Dive In | Poetry In Voice

Full Metal Oji-Cree

That’s ok, our robomocassins will outlive you nine times over.

Picking Up a Dandelion

A short and poignant poem, stretching out a brief moment of beauty.

Chemo Side Effects: Memory

The stop-start, grasping form of this poem mirrors the speaker's struggle to reconcile herself with one of the side effects of cancer treatment.

Tide

Both stark and tender, this poem is about Reena Virk, a BC teen of South Asian descent who was assaulted and murdered by her peers in 1997.

The Bow

What flows through a name, and a name, and a name?

The Bull Moose

A moose's final, tortured moments unfold in a series of brutal images.

For My Best Friend

One way to grieve is to give tribute, perhaps even before the person you are grieving is completely gone.

people arrived

Tracing and traveling with Kaie Kellough’s verse, the people in this poem plead to have their pulses read out loud.

Plenty

Who would have thought a trip to the grocery store could be so full of beauty?

One Art

When loss feels inevitable, sometimes the only thing to do is write it down…

Two Words: A Wedding

bpNichol presents life as a river of ever-changing words and asks us to step in.

The Blue Guitar

In this glosa poem, P.K. Page strums out questions about being an artist and telling the truth.

400: Coming Home

You can’t help thinking about your life on a long stretch of highway.

from “Road Shoulders”

the shoulder of the road gleams with the poet's attention

The Visions of Stone Carrier

In this dreamlike piece exploring memory and primogeniture, N. Scott Momaday casts a haunting spell that transports the reader through mystery and reminiscence.

Reluctance

Even after you’ve jumped all the fences, climbed all the hills, and looked at the world, it can be hard to accept how you feel…

Blank Sonnet

Set in Halifax of the 1930s, this sensual, inebriated love poem plays with the sonnet form.

But I’m No One

But I’m No one is a reflection on our tendency to fear death and the manifestation of this fear through uncanny beliefs.

Sometimes a Voice (1)

On a hot summer afternoon, Danny jumped off the boathouse roof without thinking of the consequences.

Fear of Snakes

The life of a snake and the memory of girlhood trauma are told in sinuously entwined language.

Jesse’s Farm

Sadiqa de Meijer reckons with environmental degradation and motherhood in this poem that asks whether showing our children “the beloved world” is enough.

Common Magic

Do you ever wonder how anything gets done when we’re all swirling in our own galaxies of thought and experience? This poem does too.

The Powwow at the End of the World

Sherman Alexie slams the environmental destruction of settler-colonialism as we travel on an upstream course towards the powwow at the end of the world.

from Exhibits from the American Water Museum

Natalie Diaz mourns the violence committed against the Mojave people (and by extension, Indigenous people across North America) and bodies of water, inextricably connected

From Red Doc

In this poem-as-a-conversation, a man and his mother consider how the past lives on in the present.

Mantra of No Return

It is possible to travel home when one has never been there. This poem does.

Laurentian Shield

This portrait of a rocky, silent Canadian landscape speaks to the country’s limitations and its potential.

Famous

In Famous, Naomi Nye speaks to the relationship between objects and the ideas they represent. She is as famous to the poem as the poem is famous its words.

Five Postcards from Jericho

Postcards to regret, to time, to anyone at all

Death of a Young Son by Drowning

Blurring time but clarifying feeling, this poem gives voice to a mother who loses a son and gains a country.

Application Form

Identity is elusive. Maybe it doesn’t exist at all.

At the Centre

In this poem of a woman in deep repose, her seeds of self-care begin to blossom.

1992

Sometimes a scent or a site or a taste can sweep you up into the past. This finely honed narrative poem knows what that’s like.

Money

A museum coin collection prompts a reflection on the captivating nature of currency.

Declaration of Intent

Rita Wong invokes the "sacred bond" of water in this poem that invites us to learn from watersheds, and to act in their defense.

Homage to the Mineral of the Onion (I)

Could a vegetable be the antidote to war? This poem thinks so.

Vancouver Lights

This wartime poem looks out at Vancouver’s nighttime skyline and contemplates humanity.

Two Hours on the Train

In this deceptively simple poem, a poet on a journey transcends time.

From Correspondences

Anne Michaels challenges us to find new maps to think about old experiences.

Journey of the Magi

One of the three wise men who travelled to Bethlehem upon the birth of Jesus Christ describes his version of the story and the emotional upheaval he experiences from witnessing a miracle that shatters his previous beliefs and way of life.