Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Forever Marilyn” by Madeleine Nattrass, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.

---

Forever Marilyn

By Madeleine Nattrass

Downtown Palm Springs

corner of Palm Canyon Drive

and Tahquitz

I’m benched

reading Alice Fulton

a find in a second-hand bookstore

whose owners are fighting eviction

the site being turned into a mega-mall

just down the street

from a monumental bronze

high-heeled

twenty-six foot Marilyn

skin tones perfected

ten layers of hues

everything matte

except

glossy lips

toenails

pearlized earrings

twenty-six foot Marilyn

caught in the legendary

halter dress

wind-up-her-skirt pose

pigeons straddling

her blonde voluptuous likeness

cast in glitz

glamour that shrieks – happy!

while the birds warble

and shit

on bountiful mega-projects.

---

Copyright © Madeleine Nattrass

Madeleine Nattrass is a retired French Immersion teacher from Vancouver Island, B.C., the traditional territory of Coast Salish people and home of Snaw-Naw-As and Qualicum First Nations. She writes poetry and CNF which has been published in literary journals in Canada, the US and the UK, most recently, a personal essay in Splinter, May 2025, Adelaide AU. Her work has benefitted from extensive writing workshops including at Banff Centre and Sage Hill.

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.

---

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!

---