Riffs

By Dennis Lee

Riffs is the story of a passionate love affair, told in vintage Lee style -- with whoops, deep chords, and headlong improvisational arcs. We hear Bach, Bo Diddley, Bird; the news is heartache and being. Celebratory, catastrophic, the poem tracks ways in which eros and our lives are made mutually accountable.

Riffs is a landmark achievement from the poet of Civil Elegies and The Gods.

Published in 1993, this was Dennis Lee's first book of adult poetry in 14 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 1993
• ISBN: 9781771312431

Dennis Lee

DENNIS LEE is Toronto’s first Poet Laureate, an Officer of the Order of Canada and the author of timeless children’s collections such as Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight, Jelly Belly, Bubblegum Delicious and The Ice Cream Store. He has received many honours for his body of work, including the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature. He is also an acclaimed writer of poetry for adults. His work is anthologized and read around the world.

Book preview

RIFFS

DENNIS LEE

RIFFS

BRICK BOOKS

CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Lee, Dennis, 1939-

       Riffs

ISBN 978-1-771312-43-1

I. Title.

PS8523.E4R5 1993      c811’.54      C93-094567-0

PR9199.3.L44R5 1993

Copyright © Dennis Lee, 1993.

The support of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council is gratefully acknowledged. The support of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation is also gratefully acknowledged.

Riffs is a work of fiction.

Cover art by Mary Donlan, ‘Freddie's Zig Zag’, oil on handmade paper, 18″ x 21″, 1992.

Brick Books

Box 20081

431 Boler Road

London, Ontario

N6K 4G6

Canada

www.brickbooks.ca

For Susan, my wife

1

When I lurched like a rumour of want through the networks of plenty,

a me-shaped pang on the lam,

when I ghosted through lives like a headline, a scrap in the updraft,

and my mid-life wreckage was close & for keeps–

when I watched the

birches misting, pale spring

voltage and

not mine, nor mine, nor mine–

then: a

lady laid her touch a-

mong me, gentle thing, for which I stand still

startled, gentle thing and feel the

ache begin again,

the onus of joy.

2

Nudge of her snuggled head

       against my shoulder,

cool of her flank

       beneath my finger-trails;

all night, all that

       prodigal night at the

tasks of

       passion–

sleep was the place we went,

        as the sun came through.

3

    How

hooked I–

    honey how