Swans

By Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown's second book of poetry, Swans, begins as a night out between three best friends at an eponymous watering hole before becoming a phantasmagorical coming-of-age fable by closing time. In between, memory shifts and poems shuffle like songs on a jukebox, detailing fraught female friendship, sexual awakening, alcohol abuse and abandon in the dying days of a decade of decadence. Swans is a whip-smart collection from one of Canada's catchiest lyric poets. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palimpsest Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781990293443

Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown's first full-length collection of poetry, Safe Words was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit award. A finalist for The Malahat Review's Open Season award, CV2’s Young Buck prize and the CBC poetry prize, her work has also appeared in The Walrus, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain, PRISM International and The Puritan. After nearly a decade in Toronto, Michelle has recently returned to the West Coast, where she hangs out with her daughter, dog & husband.

Book preview

Cover: Swans: Poems by Michelle Brown.

Swans

Swans

Poems

Michelle Brown

Logo: Palimpsest Press. Logo: Anstruther Books.

Copyright © Michelle Brown 2023

All rights reserved

Palimpsest Press

1171 Eastlawn Ave.

Windsor, Ontario. N8S 3J1

www.palimpsestpress.ca

Printed and bound in Canada

Cover design and book typography by Ellie Hastings

Edited by Jim Johnstone

Palimpsest Press would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We also acknowledge the assistance of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Logo: Anstruther Books. Logo: Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts du Canada. Logo: Ontario Arts Council Conseil Des Arts De L'Ontario, an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l'Ontario. Logo: Ontario Creates/Ontario Creatif. Logo: Canada.

library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

title: Swans : poems / Michelle Brown.

names: Brown, Michelle, 1989- author.

identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230147151

Canadiana (ebook) 2023014716X

isbn 9781990293436 (softcover)

isbn 9781990293443 (epub)

classification: lcc ps8603.r6923 s93 2023 | ddc c811/.6—dc23

For J & K, forever my main characters

And for Zoë, forever

Contents

‘Swans Watering Hole’ Dance Floor, After Wild Swans

Getting There

A Line that Snakes Around All the Way to the Future

Spells for Drunk Girls

Same Three Friends in Different Universes

The Dancer

The Witness

The Historian

Pitchers of Raspberries

Karaoke at 10 p.m.

The Dancer Requests

Ugly Duckling

OK let’s go around the table and each share one weird thing

Passed Around

The Magician

The Incident

Older MFA Student

Poet Voice

Pet Name

Passerby

Wait, er

Fruit Fly

Two Dogs Bark in Neighbouring Garages

Woman Rowing a Boat Emoji

1 in 3

Mid

The Big One

Under the Table

who taught you

BFF

Cam Girls

pillow slip

Question Period

Remember fairyland. Looks nice. Lots of wildflowers. Love you.

Wild Swans

See?

Shouted from Across the Bar

Karaoke at 1:30 a.m.

Through the Glass

The Longest Creature in the World!!!!!

Closing Time

Answers to a Few Private Questions

Summer Away

Dinner Party

Walking the Dog

Parakeet at the Dog Park

Bathroom Code

Five Star Review for Bath Towel

Morning After and After That

Swan Song

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

— "The Wild Swans at Coole," William Butler Yeats

‘Swans Watering Hole’ Dance Floor,

after Wild