disfunctional title by Rob Budde

growth by measurement, props
of entitlement improving on the last
quarter and what it might sink

vehicles tell us where to go
in the long run

skulls with clacking teeth, the whole
visual effect slouches across Central Street

the wrong alarms went off
and the volunteers never did make it

a better poet would miss this—
unpanicked lines more mellifluous

through us, fully enabled
Nechako water moves us

the making of the humans
would account for nothing
and find everyone

George Street Letters

Coming June 1, 2005
George Street Letters, Issue #1

GSL is a long-awaited and much-needed arts and culture magazine
which will be documenting, reviewing, and promoting Prince George
arts. The local newspapers seem to have disavowed local arts and
PG culture is crucial to civic identity and community well-being. GSL
will be distributed free to local coffeeshops, arts organizations, and
other meeting places.

Pick one up and engage in the conversation!

Contact George Street Letters for more information!

Write Off by Ken Belford

Half is gone along the river, 
in the channels, in the flows.
The threat of extinction bores people now.
So does the disappearance of clean, cold water.
It’s a write off so we tell stories 
to ourselves, to cover up.
If you will live then I will live. 
You swim upstream with money in your jaws. 
But salmon are not for eating and
the belly fat of white men is expensive.
Before they saw it, before they heard of it, 
the people of the selfish gene imagined the Columbia.
They die so quick and then they live again,
the buffalo pulsing on the cobbles. 
I fell in love in another generation,
then fell in love again.

giving way by Rob Budde

either living off the land or accruing debt;
different houses, same living

a kind of slow leeching of nutrients
falling out of the language

I am obtrusive in cities because
I step aside, give way
and throw off everything

the colonial inclination to cohesion—writing
the good story—and 
empty space a vision of development

yesterday, a strip mall ate my path
inside out

policies are roads and I am off

Cynthia Wilson Memorial Reading

In memory of Cynthia Wilson, and so that those who knew her
can have a time of closure, Vivien Lougheed and Ken Belford
are organizing an evening of readings by some of the Prince
authors Caitlin Press published.

Additionally, her brother Howard White, nephew Silas White and
one or two others from Harbour Publishing will be coming to
Prince George for the memorial reading planned for the evening
of June 08, to be held in the Library at 7:00 PM.

So that a Cynthia Wilson one-time bursary can be created we are
asking that all who attend donate $10.00 at the door. Some of the
local authors scheduled to read are Jacqueline Baldwin, Ken Belford,
Barry McKinnon, Jack Boudreau and Vivien Lougheed.

Contact Vivien Lougheed for more information.

"green" noun by Rob Budde

what is inside the saying
out, divulged, a kind
of explosion of the singular

word or located thought--
not both--across a table
but talk of how to stay
in language and land--
not both--across a poem its own

myth is the expectation
that some have done it for you better

knots of recoil, not taking what is given, not
beholden to the south--sustainability is

in poetics, is keeping the poem close,
a territory, a ceremony, a smaller economy
of naming ink into thought out

meaning can stay in catalogues,
the course lists, the collective
protections, a manifesto that is not one saying

prince george is not memorable 
like that usual world.