sarah burgoyne - p o e t r y s t u d i o

My Plaza [excerp+]

2024, winter after Gail Scott A man is slumped on the stoop of Lana Café, head in his hands. Fellow itinerant crosses sea of honking traffic, become-Moses, to give unto his friend a couple of slaps on the knee. Friend sufficiently roused. Moseses back across Jean-Talon with friend. Simon and

france 2003

I. An early oughts’ travel diary gleans shabby brochures, pressed flowers and printouts of information and itinerary. Hence, a diary from 2003 is both encyclopedia and archive, magpie and trash bin. It precludes forgetting. The diary begins, this journal was given to me by my mother, October 15th, 2003, for

the plaza after rain [part iii]

The clouds collage before they break. Rainfall mimicks the footsteps of Plaza walkers, passersby with tightly knotted bags of food as much as with goods. I note my own grief for the Plaza that once was, utterly enchanted by it on first sight, its priestesses in ten-dollar gowns, a salsa

the plaza after rain [part ii]

Benjamin suggests we walk. I wonder if we’ll pass Ari and I glance around for her black pixie cut and soft white scarf. We pass the life-size elf princess on horseback in the window of the medieval cos-play store and Benjamin tells me that French philosopher Denis Diderot “had

the plaza after rain [part i]

The opening entry of the blue journal is dated for the last day of the year 2019. Plaza Notes is the headline and below is a messy list in cursive. A closer examination of life through poetry, reads the first item. A refusal to acculturate (Dominatrix as a figure of

four thoughts on gail scott

1 Let us at last seek help in interpreting the dream of the 21st century. We must pay attention to juxtapositions. I pick up one of my favourite books, Gail Scott’s My Paris. In it, the narrator, named Gail, explores Paris as the millennium approaches against the backdrop of

poetry studio, winter (mmxxv)

6 weeks | Saturdays | 10AM-12:30PM EST March 1 - April 12 | $200-$250 (sliding scale**) 9-11 participant capacity This workshop will take place online. “Studio” as opposed to “workshop” takes its root from the term “study.” This intensive poetry studio aims to rethink the “student” and “study” along the lines

our lady of the caustics

1. I wanted to replace the word ‘caustic’ in my own poem one morning by opening the dictionary very wide and turning the pages above my head so that I wouldn’t disturb my body’s prostrate position (which it had been in since the night before), and then the