Dive In | Poetry In Voice

Dear Updike

Evelyn Lau powerfully describes the world around her in order to grieve the loss of a beloved writer.

The Trick

The body and the mind are intimately linked and cannot be divorced from each other.

Full Metal Oji-Cree

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

Qawanguq with Fox

Abigail Chabitnoy’s dreamscape of a poem depicts a coy little fox.

Fast Commute

Laurie Graham weathers an incongruous ice storm in this poem-excerpt that asks us to pause and understand that we are present here, “and with this understanding to start to hear.”

I’ll Teach You Cree

By sharing with us the untranslatable aspects of Cree culture, Scofield immerses the reader with the sensorial experiences that deepen the bonds of community.

I’ve Tasted My Blood

In this thunderous poem, the speaker proclaims his rage, anguish, and hope in the face of war and oppression.

Blank Sonnet

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

Top

The poet remembers a father lost long before his death.

World Town

Layers of memory paint a moving, vibrant portrait of one man’s time spent in a seaside town with his father.

grass

In his short, funny poem, Ward Maxwell asks us to step on the grass, saying “it deserves it.” But isn’t that the point of grass?

I Feel the Sun

This poem articulates the poet’s intense feeling about the sunlight after going through a long winter.

The Dead

This sonnet considers the fragmented, elusive way the dead resurface in our lives.

a good day

The poet recalls the day she heard her father would die.

the knowing

Connie Fife cryptically combines land and body in this poem exploring connection to place and past.

What Is Poetry

Using only the letters in the title’s question, Holbrook generates a smorgasbord of weird and delightful answers.

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.

A Breakfast for Barbarians

Come sit at this mythical table where guests eat the world’s mysteries for breakfast.

These Poems, She Said

Can an argument be the foundation of a love poem? Robert Bringhurst certainly thinks so!

Marshlands

Quietly pause to take in the colours and sounds of a marsh.

Insomnia

A dark, playful twist on what someone would do if they could only sleep…

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.

sturgeon

Intense with empathy, the poem places poet and struggling fish in direct physical relation.

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.

Application Form

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

Echolalia

Exploring the tension between desire and satisfaction, this is “a poem that you have to kiss your way through without being kissed,” says Williams.

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

What would you ask a knight if you found him alone and palely loitering along a barren path?

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…

The ABG (Able-Bodied Gaze)

The abled-bodied gaze is an intrusive force in this poem, making a spectacle of a disabled body and attempting to reduce them to their impairment.

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.

From One and Half of You

Trying on traditional clothing and finding how it fits. Or not.

Salmon Courage

Deep bravery can emerge amid clashing familial hopes and truths. M. NourbeSe Philip shows us how.

I saw a perfect tree today

Lillian Allen praises the rampant diversity of trees in Northern Ontario and asks us to see perfection in difference.

Guanahani, 11

This bracing ballad (re)considers the beauty and history of the Caribbean island where Christopher Columbus first landed.

Homage to the Mineral of the Onion (I)

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

Mantra of No Return

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

From Correspondences

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

“Breathe dust…”

Nearly punctuation-free, this is a breathless journey through memories of a youth spent in rural Canada.

Beat! Beat! Drums!

With rich bombastic language and Whitman's trademark sprawling lines, this poem rallies troops for war.

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.