"There is an anxiety of geography

...at work in the post-prairie poem" says Jon Paul Fiorentino in the dialogue with Robert Kroetsch that opens Post-Prairie, the anthology of prairie poetry that they edited. Of course they say a great deal more about the post-prairie poem, but that was the sentence I mulled over during the final hours of my 11 1/2 hour trip home. Back to the periphery. I thought about the incredible poems I'd read in the anthology, an anthology that marks an important beginning I think. Indeed, the editors say it is "the first collection of twenty-first-century post-prairie poetry." Somewhere in the dark between The Pas and Flin Flon, I thought about Sunday's panel discussion, specifically the brief exchange between Fiorentino and Kroetsch about the city night, its sky, the hidden stars. All the while I watched the northern lights spilling out of the big dipper. All the while I saw stars.