Search Categories - Any -25 Lines or FewerCanadaPre 21st Century21st Century Grade levels - Any -Grades 7-9 / Sec. 1-3Grades 10-12 / Sec. 4 & 5 / CEGEP 1 Sort by RandomNewestMost popularA -> ZZ -> A Apply Ocean Vuong Deto(nation) There’s a joke that ends with — huh? It’s the bomb saying here is your father. Now here is your father inside your lungs. Look how lighter the earth is — afterward. Bob Hicok Love poem The woman I love braids her hair. She’s Eve and Eve means breathe, to give life, my wife, from Eva by way of the Hebrew havah. At dusk I unlock her hair Donato Mancini you aren't going to like what i have to say before i start i want to say you shouldn’t blame yourself there’s no point in beating around the bush there’s something we need to talk about this is the most difficult thing i’ve ever had to tell anyone Joanne Arnott world shapers creation stories are lullabies for grown-ups they remind us of all the possible ways & means that worlds… Cassandra Myers Lake Baptiste Ungenders Me upon contact / head first / baptismal the rind of me / peels into ribbons of foam / and pearls / i re-brown at the water’s touch / its two-way mudmirror / hands me its own name / earthliquid / bottomless Sennah Yee Internet Safety My dad taught me to never give out my real name, age, address, or photos. This seemed obvious to me. My fake birthday entry was always my crush's birthday plus a Jose Hernandez Diaz Pan Dulce My niece calls me from my brother-in-law’s phone While I’m getting ready to wash dishes. I pick up. She says she needs to talk to her grandfather. I tell her that her grandfather just went to sleep, Tongo Eisen-Martin For My Best Friend We are losing the intensive care unit waiting room war We were doing so well So well we got sleepy So sleepy the institution returned Erin Robinsong Late Prayer May our weapons be effective feminine inventions that like life. May we blow up like weeds, and be medicinal and everywhere. May the disturbed ground be our pharmacy. May the exhausted Ocean Vuong Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong Ocean, don’t be afraid. The end of the road is so far ahead it is already behind us. Don’t worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets. Like how the spine Billy-Ray Belcourt If Our Bodies Could Rust, We Would Be Falling Apart the law mandates that a hate crime only be classified as such if there is ample evidence to show that one’s actions were motivated by prejudice toward an individual’s nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc. Joanne Kyger A Story from Easter: He Has Risen There is a mouse under the sink Little mouse turds around in the kitchen drawers It is raining, storming The refrigerator has gone to the dump Donald's back C. D. Wright Re: Happiness, in pursuit thereof It is 2005, just before landfall. Here I am, a labyrinth, and I am a mess. I am located at the corner of Waterway Therese Estacion The ABG (Able-Bodied Gaze) Itwatches alwayswatches It walks behind me in the park and proceeds to walk slowly to get a good look It Mahmoud Darwish In Jerusalem In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls, I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing the history of the holy ... ascending to heaven Matthew Walsh Garbage Box with Black Loons My father's speech was slurred most of my childhood — but it's a rite of passage for many Maritime Canadians 'cause I heard from a friend of a friend that linguists say our accent Olive Senior Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure “I saw my land in the morning and O but she was fair” - M.G. Smith, “Jamaica” (1938) I Come see my land Come see my land Afua Cooper Shots Rang Out on My Street Today Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Boyakka! Shots rang out on my street today Three Black yoots lay dead shot inna dem head Natalie Diaz My Brother at 3 A.M. He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps when Mom unlocked and opened the front door. O God, he said. O God. He wants to kill me, Mom. P. K. Page Planet Earth It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens, the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins knowing their warp and woof, like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising. Kevin Connolly Plenty The sky, lit up like a question or an applause meter, is beautiful like everything else today: the leaves Rita Joe I Lost My Talk I lost my talk The talk you took away. When I was a little girl At Shubenacadie school. You snatched it away: I speak like you I think like you I create like you Robin Coste-Lewis Mother Church #3 KIN KLETSO/YELLOW HOUSE CHACO CANYON, SAN JUAN COUNTY, NEW MEXICO ANASAZI RUINS, AD 1125-1130 For Henri, at 2 Di Brandt my mother found herself my mother found herself one late summer afternoon lying in grass under the wild yellow plum tree jewelled with sunlight she was forgotten there in spring picking rhubarb for pie & the children home from Fevziye Rahgozar Barlas An Innocent Little Girl The little girl is innocent they’ve put henna on her hands they’ve plaited her hair beautifully they’ve put kohl round her eyes they’ve dyed her eyebrows Adam Sol Opus 75, Sestina in B-flat for the Glockenspiel In the empty classroom, at sunrise, a girl sits on the floor, staring at a glockenspiel. She’s shredding the cuticles on her left hand Susan Musgrave You Didn’t Fit You wouldn’t fit in your coffin but to me it was no surprise. All your life you had never fit in anywhere; you saw no reason to begin fitting in now. When I was little I remember Natalie Wee Let Us Be Fireflies Let Us Be Fireflies All day we practice morse code signals telegraphing ghosts of intent. Dionne Brand From Verso 4 I was nine and I stood at the top of the street for no reason except to make the descent of the gentle incline toward my house where I lived with everyone and everything in the world, my sisters and my cousins were with me, we had our bookbags… Andrea Thompson Enigma Who I am depends on which side of my skin you stand on. In here it’s all neurons firing synapses telling stories blood tracing ancestral histories Ivanna Baranova confirmation bias at least in our waking life most commemoration doubles as force since even the most benign zodiacal conceptions are tinged eurocentric when brown women die RC Weslowski Let's Not Get It Together The world has become corrupted from our hearts to the way our gods love us as if they know they’re already dying and they’re determined to drag us down with them Pascale Petit The Lammergeier Daughter That night, I opened your wardrobe and found a trophy of vultures, their necks pierced by hanger hooks. I saw at once that you hunted everything I loved — Jason Purcell Men in the Gut Scrape the inside of sleep the belly wall tasting like yoghurt cooked broccoli its emptiness leaving something on the tongue. Escaping the body that wants to quit from the inside. Dominik Parisien Un Docteur Anglophone Traduit Les Inquiétudes De Son Patient Avec Google/An English Speaking Doctor Translates the Concerns of his Patient with Google écoute à quoi bon être poète beau dire ce mal semble dans la tête comme marteau feu enclume clou couteau ou l’éclat d’une baudroie ou des aurores boréales à la fin Adèle Barclay RAINBOW ROCK-CLIMBING CLUB I’m a gecko on a wall that simulates a cliff with rainbow grips I’ll touch any colour that’ll have me midway is high enough wary of emotional cliff-jumping I don’t mean home- Selina Boan From all you can is the best you can i once shoved my foot through glass getting to know my own anger its patches of stupid bloody love stress is just a socially acceptable word for fear Conor Kerr What Do You Believe In? Do you believe in the ghosts of aunties and uncles that drive old sin- gle-bench pickup trucks spotted with bullet-hole rust, sweetgrass and Claudia Rankine from Citizen The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses to single out what you know is there because Dina Del Bucchia Wow! You've Changed You’ve changed. You used to be so and now you’re all like, you’ve transformed I don’t know how to describe it’s like you don’t like canasta anymore you text IN ALL CAPS Language English