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September 19, 2016 | Occasus | Issue 6 | Experimental Writing

3 Poems by Brittany Renaud

Algonquin Park Retrod

First on the List
The First but not the Last
We’ve Remodelled the Old Place
Life Is Only Skin Deep
 
The Sands of Pine
A Pebble in the Stream 
Of Deer, Men, and Hemlocks
Otterly at Home
 
How to Grow a Giant
How Did They Do It?
Is it a Plague…or a Ray of Sunshine?
The Skill (and the Waste) of it all
 
A Farm in the Forest
Is Smokey Out to Lunch?
Through Snowy Woods to Frozen Lakes                                 
                                                                                     Gawunk! Gawunk!
The Meek Shall Erode the Earth
 
Preparing the Way          
Where It’s Really At
Generation Gap
Born Three Times
 
Just Ask a Moose, or a Beaver, or a Grouse, or a…
[Howl] from a Special Wolf
To Catch a Wolf
A Sense of Proportion
 
Some Like It Hot
The Great Fertilizer
A Lot of Rot
Cracks in the Crust
 
Unseen and Unsuspected
No Park is an Island
Around and Around . . . Very Slowly
If You Can’t Beat the System . . . Adapt
 
Eating with Electricity
For Richer or Poorer
Windfall Profits
A Peril for the Pine
 
Here Lived the Judge
Life’s Ups and Downs
Looks Sweet, Tastes Sour
The Price We’ve Paid
 
An Island on the Forest
Algonquin’s Mystery Tree
Dragons in the Acid Vat
All Aboard!
 
Very Much a Mixed Bag
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Dam Impressive!
 
In Memorian
Sources used in order of first appearance. All texts by Dan Stickland in association with The Friends of Algonquin Park: Mizzy Lake Trail (Wildlife in Algonquin), Big Pines (Ecology and History of White Pines in Algonquin), Booth’s Rock Trail (Man and the Algonquin Environment), Bat Lake Trail (Basic Algonquin Ecology), Lookout (Algonquin Geology), Hardwood Lookout Trail (Algonquin Hardwood Forest Ecology), Two Rivers Trail (Changes in Algonquin Forests), and Algonquin Logging Museum (Logging History.)

The Family Camping

Bitty!
Would you like some coffee?
It’s colder than a witch’s tit out.
eh?
                People don’t say “eh” anymore!
                               It’s butt-fucking cold out.
                                               I got a quiver in my liver.
 
Did you take your meds this morning?
                Can’t fix stupid.
                                She’s crazy.
You gotta do what’s right for you.
My eye is on firrre!
My ass is on firrrrrrre!
                (to the tune of Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire”)
 
Boo-boo!
She’s built like a brick shit-house.
                Blue!
 
Watch out for scat.
                Brown recluse!
                                Hurry up!
 
Want a beer?
               Need more beer.
                              Want to go get some beer?
 
Where’s Ethan?
                He swears like a sailor.
                              CUUT-IEE DUDE!
Steve, stop fucking swearing!
                Fudger-Nuggets
                                Fucker-Balls
                                                Fussa Macka
                                                                Fudgsicle
 
Odie!
                 Get off that damn iPad!
                                Meester!
In my day…
                He’s always right.
It is what it is.
                                Would you stop reading already?
 
I always do all the cooking!
(or cleaning, etc.)
                When are we having pot irons?
                                Hey Britt, wants some pren-zels?
                                                                …some lunch-on meat?
Jack Rabbit!
                It was a dark and stormy night…
                and then…
                and then…
                noandthen!
 
How’s your boyfriend?
                Where’s your boyfriend?
                                  Got a boyfriend yet?
You gotta do what’s right for you!
                 Bootiful
 
“Grand ma” Angie!
                Want to play Cards Against Humanity?
                                   Grandmamma always wins.
 
I was gonna pitch the tent, but I got high,
Ooooooo….
                (to the tune of Afroman’s Because I Got High)
 
Goodnight Aunt Penny,
Goodnight Aunt Pat,
Goodnight Uncle Mike,
Goodnight Ethan,
Goodnight Austin,
Goodnight Don,
Goodnight Angie,
Goodnight Grand pa.
 
