2025 Competition Entry:

Redheaded Poet of My Dreams by Joel Giroux

Genre

Folk

Artist

Website

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

I play and sing all parts on this song.

Description

A well-deserved heart-break nearly 10 years ago, for my 47-year old self. Still wouldn’t change a thing.

Bio

Joel Giroux is a poet, singer-songwriter, and ghost-writer who has worked as a college English prof, an Intervenor with Persons with Deaf-blindness, and in the trades as an hydronics installer. He is the author of two chapbooks, hounds and grapefruit (pres sure press, Toronto, 1990), and Larger Than Still Life (believe your own press, Toronto, 2003) and has been published in Existere, The UC Review, The Trinity College Review, The Quarantine Review, in the anthology More than a Gathering (Wet Ink Books, 2024), has had his work read on JazzFM 91, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2006. He has a poem upcoming in the online journal Eunoia in February. He works at Novel Idea bookstore in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Lyrics

Redheaded Poet of My Dreams

If I were September
she must have been May
she found me one summer
between lie and lay
with her head full of poems
and her arms full of leaves
stood the red-headed poet
of my dreams, of my dreams
stood the red-headed poet of my dreams

I tripped in her garden
and fell to my knees
I asked her to rest
with her legs for my wings
her forearm read bravery
so she rolled down her sleeve
did the red-headed poet
of my dreams, of my dreams
did the red-headed poet of my dreams

she said “I sail
with the moon
in my eye”
I stood on her shore
with my arms open wide
but the red-headed poet
of my dreams, of my dreams
sailed away






my great declarations
they made her heart think
when I turned, she was gone
but I wouldn’t change a thing
now my head’s full of poems
and my arms full of leaves
for the red-headed poet
of my dreams, of my dreams
for the red-headed poet of my dreams

Leave a comment

    1. Thank you so much for listening to my song, and for your lovely comment, Gillian! I’m a free member, and did not see your post until now — my apologies for not replying until now.