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Susan McMaster's ninth book and fourth CD, Until the Light Bends, was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award and Lampman Poetry Prize. She edits such volumes as Waging Peace: Poetry and Political Action. She works at the National Gallery, where the strike that prompted this poem took place.
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Published Spring 2007
 
At Midnight Talks Fail
And here we are: herded into a ragged string
burdened with signs, wrapped in scarves
against sunrise cold. They chivvy at our heels,
bark us into motion—colleagues, familiar
from a morning hello, a shuffle of paper,
are suddenly strange, imbued with command.
I thought they were sheep like the rest of us shufflers,
but, heated by conflict, they’ve shrugged off wool,
become dogs or mules who snap at intruders,
nip us into strength.
And we, are we still sheep for the shearing?
I glance at the tower where I stabled for so long,
at the stall where I nosed and snuffled for hours
clocked by the tick in a well-lit box.
Beside me, my fellows lift their heads
to scan the horizon, breathe the air.
Cut off from feed, barred from warmth,
we've pulled on coats over shorn shoulders,
jumped the fence. Here, on the loose,
the sky is our cover, legs our heat.
The wind grabs my sign.
I leap to hold on, leap like a goat
kicking its heels
at the arc of the sun. |
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MR BOOKS
Critics at Work
ed. Jeffrey J. Williams.
Critics at Work offers a guided tour through the central, sometimes confusing and frequently controversial developments in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. The tour guides, however, are not distant observers but have been primary participants in those developments, and they report on theory, cultural studies, the literary canon, the recent focus on race, sexuality, and other identities, the state of the univerisity, and the role of the intellectual. Throughout, they consider the not always easy negotiation of politics and culture.
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