“National Poetry Month” #21: Shannon Maguire

from “Pearl/Buttons”

near the hour of dawn a stranger      unfamiliar flowers
she might have been named               Sylvia or Buttons
or Applied Computing              Astrolabe
and near to her the split                     of daisy bombs
53 reviews of recent accidents            and a Book of
Hours of detentions at the crossings          a small log
with names encumbering      just beyond
the air-stream           planes landing amid
various species of poetical*      replies to pressures
often have I waited                     watching that well
before that spot where my hand spent         careful
cold stirring hours
where I fell upon the flurry   flat, for she haunted
the spot        my daughter

* Reference lost.

The above poem by Shannon Maguire is brought to you via the Middle English “Pearl” poem (Anon.) and can be found in her new book fur(l) parachute.

Shannon Maguire grew up on the mouth of Lake Superior and now lives in Guelph Ontario. Her poetry has appeared in CV2, Ditch, Gultch: An Assemblage of Poetry and Prose (2009), as well as other places. She is the author of three chapbooks: Vowel Wolves & Other Knots (2011), Fruit Machine (2012), and A Web of Holes (2012). A selection of poems from fur(l) parachute was a finalist for the Manitoba Magazine Awards in the category of Best Poem or Suite of Poems (2012) and it was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry (2011).