What we need in these strange days of fear and anxiety is poetry. Poems reassure us we are doing the right thing. That the decisions we make are the right ones. That our best is good enough in the face of so much uncertainty. My friend Diane sent me this poem. She
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THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: Now is the time to – Reach Out Your Heart
Recently, my friend who is also a caregiver sent me this poem and it soothed my soul. I hope it soothes yours, too. Pandemic What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath — the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give
Continue readingPostArctica: A Song For Jack
Poet Jack J Locke passed away last week. We got to know each very well during the past year as we co founded The Charter Poets along with Blossom Thom. The doors were open wide for what we hoped would be a great future for the group. And now we
Continue readingScripturient: The Sounds of Winter
To the tune of Sounds of Silence, with apologies to Paul Simon… Hello, winter, my old friend I have a bone to pick, again Because a snowplow softly creeping Passed my house while I was sleeping My driveway’s blocked and I’m shovelling again My back’s in pain I curse these
Continue readingPostArctica: A Charter Poem
A Charter Poem A charter poem slipped onto the shore where I sat daydreaming about you it came from a flooded place back up the river and seemed happy to be on solid ground again landfilled ground containing the detritus that caused the flood upstream
Continue readingPostArctica: When You’re Hungry
When You’re Hungry Our antennae signal jammed low flow other channels may exist Power Outage on our Do you see what I see? In the blur we hang under water Watching everything die warm er We can only wait
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Milton Acorn, on his birthday, Canada’s People’s Poet
Today was the birthday of Milton Acorn, the People’s Poet, who lived rough, and died before he was eligible for the Old Age Security, even under the old rules. For those of you who have missed him until now, Milton Acorn is not only Canada’s greatest poet, he may be
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Menstruator, and other words that rhyme with ‘hate her’ – ~Irischild
Menstruator, and other words that rhyme with ‘hate her’ if you wish to be inclusive please amend your language usage ‘woman’ has now been disabled this is how you shall be labelled: ovulator, menstruator, gestator, incubator procreator, lactator, child-curator, care-taker homemaker, meal-maker, vacuum-cleaner-operator titillator, conciliator, erotic-roleplay-stimulator if a woman should
Continue readingScripturient: Relevant poetry
I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late Allen Ginsberg, he of Howl fame*. I open the book at random and read the opening Ginsberg’s poem, Capital Air,
Continue readingScripturient: Found in translation
Language translation fascinates me. It’s a mix of language skill, art, interpretation, science and, apparently, divination. Maybe even magic. Going from one language into another is far from a simple step of swapping words in dictionary manner – Flaubert’s le mot juste. Any fool can do that. Hell, even Google
Continue readingPostArctica: 2 Quotes, 1 Motto and a Photograph
I think that the act of reading poetry nowadays is already an archaic, cultural activity. When we read a poem, it is tantamount to going to pioneer village in order to see somebody hammer out a horseshoe. But I would like to imagine that reading a poem would be tantamount
Continue readingScripturient: Does poetry make things happen in 2018?
I was thinking about how little poets seem to matter to modern political administrations. Maybe to modern society as a whole. Their light has, it seems, been waning for several decades as our collective attention shifts. I was thinking about what an odd, awkward fit it would be for a
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Escaping the Prism – Fade into Black, by Jalil Muntaqim: Book Review by Phyllis Taub Greenleaf
This book is a powerful tapestry of Scholarship, Activism and Poetry. The Personal with the Political gives this book balance and magnetism! During the time when key leaders of the Black Panther Party were assassinated by FBI operatives while asleep in their beds, Jalil Muntaqim, a new member of the
Continue readingPostArctica: Via by Caroline Bergvall
An inventory of translations of the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno. VIA By Caroline Bergvall 48 Dante Variations Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la diritta via era smarrita The Divine Comedy – Pt. 1 Inferno – Canto 1 – (1-3) 1.
Continue readingPostArctica: Walk A Lot, Read A Lot
Taking a break in La Fontaine Park.
Continue readingScripturient: Albert and the Lion
There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool, That’s noted for fresh-air and fun, And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom Went there with young Albert, their son. A grand little lad was their Albert All dressed in his best; quite a swell ‘E’d a stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle The finest
Continue readingScripturient: Auden, Trump and poetry
There’s a poem by W. H. Auden (1907-73) going the internet rounds these days with suggestions of Auden’s prescience towards the latest American president and contemporary politics. It’s a powerful piece, but the bad news for conspiracy theorists is that Auden was a poet, not a prophet. A good poet,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Radical Feminist Poetry – Furious Rad Fem on Differences.
they took the hair on our legs and decided it was a shameful, disgusting thing they said nothing about their own leg hair they took our genitals and decided it was an ugly, disgusting and shameful thing, only good enough for them to use for their pleasure they praised their
Continue readingScripturient: The vulgar crowd
Profanum vulgus. The vulgar crowd. Not, however, as you might suspect, an apt description of the remaining few supporters of The Block that rules Collingwood Council. While perhaps appropriately described, to me that small handful are better described as naïve, gullible and even intellectually vulnerable, moreso than merely vulgar. But
Continue readingScripturient: Eheu fugaces, Postume…
Alas, Postumus, the swift years slip away. Those words are one translation of the opening line of the 14th Ode in the second book of Horace’s carminas, or songs: Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume/labuntur anni… * For me, it’s his most moving piece, a bittersweet acceptance of mortality; the inevitability of
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