National Poetry Month : Natalee Caple,

Sonnet for Sonnet

I’ll begin here

one arm reaches

after night

thug weight

still dumb, numbed

waves above the lightened

gaze on sleeping bodies

my sister and I

Born looking for

arboreal truth

okay, for a kind of comfort

tell me again about the

prisonwords

budded off my ribs like roses

Natalee Caple is the author of seven books of poetry and fiction and the co-editor of an anthology of contemporary Canadian writers. The New York Times called her fiction “moving … unsettling.” The Washington Post described her writing as “breathlessly good.” Caple’s latest novel, In Calamity’s Wake, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and by Bloomsbury in the US. She is a professor of English, teaching Canadian literature and Creative Writing at Brock University. Her poetry chapbook, The Appetites of Tiny Hands (above/ground press, 1997), was recently reissued as a twentieth anniversary edition. A new chapbook is scheduled for later this spring.

National Poetry Month 2016: Natalee Caple,

Warning


The music was
      significant. She said it
felt like
            it was playing. The
force
    of
the pavement.

They said, she might maybe she
      had
a drink? Or high?

maybe he grabbed her
      in the
corner

He then punched her grabbed her hair

Extensions?

Warning

He had her
had enough
to drink
and pulled her, grabbed her

Warning

While
  HE wonders was she playing chicken?
        might she
might she
might she
she might

she might play with the challenges of time
she might
suddenly rise "out the pavement”
with all of her bloodied sisters

Warning

Natalee Caple is the author of seven books of poetry and fiction and the co-editor of an anthology of contemporary Canadian writers. The New York Times called her fiction “moving . . . unsettling.” The Washington Post described her writing as “breathlessly good.” Caple’s latest novel, In Calamity’s Wake, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and by Bloomsbury in the US. She is a professor of English, teaching Canadian literature and Creative Writing at Brock University. She has work in The Calgary Renaissance (Chaudiere Books, 2016), a forthcoming anthology of Calgary writing co-edited by derek beaulieu and rob mclennan.