Seven Poems

by 

Robert Hogg 

 

Short Bio

Robert Hogg was born in Edmonton, Alberta, grew up in the Cariboo and Fraser Valley in British Columbia, and attended UBC during the early Sixties where he was associated with the Vancouver TISH poets, co-edited MOTION– a prose newsletter, and graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing. In 1964 he hitchhiked east to Toronto, then visited Buffalo NY where Charles Olson was teaching. After spending a few months in NYC, Bob entered the graduate program at the State University of NY at Buffalo, completed a PhD on Olson under Robert Creeley, and took a job teaching American and Canadian Poetry at Carleton University in Ottawa for the next 38 years. His books include: The Connexions, Berkeley: Oyez, 1966; Standing Back, Toronto: Coach House, 1972; Of Light, Toronto: Coach House, 1978; Heat Lightning, Windsor: Black Moss, 1986; There Is No Falling, Toronto: ECW,1993; and as editor, An English Canadian Poetics,  The Confederation Poets – Vol. 1, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009. More recently he published three chapbooks: fromLAMENTATIONS, Ottawa: above/ground, 2016. Two Cariboo poems, Ranch Days – The McIntosh from hawk/weed press in Kemptville, Ontario, and Ranch Days—for Ed Dorn from battleaxe press (2019). For April 2019 Hogg edited a Canadian Poetry issue of The Café Review in Portland, ME. His poems have appeared in over sixty periodicals, most recently: Pamenar Online; Empty Mirror; The Café Review; Dispatches; Arc; Some;  BlazeVox Online Journal, The Typescript, and Ottawater 16. Books currently in the works for publication include: Lamentations;  The Cariboo Poems; Postcards, from America; and Amber Alert, and Not to Call It Chaos – The Vancouver Poems.  He is currently compiling a collection of new poetry, Oh Yeah!. Now retired, Hogg continues to write at his farm in Mountain thirty-five miles south of Ottawa.

Titles: 

Epigraph

Concrete Still Life 

Venice Beach Meditation

For Tom Raworth, these Laments

To Bill Sylvester, these Laments

Jazz Harp

Oh Yeah

Epigraph

Sky blue

That’ll do 

What we all

want to wake up to

Concrete Still Life 

In LA 

you can do

almost anything

because it never

rains so my friend

the Canadian 

poet has made

a colorful chalk 

drawing on the side

walk outside 

his high rise and sent

this photo of

elongated

Irises 

slim

purple flowers

green

Modigliani stems

that grow down

deep into

the concrete

roots 

tendrils 

nodules 

can you 

imagine 

in LA

Venice Beach Meditation

Blonde as

California in

tank top and

slimjms

she sits in

half lotus

barefoot

on the sand

gold

wire-rimmed

sunglasses 

and a floppy 

cotton hat

break the sun

she loves

and cups in

her hands

a perfect 

mudra

arms

on knees 

thumbs 

almost invisible

drum

a silent

text 

to a distant 

friend

For Tom Raworth, these Laments

Dear Tom it’s

been a long time

coming

this little fragment

of a longer lament

wch in some way

is the long poem

we are all writing

together trying to

bring our era to an end

we hope won’t come

because we believe

the struggle is more

important than the cure

god knows the cure

is what governments are

always after what wars

are all about so keep

me just a little sick

thanks & I’ll be just

fine sitting on a snake

fence in the Cariboo

of past dreams & looking 

out across the snow

Bob Hogg – Nov 28 — 2012

on the Mountain

To Bill Sylvester, these Laments

Dear Bill 

do you remember

that summer of ‘81

you drove up from Buffalo 

to Ottawa 

visited 

family I didn’t even

know you had

picked

the hottest day

of the year to ride

your ten-speed

35 miles down

to Mountain 

showed up

at our farm

two hours later 

so flushed 

out of breath 

I thought 

you’d die 

from heat stroke 

& exhaustion

told me

once again 

I was one of that

batch of promising

poets showed up

in Buffalo

to study with Charles

entered the PhD

then let you and all

SUNY down by not

finishing up 

the degree

by god

I was so impressed

& duly guilted out

I knuckled down

& got the thesis finally

done for you as much as

anyone 

and a year later

made my defense with Bob

Creeley chair who now 

gets an elegy 

in return & Jack

Clarke—he got the poem

of A Liftetime

decades ago–

& Mac Hammond also 

on the committee 

what a party

the whole thing was

I got the PhD 

w/ distinction

after stumbling

14 years 

so thanks old

pal for your devotion to

your profession 

as much

poetry as teaching 

wch in

their mutual 

state are one 

and the same 

    Love & best wishes

        Bob – Nov 28 – 2012

Jazz Harp

Cut wood 

this morning

six till noon

trying to beat

the heat

and so

lunch and

a probable

nap

from which 

I am

awakened

to the jazz

strains of

a squirrel 

not five feet

from my deck

chair

flitting up

and down

our honey

suckle

like it’s 

a harp

Oh Yeah

I’m going to write

more poems

whatever

you say

And tack them up

on the wall

for all 

to see

Oh yeah

for all to see