cousin’s appropriation
- of this story is contextualized by the dour, engorged
- form of a mid-Ontario farm hog
- her day seemed glutted with misplaced
- bitternesses
About the Poet:
Margaret Christakos, Canada, (b. 1962) is a Toronto-based poet, fiction writer and creative writing educator. Her work has shown consistent interest in recombinant poetics, process writing and seriality with themes that circulated in the terrain of sexuality, gender, subjectivity and the internal polyphony of narrative voice.
Christakos was Canada Council Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor in 2004-2005, and since 2006 has taught poetry and creative writing at Influency: A Toronto Poetry Salon at University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. She is also the Publishing Editor of the online poetics magazine Influency Salon.
Christakos’ most recent book of poetry is Welling (2010), others include What Stirs (2008), Sooner (2005), Excessive Love Prostheses (2002), Wipe Under a Love (2000), The Moment Coming (1998), Other Words for Grace (1994) and Not Egypt (1989). Her novel Charisma came out in 2000. [DES-01/13]
Additional information:
- Christakos is Publishing Editor of Influency Salon – a web zine of contemporary Canadian poetry.
- Not Egypt is available on line.