Leaving Seattle on a Greyhound Bus headed for our vacation destination 350 miles away, in Eastern Washington—“Everyone Rides The Bus in a City of Losers” written by Canadian poet Jason Freure was a curious must read. Freure realistically documented and portrayed the life and experiences of the urban poor mostly in Montreal that may have rode the bus. The author devised ways to stay warm in the bone chilling jolt of winter freeze. The recklessness and poor choices of others mixed with stigma and judgement affected the wealthy and impoverished throughout this collection in equal measure.

As another year brought the certainty of a high school reunion that much closer; the author wrote: “Higher transit fares,/reduced peripheral service,/and chronic affordable housing shortages occur as younger members of the socially elite simultaneously perceive private automobiles as dirty, selfish and gauche.” – “No one goes to Prince Arthur anymore…” – The bus lines each were separated and marked by different colors and artistically displayed in a similar graphic shape and design: “The Blue Line is Montreal’s appendix” – The Sea Beach Line sounded the most appealing, as the author beckoned others to ride along. - “Alley Cat In Winter” introduced animal friends and napping with one eye open, which may be necessary sometimes during bus travel.

Today, with the exorbitant cost of airfare and airline price gouging, riding the bus becomes an appealing alternative travel option. On our return bus trip to Seattle, a few (Amazon) tech workers with designer haircuts and clothes were tapping away non-stop on their laptops, some riders of obvious lesser means appeared out of sorts, possibly recovering from whatever ailed them. The savings was over 50% less over the cost of air travel. 3* GOOD. ** With thanks to U.S. distribution by Baker and Taylor Publisher Services via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

Though the poetry was well-written and sometimes really drew me in, as a whole this collection didn't work for me. The simple reason that is the case is because this is largely built of poems that serve as snapshots of Montreal, following along the bus routes in the "city of losers." These snapshots are often interesting, but ultimately I feel very strongly how foreign the material is to me because I have never been to this place. It feels like a collection for people in the area, or people well-acquainted with it, and since I haven't even crossed the border into Canada, much less Montreal, I don't feel like I'm the right audience for it.

Everyone Rides the Bus in a City of Losers by Jason Freure is a collection of Montreal based poetry. Freure is the editor of The Town Crier blog and operations manager at The Puritan, where he's worn many hats, including reader, blog columnist, editor, and more since 2013. His work online and in print in magazines like Maisonneuve, CNQ, Vallum, or Carte Blanche, not to mention top-notch little magazines like (parenthetical) and The Hart House Review.

Sometime in 1986, Margret Thatcher is said to have uttered these words in public, "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." There is no documentation on the quote, but ownership of a car (and other material goods) is tied to successes seems to fit the consumerism politics of the time. This one sentence drives Freire's work. Here in the Dallas area, our northbound public transportation ends at the city of Allen. Although there are rails running north, the city refuses to left public transit in. The main reason is the crime and poverty that grows along the tracks although it is politically called cost ineffective. There is no doubt the existing train line takes passengers past the back side of buildings and through areas where property values are low. True, also, at central stations it is not difficult to find used needles, homeless, and those sleeping off a drunk.

Freure takes the reader on a tour of Montreal with a stop by stop poem. It is not the tour that the city council would approve of, although it is authentic. The collection opens with several poems to set that set the life of an innercity dweller in Montreal. There is a need to keep moving from one depressed area to the next. The line signs on crosses make one wonder if it is a sign of hope -- rising from the dead part of the city, or empty cross is waiting for its next. It's not the destitute or those who gave up in life. Sometimes it is the younger generation who find themselves in an environment of hardship despite everything they do. Promises of hard work and preparation leading to success in life vanish in these streets. 

I walked north and south through avenues of beautiful houses
with their wrought iron tables-for-two on their second storey
balconies
where ashtrays and coffee mugs and folded-open books
waited to be cleaned up. I did not stop to knock on their doors
or call the numbers on their “For Rent” signs. I cannot afford them,
not even their attics, and because their bricks were old and
overgrown

~The Pedestrian

St-Lauren T Boulevard is one of the collections longer poems and sets the tone before boarding the Orange Line at Cote-Vertu before riding the Orange Line through downtown. Past Berri-Uqam which three lines converge and on through China Town and out through Cartier and on to the Blue line. Some stops have only a line or two written, others are not mentioned, but landmarks near the stop are discussed in great detail. It is not always the physical places and attractions that are pointed out. Even in the depressed regions things can get worse:

Cold is the feeling that you have not died,
not yet, and do not want to die, breathing knives
like pine trees bristling against snowstorms
and snowbanks heaped on their boughs.

~Down Town Night in January (On Ste Catherine near Atwater stop)

Everyone Rides the Bus in a City of Losers is a poetic tour of the underside of Montreal. There are no botanic gardens on this tour or Museums of Fine Arts or Parc Jean Drapeau. This is the real Montreal that most do not see but like any big city, it is always there but rarely talked about.