Tuft

By Kim Minkus

Tuft: "A bunch (natural or artificial) of small things, usually soft and flexible, ...fixed or attached at the base." - OED With Tuft, Kim Minkus takes us on flights of poetic fancy into futures where we "observe the green elite" and "iceplants bloom in the monotony of paved paths." We tangle and climb into language and are swept into the lives of the animals that haunt the shores of our city's waterways. This is a world where worker, lover, animal and poet unite. Minkus brings Venus and Satan into one sentence and in doing so unleashes the "bitter-broken-fallen" of our world. This is a gathering that calls out to the reader to pay attention and look closely. Tuft reminds us that without words our bodies would not exist and that only time makes us secret. We are all attached to something.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: May 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781927040706

Book preview

TUFT

TUFT

Kim

Minkus

BOOKTHUG

TORONTO, 2013

FIRST EDITION

Copyright © Kim Minkus, 2013

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts and The Ontario Arts Council.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Minkus, Kim

Tuft / Kim Minkus.

ISBN  978-1-927040-70-6

I. Title.

PS8626.I55T84 2013     C811’.6     C2013-901273-7

here come the colours

—Paul Celan

Contents

Bird

TUFT

Laneway

Machine

24 Nonets Written After Reading Edward Byrne’s Sonnets: Louise Labé

Industry

Philomena

I have visions.

I see colours as birds do.

my sparrow gaze lifts me up.

I look. out.

I don’t need much space, but I want it.

stop the keypads.

I am interested in the labour of listening.

becoming is my extravagance.

I stroll through essays.

I harness machines.

there are no schools of containment.

my files are thick and bored from my thumbing.

my notebooks are blanks.

this is how I make my point.

assemblages that turn.

games of body that topple.

I take flight.

I study desire.

I enjoy my sex and listen to them.

I am after their language.

there is much to talk about.

my camera records their words.

their bodies saturate my lens.

their locks are in my