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SOUTHERN GASTRIC-BROODING FROG Rheobatrachus silus collected by David S. Liem Australia 1972 adult male 38.4 mm snout to vent slate-coloured smooth, slimy skin prominent eyes, black with gold spots round blunt snout jaws close snap inhabit boulder-strewn streams, spend days submerged summer rains initiate breeding females swallow fertilized eggs, tadpoles develop in the stomach, are birthed through the mother’s mouth fully-formed froglets spew forth 1978 summer rains late 1979 rains very late 1980 & 1981 rains late again last seen in the wild December 1979 last captive frog died November 1983 Extinct THE CALL OF THIS SPECIES The grunting of a pig a hen cackling the bleat of a sheep the low bellow of an ox a cricket singing near the water a dog’s bark a duck quacking young crows cawing a delicate insect-like tinkle a broken banjo string a finger running over the small teeth of a comb a squeaky door being slowly opened a carpenter’s hammer the tapping of paddles on the side of a canoe a cough a watch being wound a nasal snarl a low-pitched snore two marbles being struck together sleigh bells the clangor of a blacksmith's shop P-r-r-r- pip-pip-pip-pip poo-poo-poo-poo-poo-poo purrrreeeek cr, cr, cr cre-e-e-e-e-e-p, cre-e-e-e-e-e-p pst-pst-pst queenk, queenk eeek! kraw, kraw, kraw jwah, jwah ah, ah, ah, ah krack, krack, krack ca-ha-ha-ac, ca-ha-ha-ac, ca-ha-ha-ac pé-pé, pé-pé kle-kle-kle-klee cran, cran, cran, c-r-r-en, c-r-r-en creck-creck-creck cut-cut-cut-cut ric-up, ric-up, ric-up ru-u-u-ummm ru-u-u-ummm grrruut-grrruut-grrruut-grrruut grau, grau gick, gick, gick, gick tschw, tschw, tschw wurrk, wur-r-r-k trint-trint tr-r-r-onk tr-r-r-onk, tr-r-r-onk! The call of this species has not been recorded THREATS fragmentation of forest clearance of cloud forest movement of the cloud layer up the mountainside timber harvesting landslides ice in the montane grasslands late rains severe dry seasons drought-related increases in evaporation successive fires extending deeper into the rainforest slash-and-burn agriculture cattle grazing illicit crops irrigation practices illegal mining guerrilla activities construction of a dam upstream construction of a cable car pesticides used in maize farming upstream airborne pollution conversion of habitat into a golf course Las Vegas invasion of mist flower introduction of the Bullfrog non-native trout safari ants feral pigs lack of genetic diversity heavy parasite loads exportation for the pet trade stress due to handling for data collection over-collecting chytridiomycosis chytridiomycosis chytridiomycosis
Kate Sutherland lives in Toronto where she writes poems, makes collages, and teaches law. She is the author of three books: Summer Reading (winner of a Saskatchewan Book Award), All In Together Girls, and How to Draw a Rhinoceros (shortlisted for a Creative Writing Book Award by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment). A new collection of poems, The Bones Are There, is forthcoming from Book*hug Press in Fall 2020. These three poems are part of a longer sequence about extinct frog species which will appear in its entirety in the new collection.
