It was a structure to be clambered and surpassed. Because the pause, the fallow days. Because we wanted. The language never idle. The tide had passed, the monsoon, the hurricane; a new weather gripped the horizon.
It was magnetic and mysterious. It was to meddle. Or live trying. An artery pulsing or a tuning fork vibrating. It had been silent, pliant. A stillness that wanted motion.
A much-photographed, controversial mural by artist Jesse Corcoran at the Crying Room Gallery in Vancouver
Jules Boykoff
As a youngster I had unequivocally positive feelings about the Olympics. In part this was because I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin where winter sports were bigger than Jesus. During the 1980 Winter Olympics, which took place in Lake Placid, New York, I cheered mightily for fellow Madisonian Eric Heiden as he won five gold medals in speed skating, yelping at the tv screen as he swirled elegantly around the rink. This brought the poet out of ABC’s Keith Jackson who later described him as “a spring breeze off the top of the Rockies.” My parents even got me a stylish Eric-Heiden-esque rainbow hat, which I wore with great pride. (Later I attended Madison West High School where Heiden also went). That same Olympics the US hockey team won the so-called “miracle on ice.” The moment the hockey team won the gold-medal game is etched in the chalk and bones of my then-10-year-old mind. I remember the unbridled exhilaration pumping through my little body.
A short interview with Sachiko Murakami
Sachiko Murakami is the author of the poetry collections The Invisibility Exhibit (2008), Rebuild (2011), and