Two Cultures Press :: Advice To Travellers (1994)

Advice To Travellers
Ken Stange
Published by Penumbra Press (1994)

"The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing'." —Daniel J. Boorstin

Poems as accessible as an advice column, but “as unsentimental as spit on the sidewalk,” intended for the real travellers on life’s rugged roads—not for the tourists. As a reviewer for Books in Canada remarked, Stange’s poems “achieve a hard precision.” These are tough poems.

Penumbra Press (1994)
ISBN: 0-921254-741
Softcover (6x9 inches) 80 pages
Signed by author edition: $20

Link to publisher unsigned edition: $12.95

Advice To Travellers (1994)

Excerpt

DON'T LET SUNLIGHT FRIGHTEN YOU
.
.
.
"One of the problems with constructing a rational world view is that it blocks the light." —Hippokrites
.
.
Don't let sunlight frighten you . if
catlike . it leaps at you
when you least expect it:
harsh reality . like everything else
is open
to discussion.
.
One morning . entering a garden
you catch the sweet peas
their legs tangled around each other
and peering into the tulips
see Le Sacre du Printemps performed
naked.
.
Don't be disconcerted . if you think
you can hear the sky
humming . to itself
a melody from Mozart.
.

or if you find . a bright fire
in your mirror . or wildflowers
growing rampant . in your unmade bed.
.
You needn't worry about the future
of physics . merely because water flows
uphill . for awhile.
.
Every now and then the world takes a holiday.
.
The catalyst varies: love
lust . poetry . impropriety
the way your body feels
after sleep
or sex . or even a long journey
on an inexplicably empty highway.
.
The trigger doesn't matter. Accept
the consequences . savour the sunshine
.
for somewhere else there's pain
and a nasty rumour has it
God much prefers the rain.