WATCH YOUR HEAD
  • Watch Your Head
  • Contributors
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • News
    • Media Coverage
    • Resources
    • Donations
  • Contact
  • Gallery
  • Film & Video
  • Events
Picture

Picture
Watch Your Head
Coach House Books, 2020
Paperback
​Cover design by Ingrid Paulson
Proceeds will be donated to RAVEN ​& Climate Justice Toronto.
A warning, a movement, a collection borne of protest.
In Watch Your Head, poems, stories, essays, and artwork sound the alarm on the present and future consequences of the climate emergency. Ice caps are melting, wildfires are raging, and species extinction is accelerating. Dire predictions about the climate emergency from scientists, Indigenous land and water defenders, and striking school children have mostly been ignored by the very institutions – government, education, industry, and media – with the power to do something about it.

Writers and artists confront colonization, racism, and the social inequalities that are endemic to the climate crisis. Here the imagination amplifies and humanizes the science. These works are impassioned, desperate, hopeful, healing, transformative, and radical.
This is a call to climate-justice action.


...Watch Your Head does not disappoint. It serves as a warning to heed, a reminder to be thought of often, and a well-thought-out piece of art. Throughout the anthology, readers encounter pieces that provoke and insist, demanding attention, consideration, action, and creativity. Essays and stories and images alike bring about questions and statements on Indigenous rights, white privilege, exploitation of land and people, colonial power structures, place, home, language, and imagination.
​                                                               
​The New Twenties
This anthology is not to be missed. The pandemic may have defined our year, but the climate crisis defines our time in geological history. See how this roster of talented writers and artists advance the conversation, put the crisis in context and call for climate justice.
                                                     
​
The Quarantine Review
Buy WATCH YOUR HEAD from these booksellers
​

Another Story Bookshop
~
Coach House Books
~
Glass Bookshop
~
knife | fork | book
~
​Librairie Drawn & Quarterly
~
Massy Books
~
Munro's Books
​
If you are an independent bookseller and are carrying this book, let us know!

POETRY: GREG SANTOS

5/17/2020

 
SHELL/CAVE
 
The hermit crab lives alone in its own small shell.
I, too, live in my own small shell.
Its walls are dark and cozy like a cave.
 
I scuttle about from tide pool to tide pool and I am happy.
But lately my shell/cave paintings trouble me.
Images of dark seagulls and undulating creatures live on my walls.
 
I fear my shell/cave has grown too heavy.
I fear I no longer know where
the shell/cave ends and where I begin.
 
I am shell/
I am dark cave.
DEATH IS A MAN WHO FEELS SCARED
Bains Corner, New Brunswick
 
Trudging over fickle ice crystals,
moss brittle, trees broken, 
 
collecting slight sheets
of birch bark for scribbling,
 
we hear something cry out
deep in the brush.
 
What was it?
A deer, perhaps.
 
A song of sadness,
anger, hunger.
 
I am compelled to sing back
but what could I possibly say?
"Shell/Cave" ​originally appears in Poets for Living Waters. August 5, 2010
 
“Death is a Man Who Feels Scared” will appear in Ghost Face (DC Books).
Greg Santos is the author of Blackbirds (2018), Rabbit Punch!  (2014), and The Emperor’s Sofa  (2010). His third full-length poetry collection with DC Books, Ghost Face, is coming soon. Santos is the Editor in Chief of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s online magazine, carte blanche. He lives in tio’tia:ke/Montréal with his family. As part of the National Arts Centre’s Canada Performs initiative, Santos read excerpts from his forthcoming book on May 2, 2020 on Facebook Live. View the performance in its entirety here.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SHELLEY NIRO

5/13/2020

 
Picture
History of the World #1, 2017
Picture
History of the World #2, 2017
Picture
History of the World #3, 2017
Picture
History of the World #4, 2017
Picture
Buffet, 2017

​Niro is a member of the Six Nations Reserve, Bay of Quinte Mohawk, Turtle Clan.

Shelley Niro is a multi-media artist. Her work involves photography, painting, beadwork and film. Niro is conscious the impact post-colonial mediums have had on Indigenous people. Like many artists from different Native communities, she works relentlessly presenting people in realistic and explorative portrayals. Photo series such as MOHAWKS IN BEEHIVES, THIS LAND IS MIME LAND and M: STORIES OF WOMEN are a few of the genre of artwork. Films include: HONEY MOCCASIN, IT STARTS WITH A WHISPER, THE SHIRT, KISSED BY LIGHTNING and ROBERT’S PAINTINGS. Recently she finished her film THE INCREDIBLE 25th YEAR OF MITZI BEARCLAW.

