This collection of prose is based on Parks’ adventures hitchhiking, and is from a larger body of work called Designs on the Future. Early on, we are placed on the road: “Sometimes when I hold my sign up or stick out my thumb, it feels like I could be anyone.” The prose is very random, random as the stuff that comes in and out of our heads. These are roads that start out like dictionaries, sweet music and dim like, making funny things happening in stomachs. Parks switches from his streaming prose to a laid-back journal narrative, which gives the work some more depth. Parks is as much a philosopher as a storyteller: “It’s hard to say what really makes a moment important but I’m a believer in peripheral vision.” He quotes friends, 90s dance music (which I think we should all do) but most of all, he trusts what he sees. Where some would find these observations superficial, Parks is set to see each moment through, regardless of budget, and tell us why he is stopping to notice what he sees as their colours. (NGM)
chapbook, $4, Stephen Parks, 864 Shaw St, Toronto, ON, [email protected]