Template for a Conversation With a Single Friend (rondeau)

Template for a Conversation With a Single Friend

I'll call you back when Junior is in bed

(addressed to Isa/Janet/Winifred).

My hands are full of turkey parts and string;

I know you want to talk about the thing

that happened at the staff retreat with Ted.

 

I have to see the kids are bathed and fed.

Of course I'd rather talk to you instead.

I'm sure he doesn't view it as a fling--

I'll call you back.

 

I'm sure he only means to clear his head.

You can't expect a man to go to bed

with someone from the office and then ring.

You have a lot to give. Stop hollering,

stop saying that you wish that you were dead.

I'll call you back.

 

-Alexandra Oliver

 

I pulled this book off my shelf and was browsing through when I saw this witty rondeau. Having posted Leigh Hunt's half of a rondeau, Jenny Kiss'd Me, not so long ago, when I saw this, I thought that's the ticket. Though the title poem is awfully good, too, and well, a whole bunch of the others as well. The book won the Pat Lowther award for best book by a female Canadian poet in 2014.

 

Who exactly is it that's hollering? I'm voting for Junior, with the narrator carrying on two conversations at once, but I suppose it could be Janet.

 

Alexandra Oliver is a contemporary Canadian poet.

 

And why did I have the book off the shelf? Consider this a teaser for a longer post on Ontario publisher Biblioasis...