​Shelley graduated from the Ontario College of Art, Honours and received her Master of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario.

Niro was the inaugural recipient of the Aboriginal Arts Award presented through the Ontario Arts Council in 2012. In 2017 Niro received the Governor General’s Award For The Arts from the Canada Council, The Scotiabank Photography Award and also received the Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Award. Niro recently received an honorary doctorate from the Ontario College of Arts and Design University. She also was the 2019 Laureate of the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALANA BARTOL

5/12/2020

 
Picture
Alana Bartol, Dowser, 2016.
Performance: dowsing at orphan well site 02-26-031-25W4 (Three Hills, AB). Archival inkjet print, 60.96 x 40.64 cm, ed. of 3.
Photo: Karin McGinn. Courtesy of the artist.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Orphan Well Adoption Agency, 2017-ongoing.
Postcards, signs, online advertising, various dimensions. Courtesy of the artist.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Orphan Well Portrait 05-17-21-33 W4 (Three Hills, AB), 2017.
Archival inkjet print, 63.5 x 43.18 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Orphan Well Adoption Agency Office, 2018.
Orphan Well Adoption Agency, installation view at Latitude 53.
Photo by Adam Waldron-Blain. Courtesy of Latitude 53.
Over 500+ neckties made from black garbage bags (polyethylene) form the roof of the office.
Picture
Alana Bartol, Orphan Well Adoption, 2018.
Orphan Well Adoption Agency representative Haylee Fortin completing paperwork after an adoption interview.
Orphan Well Adoption Agency, Latitude 53.
Photo by Bryce Krynski. Courtesy of the artist.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Research in OWAA Office, 2018.
Orphan Well Adoption Agency, Latitude 53.
Photo by Adam Waldron-Blain. Courtesy of Latitude 53.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Letters from Adopted Wells to Caretakers, 2017-2019.
Ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm.
Courtesy of the Orphan Well Adoption Agency.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Letters from Adopted Wells to Caretakers, 2017-2019.
Ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm.
Courtesy of the Orphan Well Adoption Agency.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Letters from Adopted Wells to Caretakers, 2017-2019.
Ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm.
Courtesy of the Orphan Well Adoption Agency.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Letters from Adopted Wells to Caretakers, 2017-2019.
Ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm.
Courtesy of the Orphan Well Adoption Agency.
Picture
Alana Bartol. Letters from Adopted Wells to Caretakers, 2017-2019.
Ink on paper, 21.59 x 27.94 cm.
Courtesy of the Orphan Well Adoption Agency.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Alana Bartol, Orphan Well Adoption Agency, 2017-ongoing
 
Founded in 2017, Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) explores new methods of reading, assessing, and understanding the health of sites contaminated by the oil and gas industry. As part of its work, OWAA is dedicated to finding symbolic caretakers for orphan oil and gas wells across Alberta. As of 2020, over 60 wells have been symbolically adopted.
 
From 2017-2019, Orphan Well Adoption Agency held temporary offices in Alberta at TRUCK Contemporary Art, Latitude 53, and Art Gallery of Grande Prairie. Members of the public were invited to meet with OWAA representatives and apply to symbolically adopt a well. If approved, caretakers received a certificate of adoption with the name and location of an orphan well in Alberta along with a postcard of a well. Caretakers also have the option receive mailed correspondence from their well.
 
OWAA re-imagines dowsing (aka water-witching) as a form of technology for environmental remediation, one that might shift our relationship to natural resources, while examining remediation, care, and the reliability of information. OWAA dowsers uncover information and messages from well sites which transcribed and mailed to caretakers. Although some wells may be dormant and uncommunicative, the OWAA makes every attempt to reach them.
 
Part of the OWAA’s mission is to share information and educate the public about the plight of orphan wells and related issues. The number of orphan wells has steadily increased since the OWAA began its work in 2017. As defined by the Orphan Well Association (OWA), a non‐profit organization that operates under the delegated legal authority of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), an orphan is “an oil or gas well site which has been investigated and confirmed as not having any legally responsible and/or financially able party to deal with its abandonment and reclamation responsibilities”. (Orphan Well Association) These sites threaten to contaminate land, water, and life, with remediation efforts lasting up to a decade. Unlike the OWA, OWAA extends the definition of orphan wells to include the 90,000 inactive (or suspended) and 77,000 abandoned[1] wells in Alberta that are not yet fully reclaimed. (Government of Alberta) Though these well sites are still under the responsibility of their company caretaker, they are in the OWAA orphanage so that they might find the recognition and care they deserve. With no time limits on how long a well can sit dormant, many sit in various states of disrepair and remediation, with leaks, spills and excess gas.
 
