Vannessa Barnier, Sample Platter
The poems—some lineated and some prose—from Toronto-based poet Vannessa Barnier’s Sample Platter walk that almost impossible line between completely relatable and super bizarre. You’re in a bodega on a hot day grabbing a Melona popsicle and you’ve almost accidentally stepped on a dog. You’re panicking in a laundromat because you’ve misjudged the temperature setting. Your therapist has just dropped her earring onto the ground mid-session. These are some too real moments that Barnier retells with a sharp defamiliarization. They are, as the author’s bio insists, all “true stories” that you’ll read while interchangeably cringing and nodding. This is the horny, awkward, anxious (post?!?!)pandemic book you’ve been waiting for.
This chapbook was published in two print runs of 50 and 30 copies each. It was printed at Product Photo and typeset by Dani Spinosa with a cover design and custom illustration from Steven Lourenço.
Sample Poem:
Laundry Soap
160 BPM
When I watch my laundry get tossed around in the machine and the soapy water is draining down the glass going-inward, I want to drink it. I want to get my hands on that shit.
One time I was at a Laundromat that I’m not allowed to go to anymore and let me explain why that is. I was at the Laundromat with someone I don’t see anymore and I put my clothes in a washer without reading the instructions and the machine locks the door before I hit the settings which I think is weird and also ended up fucking me over but let me explain hold on—
So I put my clothes in a machine and the door locked and I selected the colour of my clothes which was a majority I guess it was just an estimate of what colours were in there and the light went on and it said HOT and my eyes went wide and I froze. I decided those clothes were ruined and I moved on to my second load. I put my other clothes in the other machine and the door locked and I thought that if I chose colours last time that if I chose whites it would be cold instead of hot and I was wrong because when the light went on it said VERY HOT and I yelled NO and I grabbed onto the door with both of my hands and put my foot against the machine and pulled very hard and I broke the door and it opened and my clothes were saved. The person with me stood between me and the security camera and I didn’t even ask them to. They did it automatically. I had to go back there to get my clothes after but I felt scared. I can’t go back there anymore and I don’t see that person anymore either. Now I sit in another Laundromat and think about that time at the other Laundromat and I don’t feel anything except a thirst for the soapy water that drains down the glass going-inward and I want to drink it so bad but I don’t want to rip another door open and not be allowed to go to another Laundromat in this city.
Not that I’m afraid of running out of Laundromats because let’s be honest there are so many but there aren’t that many that are close to me and I can say that about a lot of things.