Through The Long Clearing, through The Cutting, through
The Stick-Stockade. Through Valley of the Chain-Link,
through Blind-Ditch, through Field of Flowers.
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‘noce, the heart—the nut that gestates the tree of veins.’
Through The Long Clearing, through The Cutting, through
The Stick-Stockade. Through Valley of the Chain-Link,
through Blind-Ditch, through Field of Flowers.
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Sylvia Legris's new book of poetry is The Principle of Rapid Peering (Corsair, 2024). Garden Physic (Granta Books, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was named a Best Poetry Book of the Year by both The Times and CBC Radio. Her other collections include The Hideous Hidden, Pneumatic Antiphonal, and Nerve Squall, which was winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
More about the author →‘During the pandemic, birds (along with many insects and wild plants) have landed in my life and poems again.’
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘By the dog the minced oaths, / the god-wounds, the solemnly / declared chronical maladies.’
‘Trouble. There’s always trouble of some kind or other bringing the city to a standstill.’
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