The Poetry of Lorne Daniel

Lorne Daniel

This has been a long time coming. In fact, the poem below by Lorne Daniel is one of the reasons this website was created. Lorne Daniel is a Canadian poet who began writing poetry, “somewhere in the late 60s or early 70s”.

“I wanted to write Bukowski poems that ‘run away like wild horses over the hills.’ Words that rambled, gambled, didn’t much care about approval,” said Daniel.

Perhaps his creative spirit continues to run with the wind as such, but his words, on the contrary, his are well-chosen, well-placed, well-timed, and reflect a depth of soul that is unmistakably brilliant. Both the words and the spaces between are as natural as a breath, a sigh, or a gasp. I find his work evocative and haunting. This a poet who is not just in love with words, or the act of writing, but is in love with the depths of life itself.

In 1976, his work was selected by Al Purdy to be included in an anthology, Storm Warning 2: The New Canadian Poets. Since then, his work has appeared in creative spurts over the years. His poetry has appeared in over 25 publications, in 5 anthologies, and in 4 of his own collections. He has also consistently received the very same approval he did not care about having from the literary community.

Bone Dance

she is not a phenomenon
she is not a magazine story in black and white
with photos before and after

she has just gone home
leaving our faces drawn and thin

it is a clear morning
and she has had a shock
‘a shock through my brain’

one day, she said, she ate
a muffin and drank a glass of water

most days she won’t say
shopping always for smaller sizes
smaller now than at twelve years

spinning, today, to show us the swirl
a new skirt she is happy with

for an instant she is lost in colour
but stops, white
dizzy, spinning still

she is dizzy more mornings than not

she has always been called dizzy, she says
but she has not always agreed so

she is 82 pounds and counting
down
moving in on her self, hard
as she can be: no excess
no other, no wrong, only

the white of bone, the pure
choreography, elemental

her dance free of flesh

NEW! “Bones” is now included in Lorne Daniel’s collection of poetry Drawing Back to Take a Running Jump (Feb 2012)
 

Find more of Lorne Daniels poetry samples and essays by visiting his website, LorneDaniel.com.