a journal on the writer's role in society edited by esther altshul helfgott Contributors are invited to address the question: What is the writer's responsibility to self & society? |
Neile Graham grew up in Victoria, BC, and currently lives in Seattle. Her poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction have been published in American, British, and Canadian literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry collections are: Seven Robins (Penumbra, 1983); Spells for Clear Vision (Brick, 1994) which was shortlisted for the Lowther prize for the best book of poems published by a Canadian woman; and most recently Blood Memory (BuschekBooks 2000). She is currently at work on a collection of poems about her travels in Scotland. |
November Arrives on the Coast by Neile Graham It is not the rain that leaves me here, not that this place can hold me with its gray wind, but something about the turning of the year into a new season makes me stay to watch what remains. It is not that much remains, I saw that almost everything leaves. When the rain brings on this season, the year becomes an empty place and the scraps of the days are turning in the anger of the thickening wind. I keep changing with the wind; I feel the fear that remains when the year begins turning against me, when all the leaves set out for another place, and I am alone with the season. But this is my season and not even the strength of the wind can blow me from this place. I am what remains when all else leaves --the only thing not turning. The landscape never begins turning real or concrete. It will only season the air with all the colours of leaves carried in the dense wind that carries all the remains from this, into another place. I grow deeper: here I find a place that is mine alone. I am turning into a tree that remains even now, in this season. I draw back from the wind, but it is never me that leaves. This is the place where the leaves are turning in the northern wind, where the remains of the year turn into a season. Copyright © Neile Graham, 1983. All rights reserved. Previously published in Seven Robins. |
Neile Graham grew up in Victoria, BC, and currently lives in Seattle. Her poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction have been published in American, British, and Canadian literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry collections are: Seven Robins (Penumbra, 1983); Spells for Clear Vision (Brick, 1994) which was shortlisted for the Lowther prize for the best book of poems published by a Canadian woman; and most recently Blood Memory (BuschekBooks 2000). She is currently at work on a collection of poems about her travels in Scotland. |
a journal on the writer's role in society edited by esther altshul helfgott Contributors are invited to address the question: What is the writer's responsibility to self & society? |
You will notice that Neile's poem is a sestina-- a seven stanza poem. The first six stanzas contain six lines each. The seventh stanza contains three lines. Note the pattern of repetition. ed. |
