His body, like yours, would lie
mute as a plum
until a vigilant limb came
to a decision. As you might have guessed
I’ve come to one myself.
Moving from the absurdity of the First World War to the chaos of today’s cities, where men share beds, bottles of ouzo and shade from willow trees, these poems ask questions: If your lover speaks in his sleep, how do you know ‘you’ is you? What good is it to decorate a headstone? What if you think of the perfect comeback to a six-year-­old argument?
Otter
fails, with style, to find answers.
‘Ladouceur writes with an awareness of queer history, documenting it faithfully, but with his own twist … This is poetry motivated by an honest wit.’
— John Barton,
Arc Poetry Magazine
Ben Ladouceur
is a writer originally from Ottawa, now based in Toronto. His work has been featured in
Arc, The Malahat Review, PRISM international
and
The Walrus
, and in the
Best Canadian Poetry
anthology. He was awarded the Earle Birney Poetry Prize in 2013.