AISP, the poem (by request)

 Back in May of 2010, I attended a reunion of students from my Toronto high school, AISP — the Alternative Independent Study Program. I don't know how I would have survived the school system without that place.

Someone on social media this week asked to see the poem again, so here it is. 

AISP

 

Did I ever tell you about this school

a school made up entirely of initials:

 

Apples In Silver Purses

Astronauts Integrating Small Pandas

Ask In Sequence Please

Agatha Ivanov Speaks Portguese

 

It was a free school

and we were free

to create our own learning

to call our teachers by their first names

to hang a parachute from the ceiling of the Common Room

(until a fire marshal told us otherwise)

 

We were free to rebel

to make super 8 films

to scream sound poems in the hallways

to make Xerox art in Dorothy’s office

to make comic books instead of essays

comics books about global domination by Venus fly traps

 

We were free to invent our own courses

skip classes walk out of classes sit in on classes

that we weren’t even taking

free to take the side of Mao Tse-Tung

 

Did I ever tell you about the initials?

 

Actively Irrigate Subtle Plantations

Anything Irritates Shirley’s Piano

Abe’s Integers Smoke Pot

Angels Illuminate Soryl’s Pecadillos

 

We were free to get beat up less than

at Jeffreys, MacKenzie, Fleming

to read any goddamn book we wanted to

I mean truly weird shit

to take three courses a year, or fifteen

and write revolutionary communiqués

to hang a parachute from the Common Room ceiling

I’m serious

because it meant we were alternative

and we were independent

sometimes we studied

and we were never programmed

 

we ate French fries at Dairy Freeze

fried liver and onions in the cafeteria

Carl ate cookies in his office

and then he brushed his teeth

thus providing a lesson

 

Have I mentioned the initials?

Always Investigate Snoopy Parents

Armadillos Invest Snappy Premiums

Africa Israel Switzerland Poland

Asia Istanbul Spain Peru

 

On torn sofas

in the Common Room

we argued sports and politics

under an actual parachute

that hung from the ceiling

a ceiling

a parachute

a fire marshal

 

We were free from beating each other up

free from conveyor belts

sausage education

particle board learning

We were free from Catcher in the Rye

if we wanted to be

free to take a class with a teacher

who’d fold our poems into paper airplanes

and fly them across the room

 

plus we had a parachute

a Common Room

a ceiling

initials

have I told you about the parachute?

 

 

 

 

27 May 2010

Stuart Ross

Over and out.

Did I mention that last year I won the Trillium Book Award?

I haven't been keeping up with things on this blog. Blogs being an almost-thing-of-the-past. But it's worth documenting that in June 2023, I won the Trillium Book Award for my memoir, The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, published in 2022 by ECW Press.

Back in 2000, I was shortlisted for the award for my second poetry collection, Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid. I didn't expect to win then, and I didn't, and I didn't expect to win this time. I figured they just put me on the shortlist when they needed a book with a stupid title.

But The Book of Grief and Hamburgers is a very important book to me. It was painful but cathartic to write. I wrote it for myself, and for my dear friend Michael Dennis, the Ottawa poet, who didn't have long to live in fall 2020. I didn't intend to show it to Michael, but I did show him the dedication, which is to him. With an epigraph by him: "We are the lucky men." He said that to me in the last month of his life.

Here I am giving my acceptance speech. My editor at ECW and friend Michael Holmes is holding my award. Man, he and ECW have stuck with me through seven books and I am so grateful.

And here I'm signing the placard for my book on the big night.

Oh yeah. This is the moment when my name was announced as the winner. As you can see, I really didn't see it coming. Paul Vermeersch caught my expression in this photo.

Here's a letter the mayor of Cobourg addressed to me to mark an evening in my honour at the Art Gallery of Northumberland. It was a pretty lovely occasion, organized jointly by the gallery and our local indie, Let's Talk Books. The brilliant Katie Cruel was my musician of choice for the night. And I was introduced, really beautifully, by Cobourger, writer, and former MPP David Tsubouchi, who has always been a great champion of the written word.

And here is my winning book. This gorgeous cover was created by my friend the London, Ontario, artist Angie Quick.

No book of mine has brought me as much response (or money!) as The Book of Grief and Hamburgers. As I said, I wrote it in part for Michael Dennis, but it was a tribute to all the important people in my life who have died. And one important dog.

Miss you, Lily.

Over and out.

My 2024 New Year's Poem

SEVEN SLEEPS FOR A NEW YEAR

i.

When I wake

It will be the first day

Of something new 

That tiptoes along a telephone wire

Catching fragments

Of conversation

And writing them down

ii.

I was snoring

My leg was in a weird position

It remembered a joke

About a calf who mooed

But it was a leg calf

iii.

My teeth were grinding

My enemies

Into something

I could live with

iv.

The brownshirts chase me

Up the stairs

Soon I have

No more floors to escape to

I shove open my eyes

Reach over to the night table

Sip some water

The brownshirts screech to a halt

They mutter

Scratch their heads

(One head per brownshirt)

v.

I yawn while sleeping

My stomach growls while I eat 

 I write a poem while someone reads one of my poems

vi.

The digital clock

Beside the glass of water

On my night table

Throws a red 3:26

Across my still face

The spider dangling

Above my head

Double-checks its watches

vii.

I was sleeping

I was not a hummingbird

I was not a can opener 

I was not a wisp of campfire smoke

My head lay on a pillow

And a dream snuck out of my skull

Curled itself into a ball

Went bouncing off the walls

And out the window

Into the dark sky 

Into the cold night

Into the broken world

Where it fixed everything

Stuart Ross

1 January 2024

Over and out.