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.
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Only the Sun, 2021 Music by Patrick Murray Text by Emily Schultz Used with permission. Performed by: Juliana Krajcovic Renee Fajardo Sharang Sharma Graham Robinson Patrick Murray ONLY THE SUN by Emily Schultz 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. "Only the Sun" appeared in the anthology Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2021) Canadian choral conductor and composer Patrick Murray is Sessional Assistant Professor in Choral Music at Western University (London, Ontario) and director of the University of Toronto Scarborough Concert Choir. As a composer, Murray has been commissioned by ensembles including New York Polyphony, Carmel Bach Festival, and the Grand Philharmonic Choir, recorded by the DaCapo Chamber Choir, and published by Cypress Choral Music. Murray’s research focuses on inter-community collaboration in contemporary choral composition. His work is available at www.patrickmurraymusic.net. Emily Schultz published her newest novel, Little Threats, with GP Putnam’s Sons. It was named an Apple Books Best of November 2020 pick. Her novel, The Blondes, was released in the U.S. with Picador, in France with Editions Alto and Editions Asphalte, and in Canada with Doubleday. 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. Find out more at https://www.emilyschultz.com/ 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. |
AboutWatch 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 Film & Video Nonfiction Fiction Contributors Donations Resources Check out our latest project: a print anthology published by Coach House Books!
Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis
Coach House Books October 2020 Archives
February 2022
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