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    False Friends
    False Friends
    False Friends
    Ebook116 pages25 minutes

    False Friends

    By Stephen Cain

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    About this ebook

    False Friends is the first full-length poetry collection from Stephen Cain in more than ten years. In it, he takes inspiration from the linguistic term "false friends"--two words from different languages that appear to be related, but have fundamentally different meanings. In this book are poems both humourous and unforgiving that Cain uses to explore errors, misapprehensions, and mistranslations and offer insights into the "secret operations" hiding within everyday language.

    These poems spin punk with pastoral, comic book with lyric, the misunderstood with the obvious. And at its core, False Friends is a thought-provoking investigation of the power of poetry as political dicourse.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookhug Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2017
    ISBN9781771662918
    False Friends
    Author

    Stephen Cain

    Born in England in 1952, Stephen Cain has traveled the world over the course of thirty years during which he has mixed and shared time with some of the elite armed forces that have carried out numerous operations. Stephen still travels and is constantly gathering more information in order to thrill his readers. 'DECEPTION FROM WITHIN' is his second book which succeeds 'SECOND TIME DEAD'.

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      Book preview

      False Friends - Stephen Cain

      9781771662901.jpg

      False Friends

      STEPHEN CAIN

      BookThug

      2017

      first edition

      copyright © 2017 by Stephen Cain

      Cover image by Sharon Harris. Used with permission.

      all rights reserved

      No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. BookThug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Cain, Stephen, author

             False friends / Stephen Cain. — First edition.

      Poems.

      Issued in print and electronic formats.

      ISBN 978-1-77166-290-1 (softcover)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-291-8 (HTML)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-292-5 (PDF)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-293-2 (Kindle)

             I. Title.

      PS8555.A4624F35 2017 C811’.54 C2016-908127-3

      C2016-908128-1

      Contents

      Stanzas

      Mod Cons

      Idiosyntactic

      Wordwards

      Etc Phrases

      Zoom

      Proverbs For The Jilted Generation

      For True Friends

      "We’ve got computers that can find us friends

      We know roughly when the world will end"

      — Red Guitars Good Technology (1983) —

      Poetry friends are not real friends

      — Mat Laporte —

      Stanzas

      Perform without a spotlight.

      Fat belt tightening.

      A mix for the masters.

      Starve the saccharine smiths.

      Apparent apartheid.

      Attired for the execution.

      A speaking sacrifice.

      In chancery.

      Minimal music, rapid repetition.

      Soft fidelity circular saw query accepted.

      Initially not à la carte.

      No flic no Bic.

      Finally finished.

      Presently parting, no achievement

      desired allotment tragic temporality misaligned.

      Impossible mutation.

      Lost laurels.

      Ipso facto, frequent phenomenon foregrounds no small city.

      Site of seeding.

      Evolutionary ends meet.

      Weighty waste.

      Still nothing to spare.

      Cigarettes arise from rocks and sail above sketches.

      The moment of magnification increases instants.

      Shabby shade a dark division.

      Mimesis masturbates.

      Here perturbed.

      Accepting the bun-maker’s son means much ado about portal apparel.

      Utility, w.

      Central casting.

      C’est vrai.

      A ≠ A again sideburns and parted.

      Observed by the exegesis.

      God opens with a daybreak.

      Talks of

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