Wayward
by Ali Riley
A hotel maid is visited by the Holy Spirit, an ex child star finds temporary solace in a baby-dreaded rent boy, and an assortment of drifters, wastrels and lost girls seek transcendance and good times in the alternate universe that is Wayward. Part autobiographical exorcism, part analysis of the myth of the fallen woman, Wayward brings a haunting and unexpected perspective to being “on the road.”
Awards/Award Nominations
Shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award
Reviews
Wayward, poems by Ali Riley and illustrations by Meghan Hildebrand, is a trip along the drift, on the road and on the streets, you won’t soon forget. Told from the disad/vantage point of the lost girls: the runaways, the prostitutes, the missing, and the murdered women, Riley takes the readers outside zones of comfort and complacency. ~Dee Horne, Canadian Literature
Ali Riley is a welcome new voice in Canadian poetry. Wayward is very raw, very lively, very emotionally provocative. It deals with young womanhood with a real raw integrity. ~Jennifer Lovegrove, TVO’s “Imprint”
A remarkable excursion into the perilous realities of “lost girls” trekking through a landscape of rudderless fellow-travellers and banal predators. The sheer grace, confidence, and agility of Wayward is a feat in itself, emotionally affecting precisely because of its unsparing, unsentimental and unflinching approach… Wayward is bound to become a well-worn and dog-eared denizen of a true poetry lover’s bookshelf. ~Ian Samuels, The Calgary Herald
Riley doesn’t leave us tossing in lyric storms, but likes a quietly cadenced ending, as if she wants to walk us through hell only to prove that with the right guide, you can get through it. ~Sonnet l’Abbe, The Globe and Mail
Riley’s poems dissect the pain of female adolescence and show the ways this pain is acted out. ~Barbara Curry Mulcahy, Alberta Views
Riley’s vibrant writing illustrates the often alarming situations faced by girls satisfying an itch to escape. The effect is disturbing and intense. ~Diane Dechief, FFWD
The writing itself is lively, punchy — like the lyrics of the Patti Smith or Lou Reed songs the poet admires and alludes to… Indeed, Riley is capable of the bon mot, terse expression, pastiche, droll, sloe-eyed delivery. ~Richard Stevenson, The Lethbridge Insider
Once in a while a writer returns from the serrated edge of human experience with accounts so accomplished in language and craft that she or he wins an audience eager to listen to tales of the dark places of the human soul, of the bleak and fearful locales at the margins of our civilization. Ali Riley is one such writer and the poems of Wayward will quickly convince you. A word of warning. Make sure your personal safety devices are locked and loaded. Ali Riley is about to be your guide on a voyage to destinations you will wish never existed. I can promise you, however, that her consummate mastery of words will ensure you thoroughly enjoy the trip. ~Tom Wayman
Ali Riley’s writing manages to be spare yet baroque, cutting yet caressing, a wedding and a funeral; it is life as it is meant to be lived: full on into the light with an ever present awareness of the nearby darkness. Read her and be the richer for it. ~Daniel MacIvor
Samples
Ghost Daughter
You can’t talk to your daughter she rolls her eyes she looks daggers screams “Hypocrite!” screams “Stolen Land!” Her scars are a drug nothing stops the blood in her head like letting it flow across to show down to go ladders up her arms her legs ladders to her head ladders to her heart her wrists her ankles down her right thigh a graceful not-quite-healed snake she’s traded her birthright for a beat she can dance to dark corner crimson tide X carved through a new pair of tights she fondles a matchbook if she were a boy she might try arson or bar fights but she is a girl so she takes it out on the nearest available bit of flesh. A delicate operation— opening yourself to pins and needles, the harsh white light of a small porcelain room “She’s indestructible” they say “She couldn’t destroy herself even if she tried” and try she does fitting and gnashing sexing the chaos. You thought you saw her creeping into the master bedroom knife between her teeth— leading an army of vengeful children. The nation’s bathrooms are full adolescents acting out a dimly remembered ascetic past— they are possessed overcome their bodies host old souls an angry tribe centuries dead they are fasting seeing visions bloodletting a sleeping shaman lies in your bathtub as you floss your teeth he opens one eye whispers “we shall live again” You can’t talk to your daughter she runs the gauntlet from back door to bedroom she shoots through the family room like an arrow wearing that jacket you despise a ghost shirt deflecting your gaze, your questions Her door slams upstairs her music begins artillery bass bass bass now her footsteps are dancing dancing like a warrior.
“If You Think They Don’t Go Crazy In Tiny Rooms”
He left a star-shaped stain in the middle of the Motel 6 floor. So much for that party trick, she thinks. She came in here eight days ago to vacuum, now she languishes like Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion. He’s taken to hiding piles of powder for her to find, powder she’s afraid to try. Would it rev her up or slow her down? Where is he anyway? Has it really been over a week? Her beige maid’s dress, not quite a colour, more like all flavours of boredom melted into one sad shade. Not a pinch of interest to this outfit, but for the tiny speck of chipped nail polish (Scarlet pimpernel) nestled in the waffle-weave. These are deluxe accommodations, but she’s still not sure why she’s here. She received a stack of tens on the bedside table two days ago but since then nothing but the star. This stain. “Stella” she says out loud, looking at it. The air conditioner sighs along with her, feel, see, whisper, listen, it says. soar however you can, extols the bar fridge its pitch rising, it adopts a wheedling tone— soar you must! with brandy, with words, with graceful appetite— she finally unplugs it. she finds a plastic sign hanging from the doorknob. “Maid — please make this room sing with your spirit” and on the other side, simply “Please be profound”. This melanine and Fortrel won’t yet help her transcend, but they ache to be used to climb to heaven. All things, even the pock-marked mystery-stained upholstery of a motel chair (especially that!) beg to be used for something other than dull, vile practices. Direct your attention to this burn on the couch. See where the fabric melts into beads? This is where the Voice will speak two days from now. In her wilder days she thoughtlessly rolled joints in the parchment of Gideon’s Bible. Leaves of Grass! In the words of G-d! Suddenly this horrifies her. What Emissary will speak to her in this place anonymous as an airport neither here nor there?