BLAZE ISLAND: AN EXCERPT Miranda woke in darkness. She was riding a fierce wind. The changes were not going to stop. Someone was moving about below her, and the small sounds would have been reassuring, except that it was only a little after five a.m. Whoever was below had lit a fire. Heat ticked in the metal chimney on the far side of the room, the ticks speeding up. Miranda whispered to Ella, the dog, not to stir. Through the half-open door of her father’s bedroom, she took in the tussle of his empty bedclothes, reading glasses tossed atop his dresser. Always there had been secrets in this house, and she had surrendered to her father’s desire for them, the things they’d kept hidden about their past, other things he’d attempted to hide from her and she’d allowed herself to ignore, but a new impatience surged as if she were struggling to climb over the fence that encircled her. Downstairs, in his coveralls, eating a slice of toast at the counter, her father turned sharply at the sound of her footsteps. “Miranda, what are you doing up?” “Couldn’t sleep.” She kept her voice as low as his. He’d made only the one mug, not a pot, and everything in his posture made her presence an intrusion. He wasn’t welcoming her, she was merely slowing his escape. “Why don’t you go back to bed. There’s no need for you to be up so early.” But she was wide awake. “Where are you off to?” His face relaxed into a smile. “To see if by some miracle I can access the internet at the cabin.” “Can I come with you?” It was an impulsive thought, and he said no before adding, “There’s no need for that.” “Why not if I want to. Are you meeting someone?” He shook his head. “Best to have one of us stay with our guest.” Our guest, she thought, and then, more possessively, my guest. Something else gnawed: Would her father lie to her? Had he before, would he again? Did her own safety make the lies justifiable? “Dad — the plane that landed at the airstrip the day before yesterday, who was on it and what are they doing here?” Her father gulped down the dregs of his tea and set his mug in the sink. “Miranda, I need you to sit tight for a bit. Can you do that for me?” He was ruffling her hair, asking her to do something for him once again. She shook herself free, some essential part of her refusing to be deterred, a new resolve forming in her throat. “Why won’t you answer me? I’m supposed to do what you want but you’re always hiding things from me — saying we should never leave then inviting people here and going off with them. What are you actually doing? Whatever you’re up to, it isn’t just weather monitoring, is it?” “Miranda.” He stepped into the middle of the room. “If I’ve kept secrets, it’s only been for your own good. Things are in such a precarious state. I’m trying, from this out-of-the-way corner of the world, to do everything I can—” “What if I don’t want to be protected like that?” He didn’t have an answer, other than to show her that she’d jarred him. When he hugged her, the strength of his embrace stopped her mouth even as she struggled to say more. The next moment, with a rustle of jacket and shudder of boot, her father was gone. Always when she’d allowed herself to think about the future it had been shaped by the contours of the past: how else did you envision what was to come other than by reconfiguring what you knew? There were days when, swayed by Caleb’s suggestions, Miranda had imagined living with him on the far side of the cove even as another part of her retracted from the dream. She had assumed that somehow Caleb and Sylvia would be in her life forever. What she loved would always continue, how could it not? More often she’d seen herself living in the little white house in Green Cove with her father and Ella, taking care of her father, because he needed her to do this. She’d ruffle Ella’s fur, meet her brown-eyed stare. There’d be more animals, because she wanted more, she would tend the land, build a bigger greenhouse, listen and note each time the wind shifted, there would be order and safety in such a life, in its deep choreographies and self-sufficiencies, in being responsive to sea and sky and the wild and ragged weather growing wilder all around them. There had been ruptures and alterations, but nothing had shaken her fundamental belief in the continuity of this life, given to her after the biggest rupture of all, the catastrophes that had sent the two of them fleeing to the island: everything here was proof that, despite grief, a new life could be made. Even the rupture of losing Caleb, painful as it was, had somehow been bearable. She’d gone on. They all had. Now, though, the world looked so different she wasn’t sure she could step back into the body she’d inhabited only a day ago. Catherine Bush is the author of five novels, including Blaze Island (2020), the Canada Reads long-listed Accusation (2013), the Trillium Award short-listed Claire’s Head (2004), and The Rules of Engagement (2000), a New York Times Notable Book and a L.A. Times Best Book of the Year. She was recently a Fiction Meets Science Fellow at the HWK in Germany and has spoken internationally about addressing the climate crisis in fiction. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Guelph and Coordinator of the Guelph Creative Writing MFA, located in Toronto, Canada, and can be found online at www.catherinebush.com.  Blaze Island: a novel
By Catherine Bush Goose Lane Editions, 2020 Synopsis The time is now or an alternate near now, the world close to our own. A devastating Category Five hurricane sweeps up the eastern seaboard of North America. On tiny Blaze Island in the North Atlantic, Miranda Wells finds herself in an unrecognizable landscape. Just as the storm disrupts the present, it stirs up the past: Miranda’s memories of growing up in an isolated, wind-swept cove and the events of long ago that her father, once a renowned climate scientist, will not allow her to speak of. In the storm’s aftermath, things change so quickly and radically that she hardly knows what has happened. Blaze Island asks how far a parent will go to create a safe world for a child and how that child will imagine a future. A gripping story, the novel unfurls in the midst of constantly shifting elements: drifting icebergs, winds that grow ever wilder, and the unpredictability of human actions. { judith }
COLONY COLLAPSE Survivors crawl across withered black comb, invisible apocalypse, sisters wandering lost in the corn fields, seduced by filaments of silk, the toxic pollen. Scooping up death-- no distinction between friend and foe, all obliterated in service of unblemished fields, poisoned bees littering the ground. The low hum of welcome washed into air, torn apart by a breeze. Sent down streams like the limbs of Orpheus; the queen perched on her throne, wondering who will come to feed her. Regal head tilting patiently, big eyes surveying the decay. Where is her long train, her cloak of swarming bodies, tight as tapestry? Gone, all gone. Her own body meaningless without them. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “Colony Collapse” has been published in a previous version in Hamilton Arts and Letters and in Under the Gamma Camera (Gaspereau, 2019). Madeline Bassnett is the author of the poetry collection Under the Gamma Camera (Gaspereau 2019), and two chapbooks, Pilgrimage and Elegies. Her poems have appeared in journals including long con magazine, Prairie Fire, Hamilton Arts and Letters, The New Quarterly, and in the anthology, In Fine Form, 2nd Edition: A Contemporary Look at Canadian Form Poetry. She is currently on the board of Poetry London and teaches in the Department of English and Writing Studies at Western University. She lives in London, Ontario.
