Last thursday was a lovely day. It would seem that the bulk of the extended spring rains are well behind us. On that particular early summer evening i had the pleasure of attending a poetry reading. It was the launch of David Sheffield’s new chapbook of poems called Before We Had Regrets.

My trip to Cobourg, though not exactly a trek by any means, was spectacular on a few fronts. The day was stellar, late afternoon sunshine, a nice breeze and clouds were building to the south, which made for interesting skies. Both to and from Cobourg, the windows of the car were down while i enjoyed the new KD Lang disc (k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang-Sing It Loud). It’s a beauty of a set of tunes and well worth checking out. Anyway, back to the reason for the drive.

Held at the café 66 King Street East, this welcoming little place plays regular host to the Cobourg Poetry Workshop. On this night, it was about performance. Three poets were on the bill and once the packed room had their wine or coffee in hand, the program got underway.

First up was David, with a delivery which was friendly and charming. He read for about 30 minutes, both pieces from his chapbook, as well as some others recently penned. His book, i am very proud to say was published under the Jackson Creek Press name. It’s 24 pages digital print, with nice end-papers and a minimalist, type based letterpress cover, printed in two colours. David and his team finished the books, all the folding and hand-sewing allowed him to put his own finger on the book. I am quite proud of this little book. I want to thank David for thinking of me for this piece. It was a pleasure to complete. 

 Here’s an exerpt from one of David’s poems.
This one is called Butchering:

I walked past the house
running my fingers along the tail fin of
a dark blue Fairlane, parked on the grass
Hank Snow on the radio, 
the steel guitar wept through the car window

Also on the bill was another local poet, Linda Hutsell-Manning who was quite theatrical and very funny.

Griffen Award winning poet Karen Solie closed out the night, reading from her new book Pigeon as well as some older pieces. 

Congrats to David on his lovely words, and thanks for asking me to publish them for you.