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

Picture
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
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!
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
Picture
Sign up for our newsletter!
Watch Your Head is on hiatus until 2023. Check back for submission details in the new year.

POETRY: SHARAnya manivannan

1/17/2020

 
RIVER*
When you leave, take with you the way light shimmered
               gold in the river,
how the weight of what you loved swirled into filigreed
                gold in the river.

That was how it felt to me, as the eventide of the 
                 annihilated dream,
when I first crossed into illumination at the 
                  threshold of the river.

There were mapmakers before me: their footfalls fade
                   tender on the earth.
Like you, they brought palms of amaryllis, asked to be
                    consoled by the river.

There's a pond in the forest whose water only ripples 
                     where you weep.
But here, all ruptures. Let your heart flood,
                      uncontrolled, into the river.

Listen: the saga unbraids. Loyalties shift, fish-dappled
                       in her surge.
You can no more submerge a story than you can
                       hold a river.

Carry all you can into the world, a tributary. But
                       pilgrim, linger a little.
Sit a while beside me. There are renderings still
                        untold in the river.
* This poem is from Sharanya Manivannan's second collection,  The Altar of the Only World (HarperCollins India, 2017).
Sharanya Manivannan is the author of five books of fiction, poetry and children's literature, including the novel The Queen of Jasmine Country, which was longlisted for the 2019 JCB Prize, longlisted for the Mathrubumi of the Year Award 2020, shortlisted for The Hindu Prize 2019,  and the short story collection The High Priestess Never Marries, which won the 2015-2016 South Asia Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity (Best Book – Fiction).

ART: SHINJINI SUR

11/26/2019

 
SEVEN IMAGES FROM THE SERIES 'ENDANGERED.'
Picture
VISION:
​
Butternutbutternut creates art inspired by conscious living, a bright and quirky take on a utopia where animals and humans coexist in harmony. For this series, Endangered, I wanted to hero endangered species to bring awareness to the alarming reduction in population. When we think of tigers, rhinos, orangutans, the general understanding is that they exist, freely, in the wild, but the truth is that we are close to extinction, and they only exist in conservation areas. This series in meant to humanize these animals, hence they are shown on human bodies, and start the dialogue on what we can do to help them, whether through mindful tourism, conscious buying of goods and services or donations. Over continued years of illegal trade, poaching, deforestation, and climate change, we are responsible for this tragedy, and now we need mass awareness to help save these species.
 
Butternutbutternut was started in 2018 by Shinjini Sur, a self-taught artist. Shin's vision is to create art inspired by conscious living - bright, fun, and quirky pieces critiquing social norms. Her iconic work shows animals on human bodies to personify and humanize them, ultimately bringing to life a utopian world where humans and animals coexist in harmony. She is currently experimenting with new materials and home decor - check out butternutbutternut.com for more of her work. *20% of all proceeds from shopping this collection goes to the World Wildlife Fund in support of endangered, critically endangered, and vulnerable animals.*

POETRY: ISABELLA WANG

10/16/2019

 
GHAZAL NO. 7
for Rita Wong
 
The caterpillar mistook my palm marks for a leaf,
where the folded gorge had been.
 
I run a finger along the topography
of your maps, your poems sketched out on real land.
 
Each day, I walk down a deserted railway
to the next shore. Eat coconut buns by the water.
 
Stand in a different spot every time the sea ends,
and the land begins. You’ll go to places.
 
All my friends, new to the West Coast:
the first thing they do is land, then go to the water.





SPAWNING GROUNDS*
 
1. Sandcastle Bucket 
 
This fable I grew up hearing that told of a time when the sea
swept to 
shore all of its fishes. From the blue-fin tuna off Scarborough
to the 
mackerels migrating off coast and what’s left of wild sturgeon
near 
Brescia, northern Italy. Where sinkholes had formed, where they
were met with obstructions, and where the tide had begun to retreat
the fish cannot get back. Along one shore, a child came
with a 
sandcastle bucket, grabbed the fish by the handfuls and carried
them 
back where they were released in to the waters.
This time, a 
bystander watched. They asked the child, Why bother?
There is so many of them.  
To this, the child replied, 
At least I’m doing something.  Hurry. The next time the sea turns again,
there will be no 
more fish left to pick up.
 
2. Listen
 
A plastic bag pirouettes on the road. Watch how it heaves
and falls in 
the air, clear as diatoms, like jellyfish in the water
formation driven 
by the motor of vehicles pumping 250 mph, the wind
blowing east 
and no one picks it up. 25 plastic cups, a nylon sack
and two flip 
flops are not enough for conservation researchers
to determine the 
cause of death, the sperm whale was too well decayed.
A carcass 
washed ashore Southeast Sulawesi provincial park: a signal,
as 
villagers read. An innuendo seemingly to invite the words, come,
butcher me.  
So they do.
 
3. Shoreline
 
60 million cigarette butts currently clogging our oceans but we don’t
think of the watershed as a massive ashtray. More than plastic water
bottles, more than straws, dislodged caps and unlike plastic, filters
can’t be picked up. What’s biodegradable disintegrate, what’s
disintegrated carries into rivers by rain, arsenic, nicotine, lead,
into 
oceans by waves. Our ecosystem into waterways, making a return
back to our bodies.
 
