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    Deepfake Serenade
    Deepfake Serenade
    Deepfake Serenade
    Ebook96 pages45 minutes

    Deepfake Serenade

    By Chris Banks

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In Deepfake Serenade, Chris Banks’s sixth poetry collection, irreverent charm, emotional distance and surprising hot takes leap off every page. He writes in the title poem, “Inside every one of us is a deepfake. A holy ghost,” suggesting people have a choice to feel either like sad imposters or, if they're brave, like survivors staring down a world both utterly familiar and strange. These poems, sometimes narrative, sometimes surreal, oscillate between these two extremes as they confront middle age, new love, renewed optimism and memories, all with Banks’s signature wit and inventiveness. This collection is for anyone who has ever wished to wear “a halo of knowing,” or to be “the sparks flying” when outer phenomena and inner impulses collide. “Earn your rewards,” Banks writes in one poem, and we do, with every turn of the page.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNightwood Editions
    Release dateOct 30, 2021
    ISBN9780889714113
    Deepfake Serenade
    Author

    Chris Banks

    Chris Banks is a Canadian poet and author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Deepfake Serenade by Nightwood Editions in 2021. His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for Poetry by the Canadian Authors Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, GRIFFEL, American Poetry Journal and PRISM International, among other publications. He lives and writes in Kitchener, Ontario.

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      Book preview

      Deepfake Serenade - Chris Banks

      Deepfake Serenade

      Deepfake Serenade

      Chris Banks

      Nightwood Editions 2021

      Copyright © Chris Banks, 2021

      1 2 3 4 5 — 25 24 23 22 21

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, info@accesscopyright.ca.

      Nightwood Editions

      Nightwood Editions

      P.O. Box 1779

      Gibsons, BC V0N 1V0

      Canada

      www.nightwoodeditions.com

      Cover Art: Anthony Hurd

      Cover Design: Carleton Wilson

      Typography: Carleton Wilson

      Supported by the Government of Canada Supported by the Canada Council of the Arts Supported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

      Nightwood Editions acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

      This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled, ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free and printed with vegetable-based dyes.

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Title: Deepfake serenade / Chris Banks.

      Names: Banks, Chris, 1970- author.

      Description: Poems.

      Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210244909 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210244925 | ISBN 9780889714106 (softcover) | ISBN 9780889714113 (HTML)

      Classification: LCC PS8553.A564 D34 2021 | DDC C811/.6—dc23

      for Aura

      It is hard to mix emotion and sincerity with irony and distance.

      – Stephen Dobyns

      Contents

      Deepfake Serenade

      Reverse

      Pleasures of the Authentic

      Love Hotel Republic

      Male Ego

      Tragedy

      Memorandum

      Oracle

      Avatar, Sweet Avatar

      Daffodils

      Show and Tell

      My Report to the United Nations

      Grand Scale

      Honeydripper

      Anger Is an Energy

      Inkblots

      Old Ideas

      All Your Power

      Flag Ceremonies on the Moon

      Middle Age

      Liar, Liar

      On Narrative

      No Soliciting

      Mystery Stories

      Optimism

      Footnotes

      For Your Consideration

      #MiddleClass

      Ballistics Report

      Inflight Magazine

      Galapagos Islands

      Mint Condition

      Hot-wire

      Escapism Is Fabulous

      Mirror Ball

      New Epoch

      Left of the Dial

      Gallows

      Chardonnay

      Out of the Loop

      Mission Statement

      Fault Lines

      Point of Entry

      The Tail Wags the Comet

      True or False

      Replicants

      Antennae

      My Life in Art

      Once More for the People in the Back

      High-five

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Deepfake Serenade

      Children’s laughter is like a spray of confetti

      without the sweep of the broom afterwards.

      Bodies are wiring. Love is the circuit. Houses

      are constructed without balconies, lessening

      the risk of serenades and therefore early deaths.

      Inside every one of us is a deepfake. A holy ghost.

      Folk tales led me to believe people find gold

      only to lose it all the time. Each kiss is fourteen-carat.

      How did I become exiled in a land of golden arches?

      To push desire beyond the outwardness of roses

      is to feel thorns. I am sorry to be serenading you

      like this in a courtyard. Not a courtyard

      but at night. Maybe not night either,

      though it is true we just met. Forgive me,

      I killed your cousin and your parents hate mine.

      Don’t think I wasn’t shocked to discover

      after climbing this wall of air between us

      our elopement is a no go. Turns out

      our stars are not crossed so much as shining

      in separate hemispheres. Well, here is

      to serenading exquisite strangers anyways!

      Thank you for sealing my fate. Now let us go

      before the guards make their final rounds.

      Sadly, we all die in the final act.

      Reverse

      Conquistadors sail back to Spain,

      leaving the Amazon untouched.

      An old man regains his memories,

      a child her innocence. The giant oak

      overhanging the street is an acorn

      with mighty ideas. The marriage

      never happens because I love yous

      slip backwards into the lovers’ mouths.

      How runs the stream? Strange to think

      of time running opposite. Hindsight

      in front of you like a coxswain telling you

      to pick up the pace as you row

      toward old tragedies and delights.

      Maybe

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