Skip to content
poets.ca circle logo black transparent

League of Canadian Poets

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
×
  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP

Seeing Black by Roger Suffling

By League of Canadian Poets | January 18, 2022

Poem name: Seeing Black Poet name: Roger Suffling Poem begins: Mimicking the lonesome hound out back Our motel’s neon yammered Vacancy! Streetlights tore holes in darkness While security lamps stood sentinel A cordon for our fears Whose shadows loomed beyond Under the bug-swirled veil that passed for sky We light-prisoners chattered, chugged beer Leaned back on lawn chairs for an easy treat A pretty summer moonlit night A clichéd Milky Way But Manitoulin’s vaunted sky had fled So, on the lam from bright banality We motored out, across the island bridge Over inky waters glinting And further still we probed The limestone barrens High beams lurching to the end of rutted tracks I cut the engine, killed the lights But still our words Were guttering candles Haloed against the night Until we snuffed them, gingerly Surrendering to the unfamiliar void Whole Silent Turning Unfettered Hurtling outward Everywhere And graced by all the ancients’ lamps that ever danced End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Roger Suffling “Seeing Black” received an honorable mention in the Night Sky Poetry Competition, May 2020. Roger Suffling is an ecologist living in Kitchener, Ontario. His recent work has been published in Alternatives Journal, Morphrog, Poetry Pause and Shot Glass Journal.

Posted in Poetry Pause
Support poets and poetry in Canada. Donate today.

Established in 1966, the League of Canadian Poets is a National Arts Service Organization dedicated to supporting poets, building poetic communities, supporting inclusive and equitable free expression, and promoting Canadian poets and poetry. 

Site Links

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
Member Hub

Get In Touch!

  • League of Canadian Poets
    C/O Centre for Social Innovation
    720 Bathurst St
    Toronto ON
    M5S 2R4
     

  • (416) 504-1657

  • [email protected]

  • The League of Canadian Poets operates remotely; in-person office hours are by appointment only. 

"Poetry means having the courage to forage the depthsof what makes & unmakes us."

–Adebe DeRango-Adem, Author of Vox Humana, 2023 Raymond Souster Award Winner

Donate Today
Poetry needs superheroes. A donation to the League of Canadian Poets supports poets and poetry from coast to coast.

The office of the League of Canadian Poets is situated in the land of Tkaronto which is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Footer-logos-resized-new

© 2023 League of Canadian Poets

GoDaddy Web Design
Scroll To Top