As an Indigenous person (albeit in Canada, where we celebrate Thanksgiving in October), I hold that holiday to be an occasion of potentiality. I consider, on that day, the vision of my Indigenous ancestors, who welcomed newcomers, taught them to survive, and (contrary to the propaganda) hosted the table and laid the feast, offering of the…
Tag: history
Saint Behind the Glass
Here’s a lyrical meditation from NYC author Elizabeth Frank, whose latest novel arrives from Stonehouse Press in November. Elizabeth Frank
In the 80s
Back in the 80s, we were going to die of nuclear war, whether instant or over-wintered, in a flash or frozen slowly. In the 80s, we danced to big-hair music genderbending stars with cocaine voices synthesizing freedom, formulaic fun. 80s, and rumours from New York and San Francisco disco drugs and a mysterious…
Listening to Snatam Kaur
and if you could not sing for me i would seek the song of strangers rather than live silenced and if you desired to sing for me but your words were taken i would learn the songs of strangers and sing you new words and if you would sing with me these songs,…
person Estrella del Valle, three poems translated by Toshiya Kamei
Originally posted on ISACOUSTIC*:
Born in Córdoba, Veracruz, Estrella del Valle now lives in El Paso, Texas. Her most recent poetry collection, Calima: CAution LIve aniMAls, was published in 2018. Translations of her poems have appeared in various journals, including Burnside Review, Coe Review, Controlled Burn, International Poetry Review, and Pembroke Magazine. Toshiya Kamei holds…
Death Tango for Three: the Podcast
Last winter, Argentinian born poet and art historian Luciana Erregue-Sacchi invited two writers – myself and the fabulous Nermeen Youssef – to join her on a quest, to encounter, perform and respond to Paul Célan’s masterpiece, the Todesfuge/Death Tango. Over the course of an incredible night, we shared our hearts and minds, resonating like bells…
Busy Bees Salute
To be ten, is to be at the crest of a wave the best of your days have led up to this height where the view of the future is open and brave and you’ve grown past your fear of the night. These young girls, in their tender years already wise, for their fathers survived…
Pacific Rim
Spring, training our eyes on the blues of Coal Harbour, rife with wind we rest, cupped in a moment. How the Salish Sea has changed and still beneath wave and pavement thrums a heart connected to trade seasoned by years of muscling voyage anchored in exuberance – this cloth, this metal, this animal wealth…
Keep on Dancing
Today, I’m watching this film: Dancing Around the Table My aim was just to show my kid her grandpa, there among the indigenous delegations; but of course, start watching, and it is remarkably clear that, despite what the champions of derivative, tragedy porn works like ‘Secret Path’ would have us believe, the truth has been…
Beginning and Beginning and Beginning
Today, they took the statue down in Kjipuktuk, or Halifax town in Mi’kmaki, mapped as Nova Scotia along the stormy Atlantic Ocean Where did it begin? This need to raise up monuments to men who call for deaths of other men and women and children and ways and lay a bounty on our scalps…
Unfettered: Good Night,Good Luck
This essay was written in 2016, when the Edmonton Journal cut its staff so severely, part of the Postmedia move to ‘consolidate’ newsrooms across the land. I didn’t publish it then; an acquaintance who works in journalism pointed out that it was a raw moment for everyone ‘in the field’ and not the time for…
Bizhiki: Witness
Ghost Dance the real ceremony is righteous hatred for the murder of the buffalo for the betrayal of the bond whose bones blow now in dust across you lands, whose blood seeped down and fed the water whose vow was never broken so long as the people remained faithful to their end of the deal…
Prairiepomes 