Jon Paul Fiorentino
Montreal, QC
Presenting as part of the session: Skywalks and Suburbia - Saturday, November 6 at 10:30 am
Jon Paul Fiorentino is a writer and editor. His first novel is Stripmalling (ECW, 2009) which was shortlisted for the 2009 Hugh MacLennan Award for Fiction. His most recent book of poetry is Indexical Elegies (Coach House Books, 2010). He is the author of the poetry books The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006) which was shortlisted for the 2006 A.M. Klein Award for Poetry and Hello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie – a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (Talonbooks, 2005). He lives in Montreal where he is the Editor of Matrix magazine and Snare Books.
Description of Jon Paul Fiorentinto's talk:
DYING IN WINNIPEG
Don’t read me wrong —
I plan on dying in Winnipeg
In a strange way I
posit Winnipeg is where everything always dies:
Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets
faith, journalists, fine-tip pens
Earle Nelson, hockey dads
your best friend from the old street…
I will let the rush-hour dust or the blowing
snow or the dance-hall fumes fill my lungs
I will simply wait, let my side-splitting body
fail under the flattering lights in the hallway
Of the underfunded Concordia Hospital
and don’t dream of visiting
But listen, there’s a show tonight
at the legion hall
And I have half a liver left and
a hatchback with a quarter tank
I’m not hard to be had
Jon Paul Fiorentino, Indexical Elegies, Coach House Press, 2010
