Jason Heroux & Dag T. Straumsvåg: An Introduction to A Further Introduction to Bingo

 

 

 

 

 

This project started on January 2, 2021,with us imagining that it might be fun to write about the Orion Bingo Hall located near Dag’s residence in Trondheim, Norway. We took turns writing scenes inspired by the Bingo Hall (these scenes were prose poems, though we often called them “micro-chapters”). Essentially, one of us would write a segment, and send it by email to the other one of us, and the other one of us would then write the next segment and send through email, back and forth. One segment inspired the next, and certain threads would continue on, until the whole piece became a collaborative patchwork. After the first few segments were written, we noticed recurring characters began to appear (a mathematician, a cleaning lady, a mailwoman, the Bingo Hall itself) and the sequence took on a life of its own. We numbered each piece, dropped some segments, and shuffled a few pieces around, and along the way we incorporated the random energy of bingo into the manuscript, with its sense of chance and unpredictability. This “bingo energy” allowed us a great sense of freedom, where anything could happen at anytime. In January 2023 we learned that the Orion bingo hall was shutting down. With Orion now gone, we felt as if we had been commissioned to document its last few years from afar, an imaginary documentary of sorts, recording its magical presence in the world.

While engaged in this collaborative process, we each began composing our own prose poem manuscripts as well: Like a Trophy from the Sun (Jason Heroux, Guernica Editions, 2024) and The Mountains of Kong: New and Selected Prose Poems (Dag T. Straumsvåg, trans. Robert Hedin, Assembly Press, April 2025). Writing these three manuscripts simultaneously was a wonderful and inspiring experience, allowing us to witness how the separate projects intertwined together. It often felt like we were working in a farm with three fields, growing different crops under the same conditions, and as the creative winds blew a certain way the seeds from one lot drifted into the soil of another, cross-pollinating. This abundant interaction brought new perspectives and a deeper understanding to all three books, and we see them happily related together in spirit.

 

 

 

 

Jason Heroux lives in Kingston. His recent publications include a chapbook Blizzard of None (Puddles of Sky Press) and the collection of prose poems Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions). He was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022.

 

Dag T. Straumsvåg lives in Trondheim, Norway, and is the author and translator of ten books of poetry, including Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), But in the Stillness (Apt. 9 Press, 2024), and The Mountains of Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems (Assembly Press, 2025). He runs the small press A + D with his girlfriend, the artist and graphic designer Angella Kassube. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

Jason Heroux and Dag T. Straumsvåg : from A Further Introduction to Bingo

 

 

 

10

The Bingo Hall lies awake under the stars, listening to Radio Finland. The voice of the night host, deep and clear through the ether, speaks slowly in a language the Bingo Hall doesn’t understand. He likes to not understand. It’s a relief. The voice fades through the winter dark, swirls, overlapping with a melancholic tango where space opens behind space, and the Bingo Hall dreams of swimming naked in Lake Inari under the northern lights. The only Finnish word he knows is “Juoksentelisinkohan?” which means “I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?”

 

30

The telephone rang at two in the morning. I stared at the phone, half-asleep, wondering what to do. It needed help but I wasn't sure how to assist. The phone rang again, and I realized the only way I could help the phone was to answer it. I picked it up, said hello. "Sorry to bother you,” the Bingo Hall said, “but could you do me a favour? I’m afraid of spiders, and there's one in the hallway. I feel it crawling through me. Can you come over and get rid of it? I'll shine a light so you can spot it." I hung up the phone, slipped on my boots and jacket, and stepped outside. I walked across my yard and reached the Bingo Hall. The automatic doors opened as I approached. A single light glowed in the hallway, shining against a wall. I studied the illuminated wall and saw a spider crawling across it. I carefully picked up the spider and placed it gently inside my pocket.

 

33

During the warm months when people keep their windows open, one can hear the bingo caller all over the block and beyond, and someone, leaning out of a window or walking by in the street, will always merrily yell “Bingo!” and then giggle and smile. Old and young alike. It feels good to yell “Bingo!” in a light voice. One Sunday in June, walking past the cathedral during service, I could hear every word spoken inside through the open doors, every psalm number called sounding like a bingo number, the music floating beautifully through the air, but no one is filling their sheets.

 

75

One of the many things the mailwoman loved about her job was that she never knew day-to-day what she’d find in her mailbag. Sometimes it was a sack of fish, addressed to the sea. Other times she carried tiny envelopes of raindrops, sent from a cloud to a puddle. Yesterday her bag was empty, nothing in it, but the mailwoman still went door to door, delivering the emptiness, the nothingness. Today she delivered a handful of snipped hair to a barbershop floor. “Thank you. It’s my mother’s hair. I miss her so much,” the barber said, sweeping the strands into a pile.

