Harmonics

By Jesse Patrick Ferguson

Jesse Patrick Ferguson brings music and poetry into conversation with each other in this compelling debut collection. Modelled on the fundamental tones and overtones of the harmonic series, poems in Ferguson’s arrangement riff on one another, and words, phrases and images resonate sympathetically, with all the energy and buzz of a firmly plucked mandolin string. Throughout, Ferguson pays homage to poetic traditions, infusing age-old forms like the sonnet and the villanelle with an astute and contemporary political sensibility, a unique and fresh aesthetic energy, and a breezy, brazen East Coast swagger. In dense and vivacious verse, he tunefully explicates a range of subjects from climate change to rent cheques to various incarnations of love, offering the reader a tin-can telephone to the raucous and beautiful symphony of everyday life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freehand Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781460400180

Jesse Patrick Ferguson

Jesse Patrick Ferguson was born and raised in Cornwall, Ontario. He holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Ottawa, and he currently resides in Cape Beton, Nova Scotia. He is the author of five poetry chapbooks, and his work has appeared in Grain, Arc, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Magma Poetry, Harper’s and Poetry Magazine, and he was a finalist for the 2009 CAA/BookTelevision Emerging Author Award. He is interested in folk music, and he plays several instruments, including the guitar, mandolin, violin, pennywhistle, bodhran, djembe and harmonica.

Book preview

Cover: Harmonics, by Jesse Patrick Ferguson.

HARMONICS

jesse patrick ferguson

HARMONICS

Logo: Freehand Books.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 by Jesse Patrick Ferguson

All rights reserved. No part of this3 publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical—including photocopying, recording, taping, or through the use of information storage and retrieval systems—without prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5E 1E5.

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Calgary, Alberta T2p 1N3

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Book orders

Book orders: UTP Distribution.

5201 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario M3H 5T8

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Edited by Don McKay

Cover and interior design by Natalie Olsen, incorporating

elements from Mama by Jesse Ferguson

Freehand Books gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program.

Logo: Canada Council for the Arts. Logo: Counseil des Arts du Canada

Freehand Books, an imprint of Broadview Press Inc., acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program provided by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development program (BPIDP).

Logo: Freehand Books.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in publication

Ferguson, Jesse, 1982 –

harmonics / Jesse Ferguson.

poems.

ISBN 978-1-55111-960-1 (print) 978-1-4604-0018-0 (epub)

i. title.

pS8611.E738h37 2009 C811’.6 C2009-901433-5

For my parents, Charles and Francine

FUNDAMENTAL TONES

LATE RAIN

SPIN OUT

VIA RAIL VALEDICTION

VOLTAGE

THE OLDEST TOOLS LAST LONGEST

FEBRUARY GHAZAL

NORVAL

DIRGE

IN THE SMELTER’S VALLEY

OVERFLOW

UNLOCKING THE WORD-HOARD

THE PENDULUM’S SWING

THAT OTHER ANNIVERSARY

PANGAEA

CHAINSAW

OVATION

THE NOONDAY DEMON

SUMMER POEM

ROOM FOR WOUNDS

CARILLON

SATIE’S GYMNOPÉDIES

CAT SCRATCH FEVER

ANYWHERE, ONTARIO

A VINDICATION OF THE FLIGHTS OF SEAGULLS

FLESHBONE CATAPULT

USUAL BLUE

AS YOU LIVED

RIPARIAN ZONE

PILLOW TALK

THE BACH SEAT

HALIFAX

DEVIL’S MUSIC

CEASEFIRE

RESIDENCY

IN ITS PLACE

TAXONOMY AND FRUIT

PRE-OCEAN

MAMA (VISUAL POEM)

OVERTONES

POLYPHONY

TRANS-CANADA EAST

QUITE A PICKLE

CAPPUCCINOS FOR THE PLANET

THE HAMMER AND ITS ARM

DURING WIND AND SNOW

SHAMAN TRAVELLER TO OTHER WORLDS FOR BLESSINGS

IN MEMORIAM CORY GADBOIS (1982-2007)

BREAKERS

SAID THE RIVER TO THE FLOODPLAIN

EASTERN ONTARIO PASTORAL

THE LONG WAIT

CATALOGUE OF PERENNIALS

INFRASTRUCTURE

DIPSTICK DIPTYCH

WORK

WHITE CHINA

HEX

TO DO:

MONOLOGUE

EMILY CARR

APHASIA

THE COMPARTMENTALIST

FALLOUT AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

PIBROCH

FOR THE GIRL WALKING PAST TABARET HALL

FOR SEYMOUR MAYNE

HAWTHORN

SICK SOUNDS

DR. PRUDEFLAY, OR PURDYESQUE

HALIFAX: DECEMBER 1917

GREASY SPOON TRIOLET

GERRY O'NEILL'S ARM

LUXURY SEDANS

UN

IN THE WINGS

POST-OCEAN

Cover

Half Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Fundamental Tones

LATE RAIN

SPIN OUT

VIA RAIL VALEDICTION

VOLTAGE

THE OLDEST TOOLS LAST LONGEST

FEBRUARY GHAZAL

NORVAL

DIRGE

IN THE SMELTER’S VALLEY

OVERFLOW

UNLOCKING THE WORD-HOARD

THE PENDULUM’S SWING

THAT OTHER ANNIVERSARY

PANGAEA

CHAINSAW

OVATION

THE NOONDAY DEMON

SUMMER POEM

ROOM FOR WOUNDS

CARILLON

SATIE’S GYMNOPÉDIES

CAT SCRATCH FEVER

ANYWHERE, ONTARIO

A VINDICATION OF THE FLIGHTS OF SEAGULLS

FLESHBONE CATAPULT

USUAL BLUE

AS YOU LIVED

RIPARIAN ZONE

PILLOW TALK

THE BACH SEAT

HALIFAX

DEVIL’S MUSIC

CEASEFIRE

RESIDENCY

IN ITS PLACE

TAXONOMY AND FRUIT

PRE-OCEAN

OVERTONES

POLYPHONY

TRANS-CANADA EAST

QUITE A PICKLE

CAPPUCCINOS FOR THE PLANET

THE HAMMER AND ITS ARM

DURING WIND AND SNOW

SHAMAN