Lean Days

By: Steve McOrmond

April 2004
88 pages | ISBN 0-919897-94-0
$15.00

Steve McOrmond captures what it's like to love and leave your hometown in Lean Days, his debut collection of poetry. From remembering " Saturday night,/ half-tons cruise / Granville Street Alice gives them the finger/ and you both think you'll die" to receiving a letter from the friend who stayed home, McOrmond's finely crafted poems awake the longing that everyone feels for the town that will never be home again. But the poet doesn't stop there. Having left his home he encounters a different sort of love where "it took a tall drunk guy in a blue dress to tell me I had great lips. It took you to show me who they / were made for" and discovers new kinds of pain as the city wraps around him, full of the sound of Glenn Gould playing "Adagissimo. The tempo of stars." With honesty, a maritime sensibility, and a subtle way with images, Steve McOrmond's Lean Days invites readers into a past and a present that will resonate deeply with them.


Patricia, as I stand

Patricia, as I stand in line behind the hearse,
is nine years old and hops from the car
in a rush of blue satin. She is suddenly
pressed into me - I collapse
in the squeeze of her arms
and huge eyes - sad gift among monuments.

Patricia, her sister in the coffin and no tears,
holds me, face in my belly, and whispers:
You told us stories, Amanda liked your stories.
I hold her tighter - moments
before she leaves me and
Amanda goes to the ground.
 

Reviews

• Review (Eric Barstad, PoetryReviews.ca, 2/21/2006)
• Review (Alex Boyd, ARC, 12/1/2004)
• Lean this way (Alex Pope, The Brunswickan, 9/15/2004)
• Two new poets of power (George Elliott Clarke, Halifax Herald, 9/1/2004)
• Candid voices behind mask: Debut collections delve into the personal past with sharp eye (Barbara Carey, Toronto Star, 7/11/2004)
• How to approach a poem (Elana Wolff, surface and symbol)

Other Titles by Steve McOrmond

• Primer on the Hereafter (2006)