VANCOUVER SEAWALL, THIRD BENCH FROM THE WATER let there be a word for how it feels to stand waist-deep in your tide let it be queer as in landfall as in the constellation of sand on a lover’s elbow or the lie that this land could be owned or queer as in the way time arranges the earth into wrinkles the mountain knows no monument can stand longer than the mountain already has let there be language for the unceded shore yielding pieces of itself to the outbound ocean call it love without ownership call it the skin between my hands and your sand and her collarbone unpinned call it queer as in grace comes from letting go of what was never ours to keep in the first place Previously published in haunt, Damaged Goods Press (2018). Jody Chan is a writer, drummer, organizer, and politicized healer based in Toronto. They are the author of haunt (Damaged Goods Press), all our futures (PANK), and sick, winner of the 2018 St. Lawrence Book Award. They can be found online at https://www.jodychan.com/ and offline in bookstores or dog parks.
 Click image to view film on CBC Gem. SOLASTALGIA View on CBC Gem (Closed Captioning Available) Short, Lyrical, Dramatic Film Millefiore Clarkes - Director / Emma Fugate - Producer 13 mins 2019 www.solastalgia.ca Solastalgia (/ˌsɒləˈstældʒə/) is a neologism that describes a form of mental or existential distress caused by environmental change. When the panic over global crises threatens to engulf her, Ava embarks on a vision-quest to put things in perspective. SOLASTALGIA is a lyrical film that explores the anguish that climate change and a global state of uncertainty can impart upon the human psyche. Ava, (played by Rebecca Parent) a mother of two young children, is bombarded throughout her day with news of global disasters. Over the airwaves, on the internet, overheard at a grocery store - cataclysmic stories of the effects of climate change steadily erode Ava’s inner peace. She acutely feels the burden of guilt for her entire species. She worries about her children's futures. Her mental health is unwinding as she searches for solace and a new perspective. This film is a dreamscape set to the formidable poetic verse of Tanya Davis (former poet-laureate of Halifax). It is a poetic gesture to the vast timeline of the earth and humanity's small but significant place within the web. SOLASTALGIA is a traditional drama that utilizes non-traditional, stock and archival sources for some of its imagery. It blends a straight-forward narrative with a surrealistic journey underpinned with a musical score by Philip Glass, Russell Louder and others. Funded through FilmPEI Film4Ward program. Millefiore Clarkes is an award-winning filmmaker from Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island. Through her company One Thousand Flowers Productions she produces a variety of media work: short and feature documentaries, music videos, drama, experimental shorts, and video installations. She recently received the DOC Institute’s Vanguard Award for her work as a documentarian. Her most recent work is a short lyrical, dramatic film SOLASTALGIA that explores the theme of climate grief. It won Best Canadian Short at the Silverwave Film Festival.
She has directed three documentaries for The National Film Board of Canada: THE SONG AND THE SORROW, BLUE RODEO - ON THE ROAD, and ISLAND GREEN. THE SONG AND THE SORROW won Best Short Atlantic Documentary at FIN - Atlantic International Film Fest, Best Documentary at Silverwave Film Festival, Best Atlantic Doc at Lunenburg Doc Fest, Best Mid Length Documentary at The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, and was a Top Ten Audience Choice at Available Light Film Festival. Her films have screened at festivals across Canada and the US and have been broadcast on CBC and Bravo! Her experimental short December in Toronto is featured on Vimeo’s Staff Picks, and her music videos have won a number of awards. She is passionate about making films that connect us to one another and to nature. 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
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.
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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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