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GAPING AT THE GROUND WITH THE WINDOW OPEN we are driving up the side of a mountain when we run into a lone black cow. she stands with her knees jutting out of her flesh, black hide strained bursting, wild stitch holding together cloudy blood and burnt milk. you park the car, cutting the ignition, tumbling out. the air is black exhaust wisping away, feels dry and flat, cool against the raw wet of your underarms. the cow lowers its head. and this is the land of the future, here, the scraped dry red of the earth, tufts of grass shuddering in the wind. we walk past metal birds dipping low into the earth, drawing out oil thicker than blood, black as anything. watch the clouds yellowing against the sky, dimming where they meet smoke, joining hands only to unjoin them. watch the sun split itself open like a red, red plum, sharp against the thickening sky. watch bugs claw their way out of the cracks in the dirt, the way they swarm the nearest sweetest thing. making our way back to the highway we stop by the side of a small stream and plunge our hands into it, steal plums from a nearby tree and sink our teeth into them. juice bleeds down your chin, and we wash the red off our hands and watch it pool at the end of the water, the red earth clouding into black exhaust, then wisping away. the cow lowers its head. Jessica Le is currently an undergrad business student at Western University. Her poetry has been published in Western University's Symposium Anthology, CSC's Alt Mag, and is forthcoming in 愈, healing Magazine. She lives in Ottawa.
PLASTICPOEMS
Plasticpoems from F T Lam on Vimeo.
Plasticpoems, 2:28 minutes
Written by Fiona Tinwei Lam Animation by Nhat Truong Sound Design byTinjun Niu: This short animated video depicts two concrete/visual poems by poet Fiona Tinwei Lam from her collection of poems Odes & Laments (Caitlin Press, 2019) about marine plastic pollution
PLASTICNIC
Plasticnic from F T Lam on Vimeo.
Plasticnic, 1:13 minutes
Written/Narrated by Fiona Tinwei Lam Animation by Tisha Deb Pillai Sound Design byTinjun Niu: A humorous animated video poem about plastic pollution that shows how we destroy nature while seeking to enjoy ourselves in the great outdoors. The video poem is based on a shaped poem in Odes & Laments (Caitlin Press, 2019)
QUENCH
Note: all words come from letters in “plastic” with no doubling. Each shift occurs with the addition or removal of a single letter and/or a reordering of the letters. "Quench" originally published in Odes & Laments, (Caitlin Press, 2019).
Fiona Tinwei Lam’s third collection of poetry Odes & Laments celebrates the overlooked wonder and beauty in the everyday, while lamenting harm to our ecosystems. She has also authored a children’s book, edited The Bright Well: Contemporary Canadian Poems on Facing Cancer, and co-edited Love Me True: Writers Reflect on the Ins, Outs, Ups & Downs of Marriage with Jane Silcott. Lam won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Her work appears in more than thirty-five anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English (both 2010 and 2020) and Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC. Her award-winning poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at Simon Fraser University’s Continuing Studies. fionalam.net @FTinweiL
MINING THE MOON (A DÉCOUPÉ POEM)* I. a fine gray powder meet the Moon’s surface covering lunar regolith sift dust magic, playful probes discover Helium-3: a source of energy trapped in Moon equivalent value of a metric ton a possibility: harness it in reactors harness it in dust and heat 700 degrees centigrade power build specifically to manage large quantities for this main reason: dollars no one sent in proposals to the Moon but "cleaner than fossil fuels." II. kids, inhale the gas of the century! go be coal miners and recovering astronauts go be building well-funded helium reactors go go! roving robotic miner who walked the surface who meet our planet’s needs makes mining lunar program INTERLUNE a go, “probably the only way” says the Director of the University of Fusion Technology Program 59 million dollar lunar orbiter that kind of commercial operation needs fusion technology. putting tens of millions of dollars into bags full of regolith transport back during solar winds, research shown supply energy of a city of ten million for a year a shift in dependence from oil to dust breaking even within our limits push the lunar mining concept push the ocean through wind push us through rare reason. humans make their way cheap. III. ...inhale... 