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Susan Steudel NEW THEATRE
Coach House Books, Toronto
Copyright © Susan Steudel, 2012
first edition
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Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUE IN PUBLISHING
Steudel, Susan [1968-]
New theatre / Susan Steudel.
Poems.
eISBN 978-1-77056-307-0
I. Title.
PS8637.T48435N48 C811′.6 C2012-900245-3
For Jeff, Chris and Wil
‘New theatre can exist; judging by many signs, it is near. It issymptomatic that, instead of directors’ theories, plays appear; instead of productions we get dramatic works which dictate how they are to be produced.’
— Nikolai Punin, Iskusstvo Kommuny, No. 2,
December 15, 1918
‘There were so many things that didn’t exist.’
— Lisa Robertson
Night. Drier than bone, an hypnotic windmill.
Morning. Shears silver and heavy in the hands.
Noon. A grumble, a black currant.
Afternoon. Eleven years after the child is born.
Tea. The stain in the iris.
Evening. River ice clinking into water.
The hour. Catkins erupt silkily from buds.
Bath. One end of a skipping rope lowered into a birdhouse.
Tea. A city of channels.
Evening. The fact of a studio in Amsterdam where photographs are hung.
The hour. Description of night in another city.
Night. Two bricks on ice.
Morning. A gold jacket.
Noon. A book given; a soft black cover with silver lettering.
Afternoon. Sour walnuts.
Tea. A bridge spanning a river where fish spawn.
Evening. Recorded movements of mule deer.
The hour. Graphite on paper, a blunt glide.
Bath. Giant, silent elk.
NEW LIFE
The dead give way —
want to curl against you like a new life,
want to carry
the bowl with you and me in it.
A penny hidden in a teacup,
teacup turned upside down.
Where the lake was once. Evaporated.
A flame cups into wax
new phased
(faced).
MANIFESTO
The spirits must write.
Paper, a break in cloud.
At the start there was a fire.
Ink caked, disintegrated.
Feathered ash.
It is first heard through a cup pressed to a wall.
Your cup.
Maybe I am imagining a different country
or non-action.
A lie pulls a scarf from my mouth.
It has never been proven that such a world exists.
CITY
The city is a folk tune.
The city, mirrored in night sky.
Listening to the revolutionary poems.
The old venue creaks under our feet.
Reality a roofless house.
A small dog wanders into the poem,
slinks out.
Some dogma makes out with itself.
I can navigate this.
I don’t know you but it doesn’t matter.
A MODERN PAINTING
I wake in darkness
thinking of an Edward Hopper documentary
narrated by Steve Martin.
I see in detail
a corner of theatres and taxis,
an orderly photographer’s studio,
and invent motives
for the noncommittal postures.
Facades,
muddiness of concrete.
A simple dress.
I wake beneath dark lamps,
my window fractions into deeper darkness.
A flooded road,
faces of the brown deer and limping buck.
From an antler
grass trails by the roots.
EARLY CENTURY
‘Within each sense an example of the word’s use in context is given to pin-point the precise meaning that is required… We would like to thank Gloria Wren and Catherine Wren for their assistance in compiling parts of the text and also Commander F. Val Jones, who, with his late wife, made many helpful suggestions for revising the text.’