Learn more at: www.orphanwelladoptionagency.com.
 
Thank you Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their generous support of this work. The work of the OWAA has been made possible through connections with Surface Rights Groups in Alberta.
 
 
Works Cited
Government of Alberta, “Upstream oil and gas liability and orphan well inventory.” Alberta, Government of Alberta, 2020, https://www.alberta.ca/upstream-oil-and-gas-liability-and-orphan-well-inventory.aspx. Accessed 26 Feb 2020.
 
Orphan Well Association, “FAQ.” Orphan Well Association, 2020, http://www.orphanwell.ca/faq. Accessed 28 Feb 2020.


[1] Abandoned is an industry term for a well that has been permanently dismantled, meaning that the surface infrastructure was removed, and the well is plugged with cement and capped. Not all abandoned wells are orphan wells, most of the abandoned wells in the province are still the responsibility of the company owner. After abandonment, the next step is to reclaim the site. 
 
Alana Bartol comes from a long line of water witches. Her site-responsive works explore divination as a way of understanding across places, species, and bodies. Through collaborative and individual works, she creates relationships between the personal sphere and the landscape, particular to this time of ecological crisis. A multidisciplinary artist with a B.F.A. from the University of Windsor and an M.F.A. from Detroit’s Wayne State University, she has been a visitor to Treaty 7 territory living and working in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), Alberta for 5 years. Bartol’s work has been exhibited and presented nationally and internationally in galleries and festivals. In 2019, she was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. She currently teaches at Alberta University of the Arts.
 
http://alanabartol.com
https://www.instagram.com/alanabartol

POETRY: AARON KREUTER

5/12/2020

 
SHIFTING BASELINE SYNDROME
 
A cup of coffee was always a dollar fifty. The fisheries were always at the level of fish they were at when I was a little kid with a little kid's obsession with the ocean. From the windows of an airplane the great lakes were always noosed in four-lane highways. The land was always distributed in neat tight little stamps. There were never any birds here. A moose was always a rare sighting. The bats were always dying. The wilderness was always accessible for the day rate of twelve-fifty a car, and the highly reasonable season rate of a hundred-and-fifteen. Speaking of cars, there were always cars. There were always tailing ponds. There were always spider webs of six-lane highways, eight-lane highways, ten-lane highways. There were always continents. There were always oil spills visible from space. There were always clearcuts the exact shape and size of Kansas. We were always one heartbeat away from cancer. There was always somebody to hate and always a reasonable way to hate them. Our baselines haven't shifted--you have. We were always hemmed in by landfill, our rivers were always flammable, our lakes always figments of our imagination. There was always a view from the airplane window. Always.

"Shifting Baseline Syndrome" originally appeared in Vallum 13.2
Aaron Kreuter is the author of the poetry collection Arguments for Lawn Chairs (Guernica Editions, 2016) and the short story collection You and Me, Belonging (Tightrope Books, 2018), which won the Miramichi Reader's 2019 'The Very Best!' Short Fiction Award and was shortlisted for a Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature. Aaron is an assistant fiction editor at Pithead Chapel. He lives in Toronto, Canada, where he is currently writing a novel that takes place at Jewish sleepover camp. Follow him on Twitter @aaronkreuter.

POETRY: RYANNE KAP

5/12/2020

 
THE SCIENCE OF LAST THINGS


our faith was in the end of the world / it didn’t matter what burned if we could rise from the ashes / we would be raptured we would be gone / the old earth would pass away / was passing away / it wasn’t our concern / we were students of the apocalypse / rebuilt our steeples after the earthquakes / knew how to escape a flood / we lived for death / judgment / heaven / hell / we made destruction our new pastime / our history had no future anyways / we were living for the epilogue / forgot who else was in the story / we had aims beyond extinction / we thought we were too righteous for the fire / couldn’t see we were still breathing in the smoke
Ryanne Kap is a Chinese-Canadian writer from Strathroy, Ontario. Her work has been featured in Grain Magazine, Scarborough Fair, Ricepaper Magazine, Feelszine, and The Unpublished City Volume II. Following her BA in English and creative writing at the University of Toronto Scarborough, she will be pursuing an MA in English at Western University.

    About

    Watch Your Head is an online journal of creative works devoted to the climate crisis and climate justice. 

