Description
Slagflowers is the story of a fourth generation son of miners and his journey beyond the world underground. It's the story on a city struggling to grow beyond its past and become more than just a mining city. It's the story of everyone's struggle to be more than their family history, more than their past. It's the story of breaking through the earth and into the light.
About the author
Thomas L. Leduc is the descendant of four generations of miners and works at an industrial supply company in Sudbury.His poetry and writing has been appeared in anthologies and magazines in Canada and the U.S. Tom was Poet Laureate of the City of Greater Sudbury between 2014 and 2016. He is President of the Sudbury Writers' Guild. He lives in Sudbury with his wife and two children.
Excerpt: Slagflower: Poems Unearthed From A Mining Town (by (author) Thomas Leduc)
Birthmark
What I remember most
was the emptiness
nothing but black rock
and blue sky welded together
like the brushstrokes
of a Dali painting.
Surreal, disproportioned
and out of place.
I liked the way this oddity
stood out shiny and oversized
pushed to the outskirts of town
reflecting how I felt
on the edge of manhood.
My long hair, and brown
bell bottom cords
flapping in the wind
drumming out my future.
My eyes squinting
my mouth an open hole.
My hand struggling
to block the screaming glare.
I was an ant
in a desert of black rock
looking up at a silver flower.
A birthmark on the back
of a mining town.
The damn thing looked
as if it was a gift
from the god Pluto
like a piece of change
had slipped out of his fingers
rose through the cracks
of the earth and surfaced in
my backyard.
A Big Nickel
to pay the ferryman
and reveal to me
a way out of this underworld.
