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JUDITH KRAUSE

Judith Krause is a Regina poet, editor and educator whose publications include four books of poetry—Mongrel Love (Hagios Books 2008) is the most recent; and a collaborative chapbook—blue transport/ the insistence of green (JackPine Press 2007). She is currently completing a fifth collection tentatively entitled Homage to Happiness. She is a two-time winner of the City of Regina Writing Award and co-winner of the 2006 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Award. Two of her books have been short listed in the “Book of the Year” category and the “City of Regina” category of Saskatchewan Book Awards. Judith has studied writing in Canada, France, and the US where she completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She has received support for her writing from both the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Canada Council, and has been awarded residencies and fellowships in the US at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Photo © Tom Bartlett

Mitterand's Last Meal

At last it is illegal to trap the ortolan,

those fragile songbirds the size of a small girl’s fist

once so common in southwestern France.

Illegal now to poke out their eyes and keep the birds

in the dark, force feeding them millet

until their tiny frames swell to four times their size

and they are drowned in Armagnac.

Rumoured to be tastier than foie gras, 

these buntings, roasted whole and plucked,

become two-ounce gourmand snacks,

a banned gastronomic feast

even a dying French president can’t resist,

indulging, again, and for the last time,

his sensual nature and the pleasures of the table.

The ritual napkin over his head, the better to absorb

the maximum odor and flavors (and perhaps hide

the whole messy business from sight), an entire bird

is popped, back end first, into his dying mouth.

The beak, protruding ever so slightly

from his lips, is severed, then discarded,

as he chews and sucks and swallows

the sizzling yellow fat, the blood, the guts,

chewing and chewing until the small

roasted delicate bones that taste like hazelnuts

begin to cut into his gums and blood oozes

from the corners of his sated lips.

©2012 Judith Krause

Author Links

Review of Mongrel Love

Mongrel Love: collection by Krause at Hagios Press