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 Rosanna Deerchild the second time i ask mama about residential school she says no i ask her again she says no the third time i stop listen to her silence Suzanne Buffam The New Experience I was ready for a new experience. All the old ones had burned out. They lay in little ashy heaps along the roadside Natalie Scenters-Zapico Buen Esqueleto Life is short & I tell this to mis hijas. Life is short & I show them how to talk to police without opening the door, how to leave the social security number blank Shirley Camia Sorting through Documents at Dawn three crosses appear on the tv screen following a sweep of my hair that felt like your hand maybe i dreamt it but i so badly 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 Rita Wong Declaration of Intent let the colonial borders be seen for the pretensions that they are i hereby honour what the flow of water teaches us the beauty of enough, the path of peace to be savoured 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 Neil Surkan On High There was busy air there, air seething through the leaves so, from farther up, the tree-line shone like a single scintillating polyhedron. Still, though ravens and wrens flaked off the top, Jane Byers March on Washington, 1993 What struck me first was the sheer numbers, queers everywhere. Battalions of sailors and infantry, proud in their uniforms. Eventually, I made uneasy peace with this equal right. Sharon Olds My Poem Without Me in It My poem without me in it—would it be like my room when I had returned to it after my mother was done with me. Under my bed, only the outer space balls, of dust, only Matthew Zapruder Sun Bear yesterday at the Oakland zoo I was walking alone for a moment past the enclosure holding the sun bear Patrick Lane Passing into Storm Know him for a white man. He walks sideways into wind allowing the left of him to forget what the right knows as cold. His ears turn into death what Cynthia Cruz Duras (Poverty) “The link with poverty is there is there in the man's hat, too, for money has got to be brought in, got to be brought in somehow,” M.D., The Lover. Emily Riddle Dinosaur Economics i wanted bitumen to be made of dead dinosaurs. why did i want these ancient kin to be passively implicated in the fossil fuel industry? it Tiana Clark The Ayes Have It When I think of Trayvon Martin, I think of Emmett Till, when I think of Emmett Till, I think of young, black men in the South, David Groulx On Seeing a Photograph of My Mother at St. Joseph Residential School for Girls A black and white picture The sun is shining through a window behind you Your hair black short Your small brown hands folded neatly on a tiny wooden desk Earle Birney Vancouver Lights About me the night moonless wimples the mountains wraps ocean land … 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 Jordan Abel From Injun a) he played injun in gods country where boys proved themselves clean dumb beasts who could cut fire out of the whitest sand he played english across the trail Valerie Mason-John The Windrush Dem did sey she pregnance Cum a sea full a mi Weighing har down eena har shoe dem Dresses, coco, mangoes an baggy an arl Dem did sey de ship nearly sink Mi mumma nebah sleep a wink Lucille Clifton won’t you celebrate with me won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up Roo Borson From Summer Grass The willows are thinking again about thickness, slowness, lizard skin on hot rock, and day by day this imaging transforms them Suzannah Showler Too Negative I was a kid other kids’ parents gossiped about. They told their children what I was: too negative. I get it. Fair to fear contagion of bad attitudes, Simin Behbahani My Country, I Will Build You Again My country, I will build you again, if need be, with bricks made from my life. I will build columns to support your roof, if need be, with my bones. I will inhale again the perfume of flowers Faith Arkorful Family Affair they say we are a family that is good at death / i make a decision to hold a seminar on how to live / i schedule this party for my uncles on the first Suzanne Buffam Dream Jobs Random Link Clicker. Royal Bath Taker. Receiver of Foot Rubs and Praise. Lorna Crozier Not the Music Not the music. It is this other thing I keep from all of them that matters, inviolable. I scratch in my journals, a mouse rummaging through cupboards, Louise Bernice Halfe April 30, 2014 Weeds are flattened beneath last year’s tire tracks others lay burden by the winter’s heavy snow. The crocuses labor through this thick blanket. I am sun drained from the bleakness Simone White Windrim To Windrim or sycamore rustle cicada or bark and to Wayne Sue Goyette Eight The trick to building houses was making sure they didn’t taste good. The ocean’s culinary taste was growing more sophisticated and occasionally Margaret Avison The Swimmer’s Moment For everyone The swimmer's moment at the whirlpool comes, But many at that moment will not say 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 Wang Xiaoni I Feel the Sun Down a long, long corridor I keep walking… —A window straight ahead so bright it hurts the eyes, Ellen van Neerven Call a Spade a Spade a heart a heart a diamond a diamond a club a club call it invasion not settlement call it genocide not colonization call it theft not establishment don't call January 26 Australia Day Joseph Dandurand Harmony with all of you the task given to me when all the ice had melted was to welcome the sky people to the river and to show them how to fish and how to build a fire to warm themselves. I moved on and came across 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 — Anna Yin Picking Up a Dandelion Before dawn, I pick you up, then bring you closer. My fingers slowly roll over your body, removing seeds attached to you, free them into the air. I hear you sigh Mercedes Eng Mariah according to my yt mama when I try to talk to my mom about what it was like to grow up surrounded by yt people in the prairies in the 80s though it seemed like the 50s she tells me in a so-there tone Emily Riddle Please Write a Poetry Book in Syllabics1 i want to complicate the term sacred, she told me to make holy sacerdotal: priestly sākris: to make a treaty Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang Winter House My father threw his language overboard, a bag of kittens, waterlogged mewling: small hard bodies. My mother hung on to hers — Wove the words like lace, an open web Language English