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    The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude
    The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude
    The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude
    Ebook89 pages41 minutes

    The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude

    By Jill Batson

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    About this ebook

    Jill Battson’s highly anticipated new collection of poems, The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude, pushes deep into the heart of the human condition. In lush and visceral language Jill explores loss, beauty, nature, Francis Bacon’s ordered hoarding and the meaning of Martha Stewart. Jill’s poems whisper like muted Miles Davis tunes melancholy in the ear, or shout their colours from the top of desert mesas. Many of the poems in this collection are a result of collaborative artist process with dancers, composers, singers and painters, but above all they will live in your memory like a perfect pearl long after their first reading. {Guernica Editions}
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGuernica
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781550715903
    The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude
    Author

    Jill Batson

    Jill Battson is an internationally published poet and poetry activist and the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Cobourg, Ontario. She was responsible for creating and running the successful poetry reading series The Poets’ Refuge and has initiated and produced many exciting poetry events. Jill is widely published across North America and the UK. Her first book, Hard Candy, was received to great acclaim and nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award. She has written plays and solo works, opera librettos and electro acoustic sound projects. Dark Star Requiem, an oratorio for which Jill wrote the libretto, opened the 2010 Luminato Festival, and was recently published in book form.

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      Book preview

      The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude - Jill Batson

      JILL BATTSON

      THE ECSTATIC TORTURE OF GRATITUDE

      ESSENTIAL POETS SERIES 185

      GUERNICA

      Toronto – Buffalo – Lancaster (U.K.)

      2011  

      CONTENTS

      The Stone House

      Land and Lake

      Winter Milkweed

      Bone Box

      29 Reasons Why I Want to Grow a Garden

      Garden Love Poem

      Night Walk

      Fishy Business

      The View from Here

      On Grey Days that Feel like Jackson Pollock Paintings

      Bowery Club

      Bonneville/Parisienne

      Lightning, as Seen from New Mexico

      Homage to the Lizard

      Canyon de Chelly

      Telegraph Pole

      Emerald/Vector

      Anti-Squaw Valley Poem

      Grey

      Cuban Snapshots

      Contemporary

      Santiago Shakes its Cool Down

      Visiting 7 Reece Mews

      Staircase at 7 Reece Mews

      Bedroom at 7 Reece Mews

      Bathroom at 7 Reece Mews

      Left Behind

      Caftan in Irving Layton’s Greece

      Dorothy Cameron’s Dreams

      The Boy Behind the Green Veil

      The Language of Love

      Calendar of Remembered Things

      Fish Stick

      Words for Salad

      Why You Should Be Jailed, Martha

      Snapshot

      Place

      Love Poems for Singers

      The Ecstatic Torture of Gratitude

      Sublingual Linger

      Lessons from Frank

      Channeling Thelonious

      I Wants to Stay Here

      Affording a Phone

      Grand Canyon

      My Boys

      Articulating the Love

      Mainlining D

      Away from You

      Flesh on Flesh

      Pheromone

      Always the Scent of Gardenias

      Body Point

      Hard Boiled

      Flower Speech

      I Write/I Write

      FOR WITKIN

      1998 – 2010

      AND HIS BROTHER ANSEL

      THE STONE HOUSE

      for Susi Reinink

      House whose walls are cut from the crust of the earth

      pre-Cambrian reliquary for farmers

      resurrected from tatters of neglect

      you were built on the quiet land before

      cars made distances nothing

      your stones worn soft by prevailing winds

      darkened to ochre and charcoal by rain

      catching a glimpse of your welcoming lights

      when walking the fields

      on drizzle-darkened autumn evenings

      or your grey-yellow stones through

      summer ’s heavy trees

      means the house forms its word

      around a meaning of home

      blissful centering that promises belonging

      house that will soothe city-tense psyche

      shield me from the larger world

      here is a softness that protects

      small light and quietness in winter

      cool breezes and subtle scents in summer

      house, you are rock risen and hewn

      older than time shaped

      in the cradle of your history I have found my home.

      LAND AND LAKE

      In the long, dry grass, brown with winter ’s harshness

      my feet sink in snow, buoyed up by the matted, blown layers

      gnarled branches, their loosely sheathed bark,

      squeak and moan in the tall wind

      fragile dull green juniper, patina of masked purple

      peeks through like a gin-buried treasure

      red metal curved sleigh rail clings to rotted wood

      a curlicue hooking worm-eaten to the north

      grey sun watering the clouds with a hint of brilliance

      and on the lake, a frozen palate of tonal white

      corralled snow swirls, skidding along the slick surface

      ceases and begins, eddies and rests

      the shoreline pushed up by expanding water

      halted waves crack and settle, tectonic plates of ice

      herculean and slowly unstoppable

      several feet from shore I am rafted by the continuum

      as the wind breathes, the lake speaks

      wa wa, wa wa ing

      a heartbeat along the surface, resounding under the ice

      haunting and magnificent

      a sound like whales calling under the ocean.

      WINTER MILKWEED

      Throttled pod, casement like cement

      rough grey speckled

      soft prickles

      inside, the colour of adobe,

      matt sandstone texture

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