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THREE POEMS BY CATHERINE GRAHAM IF TINY CRYSTALS FORM CLOSE TO THE EARTH’S SURFACE THEY FORM DIAMOND DUST My antler heart grows hooves. I follow the lead from the pack. Find shelter in a drunken forest-- what species isn’t at risk. Insulating properties of snow keep me warm-- trapped air between each flake. With body heat and earth-transfer heat my home becomes a snowbank. It’s not the hare’s scream that haunts, it’s the antecedent silence. THE TREES we fill ourselves up with slow-banked health push off the not needed with the growth behind it we tick silent rings inside our own xylem clocks each wound is sealed with home-spun adhesive we synthesize sunshine to a flameless fire we shed to survive to burn spring green INTERSECTIONS All parts have a line with never end. Ongoing fury—burns a shatter zone. Cries by a gate can’t slip out, they hover. Hold blue in your hands. Go on, cup sky. This isn’t illusion. The sound of absence is your boat coming in. The work is in the meadow. It’s hard to put past in a safe place. Some eyes see, if not birds. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “If Tiny Crystals Form Close to The Earth’s Surface They Form Diamond Dust” first published in the UK literary journal Stag Hill Literary Journal “The Trees” first published in the LCP anthology: Heartwood: a League of Canadian Poets Anthology “Intersections” published in the online UK journal/website Burning House Press Catherine Graham reading at Extinction Rebellion Toronto's TIFF Party Climate Crisis Reading, September 7, 2019. Catherine Graham is an award-winning Toronto-based writer. Her sixth poetry collection, The Celery Forest, was named a CBC Best Book of the Year, appears on the CBC Books Ultimate Canadian Poetry List and was a finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insect was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Poetry Award and the CAA Poetry Award. Her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction, “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Fiction and was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and the Fred Kerner Book Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award and is a previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW competition. Æther: an out-of-body lyric will appear in 2020 with Wolsak and Wynn. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @catgrahampoet
THREE POEMS BY RASIQRA REVULVA OCTOPO AND TEUTHIET Two octopoteuthis deletron squid collided in the Pacific depths at sunset in July. Each one mirrored the other, with a shimmering, voluptuous, sperm-plastered mantle, and engorged arms bursting with come-hither barbs. The squid fell deeply in love. But soon they found themselves unable to feed. Both deletrons were inevitably drawn to hunting the other, now possessing the only flesh each craved in all the ocean. They pledged a vow of starvation, lest they risk consuming each other. With every passing wave, their bodies grew less sumptuous; their love more incandescent. And one November morning, both flesh and love were gone. OCTOPOLIS a cracked silver mirror reflects no octopus; its sand-blessed face now blasted and dark. wriggling copepods blind to the harvest, swarm on the bars of a vintage metal birdcage. given your eyeglasses, an octopus would shun the primitive lenses; covet their frames. gilded candelabra! ardent octopodes recreate your branchial arcs with flesh. see here, li’l miss mermaid! this octopus has one dinglehopper your museum can’t claim. her move: palpitating to the white king. a tentacular caress. checkmate. in an octopus’ untrained suckers, swords are more direct and less efficient than beaks if an hourglass lurked half-submerged in white sand, could an octopus measure a minute? splintered seashells in a nacreous mosaic frame an abalone portrait of you. BREEDING GROUNDS: EMPTY CALORIES so much depends upon the Greenland shark grinding its toxic jaws into a gaunt polar bear Rasiqra Revulva reading "Octopo and Teuthiet," "Octopolis," and "Breeding Grounds: Empy Calories," Extinction Rebellion Toronto's TIFF Party Climate Crisis Reading, September 7, 2019. Rasiqra Revulva is a queer femme writer, multi-media artist, editor, musician, performer, SciComm advocate, and one half of the glitch-art and experimental electronic duo The Databats. If You Forget the Whipped Cream, You're No Good As A Woman (Gap Riot Press, 2018) is her second chapbook. She is currently adapting her first chapbook Cephalopography (words(on)pages press, 2016) into her debut collection, to be published by Wolsak & Wynn in spring 2020. Learn more at: @rasiqra_revulva and @thedatabats.