1,997 miners are close to breaking; take the concept back to Earth because “they won't go back to the moon” “going to go back to the moon” “piggyback on —“ “…transport back to the moon” “so far!” “space agency barriers” “don't see any others going back.” ...inhale... a variant of this plan in this playful time, liquefies transport captured like magic moonlighting. ...inhale… balls of gas, may not be right, 1,997 miners close to breaking. “won’t go back.” the miner collects $145, the Program collects $59 million this kind of gas, safer? 1,997 astronauts brought back building up, would pick up dust it's a possibility of choice. IV we are breaking the Ocean limits barrier dollars so now; project another way to repel the breaking, the building, the shift. if we sit on our hands by the factor of 3, we blast through Luna can’t go back no recovering a depth of choice. in fact, main reason seems to be generated in quest: miners shift the Moon’s surface. that’s enough to lure us back assuming we could float on facts, repel reactions geologists walked in enough crude, found a clean source overall helium-3 captured interest stimulus, captured thousands -- but the planet’s needs off the table. the breaking continues years go on… one way or another we trapped billions of humans without a Moon * “Moon Dust: The gray powder may hold a source of clean fuel.” By Dave Cravotta. Final Frontier, November/December Issue, 1996, pg 40. Whitney French is a storyteller and a multi-disciplinary artist. She is the editor of Black Writers Matter, a critically acclaimed anthology published by the University of Regina Press in 2019. Additionally, Whitney French is also the creator of the nomadic workshop series Writing While Black. The work featured is an excerpt of her forthcoming science-fiction verse novel. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
YERSINIA PESTIS IN ALBERTA During the bubonic plague, Thieves’ Oil (a blend of clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary) was placed on hands, ears, temples, feet, and inside of beak-like masks to avoid catching the plague. Clove: It will be manageable at first. a brief tremor in the arms and legs, squirrels will drop from electrical wires and robins will lose their voice. The pain will be no brighter than a flickering candle at first. Lemon: A man on a podium will tell you not to worry. The men behind will nod. They will post signs telling you to exercise reasonable precautions. Cinnamon: You will sink your body beneath bathwater. You can ignore the darkness in the sides of your ribcage. You cannot avoid the shadows on your fingertips. Eucalyptus: It will get better before it gets worse. To contain the infection, gathering in groups will be prohibited. The tremors will return and they will be violent. You must always wear long pants to keep the insects from your ankles. Rosemary: If you find dead birds, leave them be. Avoid physical contact-- it can spread through saliva of the infected. Wrap black thread around fingertips to keep the sickness contained: Stay home, live alone, and abstain. Amy LeBlanc is an MA student in English Literature and creative writing at the University of Calgary and Managing Editor at filling Station magazine. Amy's debut poetry collection, I know something you don’t know, was published with Gordon Hill Press in March 2020. Her novella "Unlocking" will be published by the UCalgary Press in their Brave and Brilliant Series in 2021. Her work has appeared in Room, PRISM International, and the Literary Review of Canada among others. She is a recipient of the 2020 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award.
I WAKE WHEN THE BIRDS TELL ME THEY WANT TO DREAM i. a form gathers sweat on every surface skin touch feathers touch skin pull wings apart leave pile of quills outside bedroom window hot air blows around ii. it is springtime animals come out of hiding iii. i try for lucidity through sachets of promised tea aftermath of sex lies in warm laundry piles bird tells me not to worry it sings a melody in my ear just before i wake i can’t help but listen iv. the bird is the first to believe me when i say i spun clouds into silkworms the night before every house was a beacon lit up beyond mesh behind reflection of candlelight in smokescreened sky v. chlorophyll can’t handle early dawn rays vi. i match the bird’s tune with a wooden flute it tells me please stop some songs are not mine to play Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist. Her most recent project, Reth aur Reghistan, is a collaboration with her sister, Nimra, in which they research folklore from Pakistan and interpret it through poetry and sculpture. See more about the project at sculpturalstorytelling.com. She is the author of two chapbooks, Paper Doll (Anstruther Press, 2019) and Pipe Rose (battleaxe press, 2018). She was the 2019 winner of Room magazine's Emerging Writer Award, and was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize.
