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List of Duties in a Subarctic Dive Bar
If the temperature outside is twenty-five below
or colder
leave all faucets running and flush the toilets
hourly.
R. has a two-drink limit. A. likes a coaster. Remember,
Mrs. O. takes a chilled pilsner glass
with her bottle of Blue. Never
keep her waiting.
If someone reveals residential school horrors,
listen with your whole body.
If a customer becomes unresponsive,
and overdose is suspected,
call the nursing station, then administer the naloxone
kept behind the bar.
Be sure to write everything down in the incident book.
This is your therapy.
At the end of each shift, pour a kettle of boiling water
into the ice well drain. It keeps down the bioslime.
Wrap your cash in the blue vinyl bag and feed it
to the Snake.
You are entitled to one staff drink. Choose wisely.
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Tara Borin is a poet and writer living in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021; their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021) and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in various literary journals both online and in print. Tara is the 2022 winner of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Borealis Prize: Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution.
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Emily Rapport, Wednesday Night, 30x40, aqua-oil on canvas, ca. 2004. Used by permission of the artist.
Cheers! And hey tip your bar-server well. They work hard. Lovely poem!
Posted by: Bill Nevins | May 28, 2023 at 09:59 AM
Wow, I knew a bartender's job as dispensary and listener was not easy, and I love this poem, and I offer a 100% tip to the barperson depicted here! Again, wow! Love the painting, too. thanks, all!
Posted by: clarinda | May 28, 2023 at 12:07 PM
WOW I never knew this poet and the work is a total contribution to poetry.
Posted by: Grace Cavalieri | May 28, 2023 at 12:28 PM
I've always felt that "mixology" has much in common with the writng of poetry, and the bartender as depicted confirms my sense of the job as an alternative vocation. Great art, too.
Posted by: David Lehman | May 28, 2023 at 12:53 PM
terrific poem and post
Posted by: lally | May 28, 2023 at 12:54 PM
I love this spelled-out poetics of a Subarctic Dive Bar — its cliental and its wonderful, on-the-ball dispenser of recognition. Thanks to The Poet, once again!
Posted by: Joan Retallack | May 28, 2023 at 01:38 PM
Wonderful poem--I love its exactness and how the directions of the speaker stay loyal to the quotidian, the dailiness of the job, while also wonderfully rising into an artistic realm. This poem brings me into a world I wasn't a part of till it placed me in this subarctic room. A great pick Terence. Tara, really happy to find your work here.
Posted by: Don Berger | May 28, 2023 at 02:34 PM
Thanks, Don. Great comment, as always.
Posted by: Terence Winch | May 28, 2023 at 03:34 PM
WOW! I am definitely going to follow this Poet! Can't wait to read more of their work.
Posted by: Nin Andrews | May 29, 2023 at 06:43 AM
Love the language and great match with the picture. I really want to fly up there and head for a bar. Thanks.
Posted by: Phyllis Rosenzweig | May 29, 2023 at 04:04 PM
A slight change in the title could give you a subarctic Dove Bar, good cold ice cream. But a Dove Bar can also be a bar of soap. That kettle of boiling water could then help you work up a good lather.
Posted by: Peter Kearney | May 30, 2023 at 11:34 AM
Very cool poem. I've just discovered a wonderful new poet.
Posted by: Emily Fragos | June 02, 2023 at 04:44 PM