    New work is published monthly!
    ​
    ​Masthead
    Mission
    ​Submissions
    Contact
    Gallery
    Contributors
    Donations
    Resources
    Check out our latest project: a print anthology published by Coach House Books!
    Picture
    Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis
    Coach House Books
    October 2020
    News
    Media Coverage
    ​News
    Newsletter
    Sign up for our Newsletter

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019

    Categories

    All
    Aaron Kreuter
    Activism
    Adam Dickinson
    Adam Giles
    Adam Gunn
    Akshi Chadha
    Alana Bartol
    Alex Manley
    Alice Burdick
    Amanda Earl
    Amy LeBlanc
    Annick MacAskill
    Anthropocene
    Archana Sridhar
    Arianna Richardson
    Armand Garnet Ruffo
    Art
    Aude Moreau
    Ayesha Chatterjee
    Ayman Arik Kazi
    Barry Pottle
    Camille Intson
    Canisia Lubrin
    Carleigh Baker
    Carrianne Leung
    Cassidy McFadzean
    Catherine Bush
    Catherine Graham
    Catriona Wright
    Ching-In Chen
    Choe Rayun
    Christine Leclerc
    Coach House
    Comics
    Concetta Principe
    Cory Lavender
    D. A. Lockhart
    Daniela Elza
    David Barrick
    David Groulx
    David Waltner-Toews
    David White
    Digital Art
    Ecopoetics
    Editors
    Elaine Woo
    Elana Johnson
    Elena Johnson
    Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
    Ellen Chang-Richardson
    Emilie Kneifel
    Emily Lu
    Emily Schultz
    Endangered
    Endangered Species
    Erasure
    Erin Robinsong
    Events
    Fiction
    Film
    Fiona Tinwei Lam
    Francine Cunningham
    Franco Cortese
    Fundraising
    Gabrielle Drolet
    Gary Barwin
    Geoffrey Nilson
    Gillian Jerome
    Gregory Betts
    Greg Santos
    Hari Alluri
    Hege Jakobsen Lepri
    Indie Ladan
    Isabella Wang
    Jacqueline Valencia
    James Legaspi
    Jane Shi
    Jen Currin
    Jennifer Dorner
    Jennifer Wenn
    Jen Rae
    Jessica Bebenek
    Jessica Houston
    Jessica Joy Hiemstra
    Jessica Le
    Jessica Slipp
    Jessie Taylor
    Joanne Arnott
    Jody Chan
    Jonathan Skinner
    Judith Penner
    Julya Hajnoczky
    June Pak
    Kate Sutherland
    Kathleen McCracken
    Kathryn Mockler
    Kerry Rawlinson
    Kevin Adonis Browne
    ​Khashayar Mohammadi
    Kim Fahner
    Kirby
    Kirsteen MacLeod
    Kirsty Elliot
    Koh Seung Wook
    Kunjana Parashar
    La Ligne Bleue
    Land Art
    Lauren Lee
    Liz Hirmer
    Madeline Bassnett
    Madhur Anand
    Mallory Smith
    Manahil Bandukwala
    Mandela Massina
    Marco Reiter
    Margaret Christkos
    Marney Isaac
    Marta Balcewicz
    Meredith Quartermain
    Michael Maranda
    Millefiore Clarkes
    Natalie Lim
    Nicolas Billon
    Nikki Reimer
    Nisa Malli
    Nonfiction
    Novel Excerpt
    On Writing
    Painting
    Paola Ferrante
    Paul David Esposti
    Performance
    Performance Art
    Photography
    Plays
    Poetry
    Prose
    Qurat Dar
    Rae Armantrout
    Rasiqra Revulva
    Reading
    Rhea Tregebov
    Rob Taylor
    Ryanne Kap
    Sacha Archer
    Sâkihitowin Awâsis
    Salma Saadi
    Sanchari Sur
    Sarah Mangle
    Sarah Pereux
    Sea Level
    Shades Of Hope
    Sharanya Manivannan
    Shazia Hafiz Ramji
    Shelley Niro
    Sheniz Janmohamed
    Shinjini Sur
    Short Fiction
    Simone Dalton
    Sina Queyras
    Stephanie Conn
    Stephen Barrett
    Stephen Collis
    Steve McOrmond
    Sue Goyette
    Susan Haldane
    Tanis MacDonald
    Terese Mason Pierre
    The Blue Line
    Todd Westcott
    Tom Cull
    Tom Prime
    Trish Salah
    Trynne Delaney
    Tye Engström
    Video
    Video Poem
    Visual Art
    Visual Poetry
    Wanda John-Kehewin
    Whitney French
    Yusuf Saadi

    RSS Feed

Sign up for our Newsletter.
ISSN 2563-0067
 © ​Copyright 2020 | WATCH YOUR HEAD
​​List of Contributors.
  • Watch Your Head
  • Contributors
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • News
    • Media Coverage
    • Resources
    • Donations
  • Contact
  • Gallery
  • Film & Video
  • Events