Goodnight Mom,
Goodnight Dad,
Goodnight Brittany,
Goodnight Grandmamma,
Goodnight Bitty,
Goodnight Mama,
Goodnight Booboo,
Goodnight Dad,
Goodnight Grand ma,
Goodnight Britt,
Goodnight Steve,
Goodnight Brooke,
Goodnight Mom,
Goodnight Steve,
Goodnight Pam,
Goodnight Blue
Goodnight Yvette,
Goodnight Pam,
Goodnight Brooke,
Goodnight Brittany.

Collected from idioms, saying, nicknames, inside jokes and other linguistic happenings used while camping.

A Trail Mix of Memories

Discovering inuksuks      An Aunt hitting me          Getting Dad                                                        Walking the       
  pointing the way to       for repeating     to tell me             We couldn’t understand               Big Pines Trail
     Algonquin      what she’d said to            Highway names and numbers     why everybody                 with
years after my                   her son.                                               so I                         was honking at us.         Aunt Pat  little sister Brooke had.     My Mom could write         Turns out the trailer                        and Mom,
                                                going “Mama bear”         experimental poetry.     had a flat.            I tripped over a
Hearing about the incidents        on her.                                                 The good people                              root.
       that occurred when                                                                                                at a John Deere                when I
Mom and I were backpacking     Crying because                 Grand pa told                     helped us out     got        
           between                 my dad                                 me to stop                          and then we had to         back to
Grand mama and Aunt Penny,      refused to apologize    reading and told   visit two different towns    the
or Aunt Pat, Dad, Austin and Ethan           for          me I was spoiled     (Bracebridge and Huntsville)    truck                 and a canoe.  political incorrectness.  and didn’t understand   to get a replacement.   and took                                Aunt Penny                                why I was angry.                                               off my shoe, my left
Riding home       walked me around the campground,                                       ankle had become a cankle. 
       in Grand pa’s              comforting me.                 The one cousin 
   3-seater                                                            who shat              Brooke playing                  The time my period
        pick-up,       I tried to swim          himself                with her pond            came early while camping
him telling me       to the island       when finishing              wand.                                    into my favourite pair
to read maps     in the middle of                the Whiskey Rapids trail.               of panties.
  instead of my book       the Lake of Two Rivers.                 Playing with               (Thank God for campground
     (to “save” it).         Barely making it even with        Dad’s metal detector               washing machines).
                                                a life jacket while Brooke              discovering an engagement ring.
At Pog Lake,       did it without. There and back.           Austin’s friend                          Sitting around the
      just beyond the safety buoys                                claiming it was all his                                 campfire at night.
  of the beach,                   Praying I               because he had done                                                                                    
was a log sticking up         wouldn’t get                    the digging.   Trying to be nice, I told Aunt Pat and Ethan               
out of the water.          my period                                                                               to go on ahead.
     Dad bet          while backpacking           When Melanie                  I carried the two ice bags from the Two
        Brooke and I              (succeeding).                     melted a              Rivers Store in the rain.
   20$ if we could                                                 pot iron by                                     Too wet to carry by the handles,
       swim out there.        Pulling over                        leaving it            too cold to hold against my body, it took
Fearing mystery fish,           at the side of         too long                       me three times as long to get it to the
many starts, stops and retries later,     the road         in the fire.            campsite. My ice cream had melted.              
we finally made it.           to take a picture of a moose which
     We stood on the log,                 I sent to some friends and my                     Watching The                Panicking
but it started to sink       (now ex-)boyfriend.        Screaming and jumping                 Perfect Storm     when I
           (only to rebound),                                               when someone slams their     in the tent (or       thought
    Sending us screaming back.     When I’d              hand on the outside of the metal     trailer)           I was
The bet had reduced      only had my G1,                      shower door       every time it rains.    sinking into          
     to 0$.               I drove the 60 Hwy’s       for the fifth time of my                                  a muddy pool, My
Brooke and I kept            hills and valleys                 shower’s duration.          Mother standing there,
Swimming and back           in utter terror.                                               (Stupid kids.)                      only laughing.
            and forth anyways.
BRITTANY  RENAUD was born in Chatham, Ontario and hopes to graduate with an Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language and Literature as well as a minor in Comparative Literature and Culture.

Western University
Department of English and Writing Studies
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