{"id":10801,"date":"2021-01-15T15:07:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T10:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/downtown-flirt-peter-jickling\/"},"modified":"2023-02-14T01:32:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T20:32:26","slug":"downtown-flirt-peter-jickling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/downtown-flirt-peter-jickling\/","title":{"rendered":"Beards, Orchids and Hangers: <em>Downtown Flirt<\/em> by Peter Jickling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The text carries a pace as fast as the urban environment that inspired it through Jickling\u2019s effective use of minimalism and powerful imagery. Like a literary pizza driver, the reader continually delves into snippets of Jickling\u2019s life in Toronto in two pages or less. This powerful ability to create compact narratives is shown through his concise and compelling prompts for readers to fill in the gaps, as exemplified in the five lines of, \u201cSecond Location.\u201d After briefly stating how the character was drinking and went to a second bar, it ends with, \u201cthe bartender\u2019s eyes say, You\u2019ve had a few. \/ Mine reply, I\u2019ll behave.\u201d  With only twelve words, Jickling delivers an incredibly complex image.<\/p>\n<p>Filled with playful humour, Jickling manipulates the formatting of his poems to immerse the reader in the narrative of the character. In \u201cFailed Registration,\u201d the inability to find an ID card is relayed through a stanza that inventories useless \u201cIn wallet\u201d items like old hotel keys and library cards before a second stanza of what\u2019s \u201cNot in wallet\u201d that consists of \u201cdriver\u2019s license \/ health card.\u201d With something as relatable as needing something you cannot find, you feel Jickling\u2019s anxiety as he struggles to find his ID. Each new item propels the anticipation of the desired item\u2019s discovery and perpetuates the awkward intensity of the situation. As if affirming this manipulation of our emotional investment, Jickling gives us what the character (and we) yearned for, by including a cheeky epilogue which states, \u201cfound them, other jeans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This capacity to buy into the character\u2019s adventures is not bound to the subject of the poems but projected onto the character\u2019s personification of items in the character\u2019s world. We hear about Barry the mattress and an orchid Jickling negotiates the temperature of the room with and routinely updates the reader on through a series of poems within the collection. Jickling shares his inanimate \u2018friends\u2019 with the reader as he combats the ironic isolation of urban life.<\/p>\n<p>Often funny and always compelling, <em>Downtown Flirt <\/em>offers a clever and gritty look into the starving artist all the while reinforcing Peter Jickling\u2019s writing prowess within the Canadian community.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Born in Toronto and raised in the sticks of Tweed, Ontario, <strong>Jordan Prato<\/strong> is a Carleton University Alumni and aspiring teacher.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span lang=\"fr-CA\"><a href=\"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/?page_id=1295\">ARC<\/a> HITS THE HEART HARD.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:tadv\/classic-paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chronicling the narrative of a Yukon lad turned Torontonian, <em>Downtown Flirt<\/em> speaks to urban living with refreshingly honest poetry. From contemplating a second shower to fix a soapy scrotum to the cons of black mattress covers, Jickling brings the reader into these lived moments with full transparency. The casual tone and diction of the poetry make it incredibly accessible, as it reads like a series of relatable journal entries rooted in economic struggle, connection amidst social isolation, and the congestion of urban living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"10745,10958,16279,10753","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1660,1847],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[185],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3131],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10801"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}