it’s 2011 i’m the City’s Poet chosen to laud us to declaim us, to name us exhort us, inflame us actually, people often ask me what does a laureate do? it is not, i assure you a position designed to discover just how bitchy, back-stabbing and vain poets can really be, for how…
Tag: Canadian Poetry
Washing the World: TRC Offering
To mark the release today of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in honour of the best in all of us: Washing the World In the dark in the bitter wind listen to a dream in which grandmothers stand shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill and bend as one,…
Martha Plus 100: thoughts on de-extinction
Well, September 1st was the 100th anniversary of the death of the last known Passenger Pigeon. I was in Toronto in June, recording live poetry videos with Jorge Antonio Vallejos, aka Black Coffee Poet. I’d learned that Mimico, a modern Toronto area placename, comes from Omiimiikaa, ‘Place of the Wild Dove’ in Ojibwemowin. Jorge mused…
A Poetry Map of Canada, the Video
It’s here! Last April, Edmonton Poetry Festival invited Poets Laureate from across Canada, and the Makar of Scotland, to Edmonton for a symposium and chance to play together. Check out the video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARGkHjHpmug&feature=share It was my privilege, as the then-Laureate of Edmonton, to arrange, direct, and co-produce a Gala performance evening. Over the winter, the…
Prairiepomes 