Born and raised in the town of Mont Royal, a
suburb just north of Montreal, Jason Camlot grew up in the Montreal
Anglo-Jewish community, where his father was a furrier manufacturer.
Jason started playing music when he was young. He received an MA from Boston
University, a PhD from Stanford, and is chair of English at Concordia
University in Montreal. He is the poetry editor of the Punchy Writers Series. -- Greg Santos
Mouse Memorial
I live with mice inside a
monument of mice.
They have lived here since
before the First Crusade.
I have been here since I learned
to talk.
The mice are proud
and one day I will be a mouse,
too –
small, blind and unimportant.
I admire their irreverent
creeping, timid squeaks, tiny
ebony nests where the young lie
like peanuts.
I admire their precious breath
and fast-beating hearts.
The monument itself is in the
fragile bones
of those mice who are still
alive.
As human castles lose their
walls,
as tinted towers rise and fall,
this scuttling monument endures
below,
passed on from mouse parent to
mouse child.
My big, awkward bones
are my impediment to being
memorial.
Still, already I am unimportant,
and I am blind.
Is it hubris to hope one day I
will be small?
-- Jason Camlot [from The Debaucher, 2008]
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Great first line! Tell us more about Jason Camlot.
Posted by: Walt Doughery | July 02, 2009 at 01:40 PM
More Camlot goodness to come soon! Stay tuned...
Posted by: Greg Santos | July 03, 2009 at 12:59 PM