September 19, 2016 | Occasus | Issue 6 | Experimental Writing
3 Poems by Brittany Renaud
Algonquin Park Retrod
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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.)
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The Family Camping
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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. |
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Collected from idioms, saying, nicknames, inside jokes and other linguistic happenings used while camping.
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A Trail Mix of Memories
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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.
