Stuart L Canton

One of the highlights of my presidency so far was organizing the a big event for the 40th year of The Sacramento Poetry Center. Robert Hanson, of Poems-For-All , published this beautiful micro anthology. I had wanted to be published by them for almost a decade. It's an honor to be included with so many legends from the history of Sacramento poetry.

Robinson Jeffers is an influence of mine. Not so much in form but in substance, and a little in style.  I admire that he reached for myth and sublimity while embracing science and decentering humanity. His InHumanism is a kind of Un-Romantic Romanticism. I try to find my own kind of ecopoetics, and I am trying to incorporate humanity into it, rather than leaving it out or burning it down. However this poem, which addresses Jeffers, is firmly in his habit of rejecting our place on Earth. Caught in the distance between simulation, between imminent decay and geological permanence, the speaker in this poem finds hope where Jeffers found it, in the vanishing of a certain two-footed vertebrate.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stuart Canton (@stuartlcanton) Downwelling Memories roll in with dismembered limbs of crabs broken glass driftwood like some beach I return to, covered in fog on days when Facebook alerts me to past events or on days I search fo...

  Yesterday, The Sacramento Poetry Center hosted its first in-person event in over a year. It was a hybrid event so our regular zoom room was open and we set up a computer and screen so that everyone could see each other and be part of the same event. It was a little difficult to set up; but, the actual event carried on brilliantly without technical difficulties! For a first time, it was an incredible success. We're going to do it again in July. I have to confess, I was extremely anxious about this event. I felt myself torn between my personal desire to stay safe and my responsibility as president to try to give people a space for poetry. It was the same conflict I felt when closing, but inverted.  It felt great to see everyone, it felt great to be on stage again, it felt great to see such a variety of poets gathered. Just seeing Andru Defeye talking with Elder Gideon talking with Nick Leforce talking with Paul Willis...that's what I want for this Center of Sacramento poetry. ...

 Cake THE WEDDING PARTY landed unscathed. They laughed and took photos. The bride, unharnessed, walked into the road while friends clapped their hands on the groom. There, in the middle of the road, smashed beyond hope of recognizing the missing slice, the wedding cake lay before her with its dud parachute. SHE TELLS HER DREAMS to me while waking up, her eyes closed as she conjures the visions again. Rebels prepare an offense while she tries desperately to find lost keys, and the theatre company argues. The dogs are running. She takes charge of the boat. Her mother moves to Texas for no reason and I am angry with her for saying something about it. She falls out of the window, down into the street below, and lands in an enormous wedding cake. She wakes before she learns if she survives. STUCK IN TRAFFIC for hours in the heat, eventually, nothing feels like a sin. We made eyes at each other in the stalled traffic across an old Datsun. When people left their cars to picnic ...

I realized I had never shared this poem on my website. I feel like this poem is a part of the hardware for even the latest software I've been writing. I learned a lot studying at CSUS and was introduced to so many things. Studying Ecopoetics for example, was a big revalation, especially since I was kind of working poorly in that vein already. I feel this poem encapsulated what I really learned to do studying with Josh McKinney, and I was very happy that I won an award for it in my final year. It was especially gratifying to have the judge's notes so clearly illuminate my intentions:     " There are some poems that guide readers more than others. "a moment" is not of those poems, and that is where it gains its strength. The writer forces us to slow down and examine what a moment truly is via enjambment, usage of white space, and lyrical langiage. In addition, the poet's images are like brushstrokes that reveal how a moment exists...As the poem breaks apart at ...

I'm not the most outdoorsy guy- I like being in the city. In the pandemic, (while I would say I have discovered that half the places I liked, I only liked half the time) I have missed so many city things I love. I miss live music, and I miss cocktails and wine. I'm pretty decent at making my own cocktails and after years of managing wine departments I can pick a bottle, but I miss going out to an art gallery and a show and having a cocktail. I miss taking coffee with other artists especially. The exploration and conversation that can happen unexpectedly can lead to collaborations and get all kinds of ideas going.  But while I enjoy much about civilization, increasingly I find escapes to places I can't get cell reception important. The inward gravity of the pandemic is oppressive, and living digitally has honestly been great in a lot of ways but it's another internal pull down into a ruminating space. Truthfully, I largely resist the focus on experiences of the sublime. ...

PARA EL CANTINERO With pick and hammer he broke Ice like bones Into glasses of liquor; With his radius and ulna Connected to the humerus tap-handle, The liquid flows into a glass labeled 'craft.' His life was a dedication To quality liquids poured down throats— Now we pour drinks into him, Screwing a handle into parietal and occipital: A mug from a calavera This was a satirical jab at cocktail culture when I wrote it; but in the pandemic, this now feels a bit more like an homage to me. Pouring one out for all the walking calaveras in the service industry, keeping that brew flowing even in the face of death.  My family is South American- so, there's not a real overlap with Mexican culture; but, I love Dia De Muertos for both its meanings and aesthetic. I came across a loose form from this event, The Calavera, a satirical poem often mocking a popular celebrity or fad. It's usually short, and it usually transfoms the subject into bones by the last line...