WHETHER THE HEAVENS BREAK BY MARGARET CHRISTAKOS WHETHER THE HEAVENS BREAK WHETHER THE BROKEN CLOUDS ACCUMULATE ENOUGH AUDIENCE TO DEBUT AT TIFF WHETHER CURIOUS CUMULI INCUBATE OUR ATTENTION WHETHER THE WEATHER BURSTS FORTH LIKE HEAVEN'S GATES LOCKING DOWN ALL THE LATCHES WHETHER WATER AND ETHER COMBINED MAKE A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET WHETHER DUSK IS UPON US SOONER RATHER THAN LATER WHETHER YOU PREFER HURRICANES OVER HEAT WAVES MONSOONS OVER ICE MELTS WHETHER YOU HARVEST FRUIT FROM THE FOREST FLOOR OR WITHERED ON WIZENED VINES WHETHER YOU PINE FOR YOUR MUSKOKA CHILDHOOD WHETHER PILEATED WOODPECKERS DELIGHT YOU EITHER THE CONTINUOUS PRESENT OR THE LOOMING FUTURE EITHER SOME OF THEM OR ALL OF US WHETHER EMPATHY WHETHER MORALITY WHETHER TRUTH WAVERS BEFORE SIX-DOLLAR LATTES AND MAUVE MACARONS WHETHER IT WAS A TOTAL BLOCKBUSTER WHETHER YOU'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT WHETHER THE SKY GETS DARKER THAN "BREAKING BAD" WHETHER REALITY IS A MALEVOLENT COLOSSUS COMING ON LIKE AN ADORABLE BABY LION WHETHER SUPERWINDSTORMS MAKE THE RATINGS RISE WHETHER THE DEADLINE PREMIERE IS A NO-HOLDS-BARRED DOCUMENTARY ON SUBLIME SUB-SAHARAN DROUGHT DO WE HAVE OUR TICKET IN ADVANCE DO WE HAVE OUR SEAT RESERVED DO WE HAVE A COVETED SPOT BESIDE THE RED CARPET WHETHER WE LIKE COMEDIES OR THRENODIES WHETHER THE FILMMAKER WAS FUNDED BY A FRACKING CONGLOMERATE OR A BRAZILIAN MINING CONSORTIUM WHETHER THE CLIMAX IS A MASS SHOOTING EVENT THAT SOUNDED LIKE A RUNAWAY TRAIN THAT BARRELLED INTO CANADIAN TIRE LIKE A BLOOD AVALANCHE AT NIAGARA WE'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT EVER BEFORE STEP RIGHT THIS WAY STEP INTO THE HARSH GLARE OF THE BIGGEST SHOW ON EARTH WHETHER WHATEVER WE DREAM IS JUST LIKE A MOVIE WHETHER IT IS ALL JUST LIKE CUTTING-EDGE CINEMA WHETHER WE'RE ON 24/7 CANDID CAMERA ALONG WITH FACIAL RECOGNITION HOW ABOUT GLACIAL RECOGNITION OR WILL THAT SPOIL THE PLOTLINE FOR US WHETHER IT IS ALL SO ORIGINAL WHETHER IT IS CRAZY GENIUS AT HAND WHEN THE HEAVENS HEAVE AND THREATEN YES THE SKY MIGHT BREAK OPEN YES THE SKY IS MADE OF GOSSAMER ETHER YES THE ETHER IS MADE OF TRANSHUMAN MEMORY YES THE MEMORY DRINKS IN RAIN YES THE AUDIENCE IS AN OCEAN WE WANT THE C.G.A. WEATHER TO LOOK MORE WILD THAN WILDERNESS ALONE WE WANT THE ENDING TO SHOCK US WE WANT TO BE AWAKE SO WAKE UP CAN WE WAKE UP LET'S WAKE UP Margaret Christakos reading "Whether the Heavens Break," Extinction Rebellion Toronto's TIFF Party Climate Crisis Reading, September 7, 2019. Margaret Christakos creates poetry, teaches, and thinks about forms of direct and indirect social address as part of her thirty-year artistic practice. She hails from Sudbury, Ontario, and lives in Toronto. Recent books include Multitudes and Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies. In Spring 2020 her new book charger is forthcoming.
WE WILL TELL THEM OF OUR DOMINION BY TERESE MASON PIERRE First, we will tell them of our dominion We will tell them of the web peeling back in the heavens, the sun's maw radiating We will tell them we can see the air We will tell them green turned brown and grey We will tell them green covered the earth We will tell them of plastic islands We will tell them of sands too hot to inhabit, We will tell them of where people cannot hold their breath forever We will tell them of undulating obituaries We will tell them of backroom deals, of slow-moving cogs We will tell them of childhood depression We will tell them of corporate footprints, handprints, fingers in pies, stained red We will tell them of mass delusion We will tell them of moral misbehavior We will tell them of fears for marble over feather and fur We will tell them about the non-identity problem We will tell them of the powerful two-faced We will tell them why the scientists cried We will tell them why the philosophers cried We will tell them why the parents cried We will tell them of carbon dioxide shouts, of splintered protests We will tell them of tear gas, of turned heads We will tell them of laws broken We will tell them of backs broken We will tell them of turning, turning Later, we will tell them the oil barons are dead We will tell them guardians fought back We will tell them a panacea was birthed from the Amazon ash We will tell them blood is not translucent, but still pumping We will tell them the ocean is still loud We will tell them we relocated the sacred We will tell them we refined our brains We will tell them the sun is everything We will tell them we were sorry We will tell them we know why the sky is blue. Terese Mason Pierre reading "We Will Tell Them of Our Dominion," Extinction Rebellion Toronto's TIFF Party Climate Crisis Reading, September 7, 2019. Terese Mason Pierre is a writer, editor, and organizer. Her work has appeared in The Hart House Review, The Temz Review, and others. She is the poetry editor of Augur Magazine and volunteers with Shab-e She'r poetry reading series. She lives and works in Toronto.
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AboutAn anthology of creative works devoted to the climate crisis and climate justice.
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