Poetry Month 2012: Robin Richardson - Citing Dimensions of Mad and Mundane Counsel

Robin Richardson is 26-years-old and recently launched her debut collection of poetry Grunt of the Minotaur (Insomniac Press, 2011). She is a Toronto native pursuing her MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College in New York City. Her work has appeared in many Canadian and international literary journals including Cv2, The Puritan, The Toronto Quarterly, Filling Station, The Cortland Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Misunderstandings Magazine, All Rights Reserved, Dandelion, and The Literary Review of Canada. She is the recipient of the Joan T Baldwin Award for writing and visual art and, with the generosity of the Ontario Arts Council, is currently working on her second collection of poems, Nervosa.

For more information, visit Robin at her website.

The following poem is from, Grunt of the Minotaur.


CITING DIMENSIONS OF MAD AND MUNDANE COUNSEL

Little is known of the Middle Ages,
though rococo chairs have long been
the common man’s failing memory.

With clauses apt to tongue-tie,
takes the walnut-panelled locks
from faces, torches

carried over textbook spines,
courtier or crooked brass basket
wove too tight to clasp the finger.

Or likewise fight the obligation
of an arm offered up in buttermilk
abduction. This is how duty implores,

intimated by the watch, tyranny
of tin and magnet, gentle in a kind
of ennui. Without the boastful

noble enemy of high official rank,
there’s only task: talk to her, cook
the dining room drabble to a gold,

good-humoured wrap of conversation.
Afternoon is plain. Ten pages make
the brisk walk from Wagner’s minor

chords to the low sliding grunt
of the Minotaur.