ONLY THE SUN Who will notice when this leaf is gone? It is only a leaf, tiny, trembling, green; tomorrow’s auburn. No one will know. Only the bird will know. Who will notice when this love is gone? It is only a love, a ghost thing with no edges or shape. No one will know. Only I will know. Who will notice when this song is gone? It is only a song, one sound set beside another like a pair of shoes. No one will know. Only we will know. Who will notice when the sun is gone? It is only a sun, a hole of gold burned in an endless sky. No one will know. Only the dark will know. PROTEST I wake up with a protest sign on my chest in my own bed, no chanters or marchers near. I wake up to the sound of the ocean rattling like paper unfolding, the clear voices of unseen birds. I wake up in a fast-moving vehicle on a highway-- sun choosing the passenger side, the green blurred trees an anonymous crowd, a hum of uncertainty. I wake up to the sound of people arguing. I wake up already peeing into a toilet; the mirror has aged me. I wake up in an apartment I used to rent years ago, though the wallpaper has changed and I can’t be sure I’m not a ghost. Somehow the same things propel me forward. I wake up to the small hole a cigarette makes, a punctuation mark in someone else’s turmoil. The sandy snake of smoke climbs the wall. I wake up on a bus between countries and for a minute I’ve forgotten my own name, just a dry mouth and a body, a set of eyes. I wake up to the blind gray face of a mountain; though I have never gone mountain climbing I’m wearing the boots for it. I stretch, look around. It appears I have all the equipment and it’s a new day. Emily Schultz will publish her newest novel, Little Threats, in fall 2020 with GP Putnam’s Sons. Her novel, The Blondes, released in Canada with Doubleday, in the U.S. with Picador, in France with Editions Alto and Editions Asphalte. Named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Kirkus, it recently became a scripted podcast starring Madeline Zima. Her poems have appeared in
Minola Review, rust + moth, Humber Literary Review, and Taddle Creek. EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE ICEBERG An iceberg used to mean mystery. To be like an iceberg was to have so much beneath the surface. To go on. Now, an iceberg means impermanence. To melt into something. To disappear into your body. To run into an old friend at the market and be told you’ve changed. Now, an iceberg is something you can argue. Like politics or history. Like memory. How old were you when you saw the iceberg? Your mother says eleven. You say fourteen. You stood on the shore in PEI, your hands and breath both frozen. A mass of ice bigger than your house, your school. If only ten percent of an iceberg floats above the surface, what does that mean for the other ninety? Back then, an iceberg meant mystery— a second truth below the water. Now, both truths are disputable. Gabrielle Drolet is a poet and journalist based in London, ON. Her work, which focuses on politics and queer identity, has been published in The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Teen Vogue, VICE, and more. She's currently completing her undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing at Western University.
HYMN bow to the Passenger Pigeon genuflect to the Great Cruising Auk sing praises to the frogs that sing no more the Rocky Mountain Grasshoppers the Northern White Rhinoceros the Coral awash in acidic seas the Bramble Cay Melomys first of the mammals officially wiped out February 18, 2019 by climate change still unacknowledged while ocean levels rise like smoke in ever burning Australia ululations trembling through extinction’s heaven let all their death throes hymn celestial halls David White was a participant in Renga: A Collaborative Poem (Brick Books 1980). In 1994, in completion of his Ph.D., he wrote “A Territory Not Yet On The Map:” Relocating Gay Aestheticism in the Age of AIDS. His first solo collection of poems is The Lark Ascending (Pedlar Press, 2017), followed by Local Haunts (Pedlar Press 2019). For many years he taught Theatre History and Writing at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario.
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AboutWatch Your Head is an online anthology of creative works devoted to the climate crisis and climate justice.
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