This new poem of mine appeared this summer in The Literary Review of Canada. “Is it Safe?”
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Venice Journals is an excerpt of a manuscript in progress, of poems and photographs. It was published in May 2020 just as Venice was stepping out of quarantine. I share it with much respect for that wounded and wondrous city.
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Venice is a walking and a water city. This means the person you meet on the boat –– the public transit everyone takes –– you will likely see again in the square. It's a small, social city.
There are 53,000 local residents.. Every day 60,000 tourists weigh down the island for a few hours, then return to their cruise ships and leave. This makes it a teetering place. I picture the island itself as a raft that tilts to take on passengers and again when they leave.
It seems like a precarious balance for those who live in Venice: to host with kindness -- as they do -- and to maintain some privacy and space and quality of life. They attend to us. Me, a visitor too. I feel I'm somewhere between tourist and resident. And for some reason, with all my attention, I want to attend to the place and those I meet.
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Last summer I was invited by The Brave Festival of Risk and Failure at Harbourfront to write poems for people on the spot. About 40 folks came over several days and I asked what they needed a poem for and then I wrote it. And then they took it and walked away.
At the start of my shift on the second day, a man was waiting there, eager. No excited. So into it, it made me nervous.
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