The future starts today, not tomorrow. – Pope John Paul II The future starts yesterday, in actions and dreams we are not party to, which prepared the ground of today. We step into the future carrying our pasts, and all they taught us, the strengths and the scars of them, the wisdom and the folly,…
Tag: history
2012: Wolf Work
it’s 2012 national arts council meets here to know the land they serve i am invited to a reception no poem commission, just to be face of our mayor’s personal commitment laureate memo: always carry poems are easy to conceal mind you, the law of theatre applies here; if you see a poet it…
2011: Uses of Poetry
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…
2001: Honour Song
it’s may in montreal an indigenous arts gathering peers mentors innovators politics of identity the sick thrashing whale of cultural appropriation i find i stand with those who say, we are remaking theatre in our images because we need to appropriating a tool so it does not become us to play cultural purist…
1987: Harmonics
it was 1987, and my creative writing class had created for me a community, stevie and mokina; outside the academy’s walls, we’d drink tea cheap beer, potato skins, and we’d walk stevie and i, we would sometimes sing together but we couldn’t harmonise. it was as if we were designed in different keys. he lived…
Tawatinâ Bridge Song
Recently, i was asked to present poetry at a workshop for the shortlisted artists in line for a major city commission – art for the Tawatinâ* Bridge, which will bring a new LRT line across our river and down through the Millwoods community. If you know Edmonton, you know how big this connection is; if you…
Day 25: Smoothing the Spirit
old houses hold on. the first day i saw this house i knew it was my home, knew its many windows. its east facing door was the first thing i painted. upstairs, early on, we removed that beige broadloom peculiar to quick flips. such old wood in some rooms refinished, but under the carpet, a ruin, old…
Update: Fall/Winter 2015
Originally posted on ghosts of camsell:
The search for Joseph and my research into the Camsell Hospital has really picked up over the last few months. Finding Joseph Part of this is I found out I will be unexpectedly moving to Houston, Texas soon. This doesn’t mean I’ll be turning my back on the people…
Survivor Poem: Unreconciling
Today, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation opened in Winnipeg. Here’s a poem for the occasion, fresh from my fingers, inspired by reading about Phil Fontaine’s speech tonight. Survivor Poem: Unreconciling They said they were bringing God, but they brought Demons, who chase us down the generations. We fight with love and light. We…
Skirt, The Issue: A Moment to Address the Headdress
I go out with the regalia I’ve earned – usually, a pen and book of some sort, because I’m a writer. I know that having the pen and book doesn’t make me a writer; using them does.
The Poem of Silence: An Open Letter to Margaret Atwood, and all the Lions of Canadian Culture
Here’s an essay I wrote last November, and let lie. My thinking has evolved since then, as has the Canadian literary scene, not least via the publication of Kwe: Standing With Our Sisters, an anthology edited by Joseph Boyden and featuring a constellation of major Canadian lights including Ms. Atwood. I applaud all those involved,…
Resolutions: New Year in the New World, Turning New Leaves
Writerly New Year’s Resolutions for 2015: 1.Read Every History Sceptically, Not Just ‘Outsider’ Histories, Bearing in Mind the Ancient Provenance of Propaganda and Pure Old Wishful Thinking 2. Write, and Challenge Others to Write, More Realistic Histories… and 3. Write the Wildest, Most Daring Speculations, in pursuit of ways through these Interesting Times So, for…
Prairiepomes 