 

50

The number four dreamt it was back home in the Country of Four, where things were simpler. There were only four days a week, four weeks a year. It remembered eating four meals a day. Those were good times. But there were dark moments too. When its parents died it buried four coffins. The number four woke from the dream, confused, unsure where it was. But when the clock struck nine and didn’t chime four times it knew it was still in Trondheim.

 

72

The Bingo Hall sits by the window in a night open café, looking out at the harbour. A westerly gale slams the herring boats together. The wind surges through the streets. A lighted kitchen window floats in a rain puddle on the asphalt. Inside, a man is having kippers and potatoes. When his coffee arrives, the Bingo Hall knocks over the cup and spills coffee all over the floor. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Don’t worry about it,” the waitress says, “it’s OK. I’ll get it cleaned up in a whiff.” “I’m so sorry,” the Bingo Hall says again, “I was just gonna... and then...” “It’s OK, really, it happens all the time,” the waitress says, walking off to fetch a cleaning cloth. “You’re a mess,” the Bingo Hall’s lungs wheeze at him. “We just want to be left alone,” his hands say. When the waitress returns, she says, “I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you the Before-Man in that beauty product commercial that was all over TV a couple years ago?” “That was him alright,” his heart says, “and what’s more, he was perfect for the part.” “That’s what I thought, too,” the waitress says. Then she smiles, gives his hand a quick squeeze.

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Heroux lives in Kingston. His recent publications include a chapbook Blizzard of None (Puddles of Sky Press) and the collection of prose poems Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions). He was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022.

 

 

 

 

Dag T. Straumsvåg (b. 1964 in Norway) has been employed as a farmhand, sawmill worker, librarian, and sound engineer for a radio station in Trondheim, where he has lived since 1984. He is the author and translator of ten books of poetry, including A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse (2006), The Lure-Maker from Posio (2011), both from Red Dragonfly Press, Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), Eleven Elleve Alive, with Stuart Ross and Hugh Thomas (shreeking violet press, 2018), and But in the Stillness (Apt. 9, 2024). He runs the small press A + D together with his girlfriend Angella Kassube. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

 

Jason Heroux : (further) short takes on the prose poem

folio : (further) short takes on the prose poem

 

 

 

 

Prose Poetry: Literature’s Lunchbox 

 

1.
The great prose poet Louis Jenkins once wrote: The form of the prose poem is the rectangle, one of our most useful geometric shapes. Think of the prose poem as a box, perhaps the lunchbox (“A Few Words About the Prose Poem,” Nice Fish: New and Selected Prose Poems, Holy Cow! Press, 1995).

2.
There are no line breaks in a prose poem, no sudden detours, no sharp turns in a labyrinthine maze, no speed bumps controlling the flow of traffic … which means a prose poem can really pick up momentum as it rolls forward, and may end up entire worlds away from where it began.

3.
According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary, prose is defined as written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure and poetry is defined as literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.
          Put them together and what strange hybrid this way comes?
          Prose Poetry: ordinary language mixed with special intensity.

4.
A prose poem doesn’t compel the reader to read it a certain way. Standard poems often suggest a particular word carries extra value by placing it at the end of the line, allowing the reader's eye to linger on it a little longer. Likewise, an extra meaningful line may stand apart from the others. Prose poetry doesn’t manipulate the reading experience the same way. In a prose poem, all words have the same value, each line is as meaningful as its neighbour.

5.
What I appreciate most about prose poetry is that I can’t tell what it is by looking at it. A “poetry-poem,” with its various lineations and enjambments, automatically signifies itself from a distance; even before I begin reading the piece, my mind prepares me for some kind of poetic experience. That doesn’t happen with a prose poem. One has to engage with it in order to recognize what it is. Like an actual lunchbox, the reader has to open it up and look inside to see what happens next.

 

 

 

          “I was raised…”

I was raised in the village of my mouth. A baby tooth surrounded by other baby teeth. I wobbled, grew loose. I died in that village, wondering. Who brushed me twice a day? Who ached when I was in pain?

 

“Many things…”

Many things were possessed by devils in olden days, but devils have less time now, so everything has to possess itself. Puddles possessed by raindrops. The colour green possessed by the ghosts of yellow and blue, the early morning sky possessed by the hope of things to come. Last night I possessed my room to go dark after I switched off the light. The whole world is haunted, my dead grandmother said, carrying a tray of stale biscuits through the woods. The wind hurried past, like a dog playing fetch with my breath. I lost track of time. A minute went by, and then three years, and then another minute. Pencil sharpeners were banned during the war for wasting valuable wood shavings, a possessed pencil stub whispered behind my ear.

Jason Heroux was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022. He is the author of four books of poetry: Memoirs of an Alias (2004); Emergency Hallelujah (2008); Natural Capital (2012) and Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines (2016). His recent books include a short fiction collection Survivors of the Hive (Radiant Press) and two poetry chapbooks: New and Selected Days (Origami Poems Project) and Something or Other (above/ground press).