Stephen Cain
Biography
Stephen Cain is the author of American Standard/Canada Dry (Coach House, 2005) and two previous collections of poetry: Torontology (ECW, 2001) and dyslexicon (Coach House, 1998). This fall, in collaboration with Jay MillAr, he will publish his first work of prose, Double Helix (Mercury Press), and a second collaboration exercise, Collusions, is ongoing. At present he is at work on Post, a new poetry manuscript, and a more nebulous project known only as N.
Poet's Note on the Sequence "Gas-Food-Lodging"
Travel poems. One liners. Puns and idle thoughts as one drives and mentally drifts. It’s often been stated that perception and consciousness changed with train travel; so too with driving. Yet how to write the road poem without falling into that problematic Beat intensity—that Olympian and masculine thrusting from east to west across a continent? That caffeinated and cigaretted chivalry and sexism. And, when travelling from north to south, crossing borders in a time of war, how to avoid both cultural tourism and overdetermined nationalistic responses? “Flags and friendly fascism.” How to travel without capitulating to capitalism? This sequence’s title draws attention to the fact that, on the road, consumption has replaced cultural significance. A stop on the road, an exit off the highway, is defined more by what you can purchase at that point (fuel, sustenance, or rest) than what there is to experience at that locale. In an over-mediated space, an attempt at meditation.
Sample Poem
External Link
Test Recording
24 May 2006
Stephen Cain (24:38, 23.7 MB, info.)
Lisa Robertson (22:28, 21.6 MB, info.)
Question and answer session (29:25, 28.3 MB, info.)
Photographs by Sharon Harris