“Hung Aloft the Night” by Ali Blythe

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. This June, Poetry Pause celebrates Indigenous and LGBTQI2S+ poets for Indigenous History Month and Pride Month! Read “Hung Aloft the Night” by Ali Blythe.


Hung Aloft the Night

By Ali Blythe

Even though you’re phenomenally

astronomical, you are singular

and thus cannot be listed

in my illicit Messier catalogue.

It’s for celestial archers who wish

to part mystery with their quiver

of looking. To find a comet of eros.

Which shifts and shimmers

like someone trying to sleep.

Like someone with an injury.


Copyright © Ali Blythe

Previously published in Stedfast (icehouse poetry, Goose Lane Editions 2023)

Ali Blythe is author of critically acclaimed poetry collections that explore trans-poetics. He is winner of the Vallum Award for Poetry, twice finalist for the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Award and recipient of an honour of distinction from the Writers Trust of Canada for emerging LGBTQ+ writers. Blythe’s poems and essays appear in national and international literary journals and anthologies, including The Broadview Introduction to Literature, Best Canadian Essays and Best Canadian Poetry.


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