National Academy of Science’s Guided Day-Cruise of Old Earth

David Martin

To your left, observe how the deposition for bedding in the omega strata occurred astonishingly quickly, in what team leads have denominated as Superficial Ages. Nevertheless, it is painless to characterize the variegated composition within this geological period and document how its components had been dealt, fanned, and accumulated through consolidation. Lodes of middens, quarries, side-streets, and airstrips are threaded consistently throughout the formation. As well, technofossils serve as reliable stamps for dating discrepancies within strata ranges, e.g. books, pencils, telephones, and various forms of currency. Care must be taken when extracting specimens, as they tend to disintegrate when exposed to light.

The bedrock of this igneous frenzy consists primarily of concrete, steel, plastic, capital, communication networks, and anxiety. In the centre-most period of this worldwide crust, one can discern faults and grabens that exemplify the turn from human dominance to the system’s own agency. Unlike the planet’s Biosphere, which recycled and regenerated continuously, the Technosphere accreted inexorably, eventually achieving a tipping point into consciousness that indicated the super-organism’s pursuit of its own needs and inclinations.

Life forms in the Technosphere thereafter discovered it was a system they were compelled to serve to remain alive. As the total aggregation of the Technosphere at last exceeded the requisite balance to the relative density of the crust beneath it, soon fluctuations in the Earth’s isostasy, rotation, and axis angle occurred, vastly superseding the natural alterations as predicted in the Milankovitch cycles. As revolution decelerated, the moon reversed its escape from orbit and returned closer, which, naturally, modified global tidal patterns and growing cycles.

Finally, when the Technosphere achieved a climax through recurrent sintering, a concluding torpor secreted itself across the planet’s skin, sealing underlying strata completely. Please note how one is able to perceive the thinning dispersal of biomass as we reach the maximal echelon of our journey.

Note: Technosphere is a term given to the portion of the environment that has been utilized or inhabited by humans. Its estimated weight is thirty trillion tons.

David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. His first collection, Tar Swan (NeWest Press, 2018), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize. David’s work has been awarded the CBC Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Vallum Award for Poetry and PRISM international’s poetry contest, and has appeared in numerous journals across Canada.

Train : a journal of carefully-considered re-emergence

Issue #9 : Julian Day Jason Heroux Charlene Kwiatkowski David Ly David Martin Emilia Morgan Steffi Tad-y

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Julian Day lives in Winnipeg. His work has recently appeared in Juniper and Ghost City Review, and his debut chapbook will be published by Anstruther Press in early 2021.

Jason Heroux is currently the Poet Laureate for the city of Kingston, Ontario. His most recent book is the novel Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow (Mansfield Press, 2018).

Charlene Kwiatkowski is a writer living in Vancouver. Her poetry has been published in PRISM international, Barren Magazine, Long Exposure, and Open to Interpretation. Her fiction has appeared in Maisonneuve and Ottawa Arts Review. Charlene was runner-up in Pulp Literature's 2020 Magpie Award for Poetry for a sonnet anticipating the birth of her first child. She holds a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Victoria and works at a contemporary art gallery. textingthecity.wordpress.com

David Ly is the author of Mythical Man (Anstruther Books, 2020) and the chapbook Stubble Burn (Anstruther Press, 2018). His writing has appeared in carte blanche, The Maynard, PRISM international, Plentitude, The /tƐmz/ Review, and others. He is the Poetry Editor of This Magazine and a member of Anstruther Press' Editorial Collective. Twitter: @dlylyly.

David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. His first collection, Tar Swan (NeWest Press, 2018), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize. David’s work has been awarded the CBC Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Vallum Award for Poetry and PRISM international’s poetry contest, and has appeared in numerous journals across Canada.

Emilia Morgan is a Palestinian-Canadian writer and co-founder of Coven Editions small press. Her long poem Suburbia was published as a tiny book in by In/Words press, and you can find more work in Bywords, talking about strawberries, Chaudiere, and some other places. She is a member of the Arc Poetry Magazine board and otherwise spends as much time as possible with plants and animals.

Steffi Tad-y is a Filipina writer based in Vancouver, B.C., in the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, & Tsleil-Waututh nations. Her first poetry chapbook was published by Frog Hollow Press in 2019. To watch the Toronto Raptors play live is part of her bucket list. One of her current and pressing goals is to write a funny poem.

An interview with David Martin

David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. His first collection, Tar Swan (NeWest Press, 2018), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize. David’s work has been awarded the CBC Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Vallum Award for Poetry and PRISM international’s poetry contest, and has appeared in numerous journals across Canada.

How did you begin writing, and what keeps you going?

I started writing poetry when I was in university. At that time, I had been taking an introductory survey course on English poetry, and I happened to meet a group of Calgary writers who would get together once a week to share their work and discuss poetry. This combination of studying poetry and being surrounded by those for whom it was a living art was the main catalyst for me to start writing poems myself.

I’m not completely sure what keeps me going. Someone once asked me if writing poetry is “fun,” and I replied that it isn’t, really, but that there is a certain kind of satisfaction in completing what you think is a pretty good poem. Maybe that’s what keeps me going.

What poets have influenced the ways in which you write?

Lots of poets have influenced me over the years, though some of the poets who affected me when I was a young writer no longer have a hold over my imagination. Lately, I’ve been hoping that the brilliance of Michael Donaghy’s work will rub off on me, but that might be wishful thinking.

Have you noticed a difference in the ways in which you approach the individual poem, now that you’ve published a full-length collection?

Sometimes I approach a poem knowing that it will be part of a larger project and connected thematically with the others, but often I start a new poem not really knowing where it’s headed.

How important has mentorship been to your work? Is there anyone who specifically assisted your development as a writer?

I’ve been lucky to have a number of artists who have offered their advice and encouragement to me over the years. When I was beginning to write poems, Calgary poet Kirk Miles was immensely important as a mentor to me. I was also lucky to work with Bert Almon at the University of Alberta, and I learned a great deal from him.

Can you name a poet you think should be receiving more attention?

There are numerous poets who could do with more attention, but I guess I’ll just pick one. Sylvia Legris is a really great poet from Saskatchewan, but she seems to get more recognition for her work in the United States than in Canada.

Kootenay Group

David Martin

This outcrop chops logic:
a blender of interbedded
shale and silt smuggled in
glacial meal is exhumed
by clastic talking cures.
Hairpinning rube-seams
fist bump mudstone squatters
chugging oh-two brews,
while boho aspens snort
coal to cook up a scree
of showboating fancy-Dans.
En route to a cirque’s scoop,
a lamp house stockpiles slag.
Moss maps cement’s nap,
reclaiming dimpled vugs:                                    
sphagnum beards hum here.



David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. His first collection, Tar Swan (NeWest Press, 2018), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize. David’s work has been awarded the CBC Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Vallum Award for Poetry and PRISM international’s poetry contest, and has appeared in numerous journals across Canada.