4. Spawning Grounds
 
A female salmon by intuition returns to her pre-natal stream carrying
the 
weight of up to 3,000 eggs. This, she will climb  to deposit
in the 
hollows of gravel and sediment above falls, packed between
fresh-water 
river beds but to be met along the way by the dam
on Muskrat Falls off 
Labrador, the Keeyask dam on the Nelson River,
93 square kilometres 
of hydro across boreal lands, snow forests liquefied
where a common 
spawning ground resides for the wild fish being met
with the Site C 
Dam though BC— 128 kilometres of river flooded,
the Peace River a 
reservoir, an Indigenous burial ground and home
to 100 endangered 
species. On the south, 76 killer whales left on the brink
of extinction. 
We erect hydro dams and rear fish in hatcheries away
from their natural 
habitat, bring wildlife back into nature, nature back
into 
industrialization: this is what we call rewilding. The bare necessities
of 
hatcheries strengthened through genetic engineering, forced
interbreeding, but fish that rely on muscle memory year after year are the
ones we see failing to return.




​
 
* "Spawning Grounds" was previously published in CV2  and Geez Magazine. Parts 1, 2, and 3 were published in CV2, and part 4 appeared in Geez Magazine.


Isabella Wang’s debut poetry chapbook is On Forgetting a Language (Baseline Press 2019). At 19, she has been shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest, and she holds a Pushcart Prize nomination for poetry. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over twenty literary journals including CV2, Minola Review, and carte blanche. Her work is forthcoming in three anthologies this year, including  What You Need to Know Anthology (The Hawkins Project, co-founded by Dave Eggers), andThey Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets (Blue Oak Press 2020).  She is working as an assistant editor at Room magazine, a Research Assistant for SpokenWeb, and pursuing a double major in English and World Literature at SFU. 

    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
    ​Film & Video
    ​Nonfiction
    ​Fiction
    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
    Picture
    Sign up for our newsletter

    Archives

    July 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    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
    Ann Cavlovic
    Annick MacAskill
    Anthropocene
    Archana Sridhar
    Arianna Richardson
    Armand Garnet Ruffo
    Art
    Aude Moreau
    Ayesha Chatterjee
    Ayman Arik Kazi
    Barry Pottle
    Bren Simmers
    Caleb Nichols
    Camille Intson
    Canisia Lubrin
    Carleigh Baker
    Carrianne Leung
    Cassandra Cervi
    Cassidy McFadzean
    Cate Sandilands
    Catherine Bush
    Catherine Graham
    Catriona Wright
    Ching-In Chen
    Choe Rayun
    Christine Leclerc
    Coach House
    Comics
    Concetta Principe
    Conyer Clayton
    Cornelia Hoogland
    Cory Lavender
    D. A. Lockhart
    Daniela Elza
    Dave Monture
    David Barrick
    David Groulx
    David Huebert
    David Waltner-Toews
    David White
    Digital Art
    Ecopoetics
    Editors
    Elaine Woo
    Elana Johnson
    Elena Johnson
    Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
    Ellen Chang-Richardson
    E. Martin Nolan
    Emilie Kneifel
    Emily Lu
    Emily Schultz
    Endangered
    Endangered Species
    Erasure
    Erin Robinsong
    Essay
    Events
    Experimental
    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
    Hybrid
    Indie Ladan
    Isabella Wang
    Jacqueline Valencia
    James Legaspi
    Jane Shi
    Jen Currin
    Jennifer Dorner
    Jennifer Wenn
    Jenny Berkel
    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
    Kim Goldberg
    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
    Maryam Gowralli
    Mary Of The Tower
    Meredith Quartermain
    Michael Maranda
    Millefiore Clarkes
    Mona'a Malik
    Moni Brar
    Music
    Natalie Lim
    Nicolas Billon
    Nikki Reimer
    Nisa Malli
    Nonfiction
    Novel Excerpt
    On Writing
    Painting
    Paola Ferrante
    Patrick Murray
    Paul David Esposti
    Penn Kemp
    Performance
    Performance Art
    Photography
    Plays
    Poetry
    Prose
    Qurat Dar
    Rae Armantrout
    Rasiqra Revulva
    Reading
    Rhea Tregebov
    ​Robert Frede Kenter
    Robert Hogg
    Rob Mclennan
    Rob Taylor
    Ronna Bloom
    Ryanne Kap
    Sacha Archer
    Sâkihitowin Awâsis
    Salma Saadi
    Samantha Jones
    Samuel Tongue
    Sanchari Sur
    Sandy Ibrahim
    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
    The Uncommitted
    Todd Westcott
    Tom Cull
    Tom Prime
    Trish Salah
    Trynne Delaney
    Tye Engström
    Vera Hadzic
    Video
    Video Poem
    Visual Art
    Visual Poetry
    Wanda John-Kehewin
    Whitney French
    Yusuf Saadi
    Yvonne Adalian

    RSS Feed

Sign up for our Newsletter.
ISSN 2563-0067
 © ​Copyright 2021 | WATCH YOUR HEAD
​​List of Contributors.
  • Watch Your Head
  • Contributors
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • News
    • Media Coverage
    • Resources
    • Donations
    • Events
    • Contact
  • Gallery
  • Film & Video
  • Nonfiction
  • Fiction