Read This: Poetic Justice: Satirical Verse from The Globe and mail
Poetry by John Allemang (Firefly)
REVIEW BY Chris Chambers
You like your poetry subject heavy?
On Trudeau, Pitt, the New Orleans levee?
You like it rhyming (“sprinter’s pee/Holy See”)
In singsong rhythm aa bb?
You looking for a news compendium
Written in iambs from the post-millenium?
Look no further than this collection of John Allemang’s weekly poems, originally published in the Focus section of The Globe and Mail. In his introduction, Allemang admits to usually writing the poems on a Thursday, under pressure of his Friday morning deadline. Elizabeth Bishop had drafts of poems written just after the Second World War that she didn’t publish until the mid 1970s. Of course, she wasn’t working with same-sex marriage legislation, Don Cherry or the Taliban as her subjects. And obviously she set her own deadlines. Allemangís occasional verse (as in verse for an occasion) and his ability to churn it out weekly in essence made him our National (newspaper’s) Poet Laureate. Like rock and roll, there are many different kinds of poetry in the world, and Allemang is whip smart, with allusions and interests sufficiently wide-ranging to keep his work sharp, incisive and sometimes very funny: In one svelte couplet, catch just how tightly wrapped Barbara Amiel has her husband:
“Napoleon had Waterloo
For Conrad? Heels from Jimmy Choo.”
