DTES

Spontaneous Poetry Booth in the DTES!

Fiona Tinwei Lam

Under a tent set up for me on the sidewalk at the corner of Main and Hastings this afternoon, I set up my old manual typewriter, inserted a fresh sheet of paper and waited for the requests to come in from passers-by for brand new, original poems on the theme of their choice or using their suggested prompts.

In an hour and a half, I typed out 11 poems of varying lengths of 8-20 lines. Some of the subjects included autumn leaves, Genghis Khan, hope, the colour violet, being a lousy student, “self-camouflage” (to mask outsider status in order to be accepted), “Life, loving, and living”, and the inspiration provided by DTES activist Sandy Cameron.

This was my first ever poetry-on-demand experience, and it won’t be my last. I loved the sense of connection it fostered. A few of the people I wrote poems for were clearly facing profound challenges and were barely able to speak. Others were surprised by my interest and questions as I took notes in preparation for cobbling together their poems. Every one of them seemed to appreciate a poem being created just for them, despite my typos and simple phrasing. I wrote more poems for others in that hour and half than I have for myself in 10 months (admittedly, I have been rather busy)!

We were even regaled with a spoken word performance by DTES comedian and playwright Richard Lett, who was a 2013 spoken word champion going by the name of Optimus Rhyme.

The Spontaneous Poetry on Demand booth was the inspiration of Carnegie Centre Board member and DTES Writing Collective coordinator, Gilles Cyrenne. His idea came from Natalie Goldberg’s classic 1986 writing handbook, Writing Down the Bones. It’s one of the events that is part of a wide range of wonderful events at this year’s Heart of the City Festival. Gilles manned the booth Friday and will do it again Sunday, October 30, 2-3:30 pm.

I will be back at the Carnegie Centre, inside this time, to join a panel on mentorship and community with Elee Kraljii Gardiner and DTES poet Henry Doyle, that will be moderated by former SFU TWS Coordinator, Betsy Warland from 2-3:30 pm that same Sunday. This annual festival of art, film, literature, dance, theatre, walking tours, discussion, and music will continue through the week into next weekend!

(For those who might be interested, I will be holding free two-hour writing workshops through the Poetry in the Parks program sponsored by the VPL Carnegie Branch and the Vancouver Parks Board at the field house at Oppenheimer Park from 1-3 pm on Thursday, December 1, January 5, and February 2.)

Voices of the Street on the Climate Crisis

Fiona Tinwei Lam

The incredible team at Megaphone Magazine organized the launch of their annual Voices of the Street anthology on Wednesday! This collection focuses on the theme of the climate crisis.

The week before the event, I enjoyed meeting the readers during a workshop on effective performance tips that I co-facilitated with my colleague, Wax Poetic Host, RC Weslowski at the request of Megaphone staffer, Holly Sakaki.

The launch at SFU Woodward’s unfolded with moving readings and speeches by James Witwicki, Horace Daychief/Bear Whisperer, Henry Doyle, JT Sandu, Ghia Aweida, Yvonne Mark, Peter Thompson, Stephen Scott, Gilles Cyrenne, and Louise Boilevin.

Yvonne Mark read a piece about her childhood and talked about the transformative influence of Megaphone.

I felt honoured to be asked to say a few words of commendation for the readers and the Megaphone team. I also read a tree poem from my last book, one that is reprinted in the tree anthology, Worth More Standing, edited by Tofino Poet Laureate Christine Lowther. It alludes to a history of deforestation and short-sighted logging practices, and the urgent need to protect our precious rainforests in face of the relentless pace of the climate crisis.

Megaphone staff and volunteers were cheering the readers on, alongside a warm and receptive audience of supporters. It was a wonderful and special evening.

Gritty, Hard-Scrabble Poems from the DTES

Fiona Tinwei Lam

I was thrilled to hear that No Shelter by Henry Doyle, a Downtown Eastside writer, was shortlisted this year for the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize for Poetry! Joe/Henry (his actual name is Joe and Henry is his penname) has a unforgettable and vivid way of depicting characters and telling memorable stories. Brian Kaufman at Anvil Press had faith in Joe/Henry’s work and did a terrific job arranging for the cover design (Derek Von Essen) with illustrations by Richard Tetrault. Crows and alleys have featured prominently in Joe/Henry’s work.

I edited the manuscript and coached Joe/Henry to write several new poems to supplement those from his past chapbooks, including poems about his childhood in foster care, his time in prison and as a boxer, his work at an Ontario junkyard and most importantly, his work as a janitor at the historic public men’s washroom at Main & Hastings.

During the pandemic, we often generated and edited poems by phone. Joe/Henry would either type out or dictate lines (when his laptop wasn’t working, which was often) of a poem to me. I would email him back with what he’d dictated along with suggested spacing and line breaks. He’d read the version aloud so I could make further edits and adjustments, or I’d ask further questions to deepen the piece or elicit further images. Then he’d read the next version aloud for another round of edits. Poem by poem, the manuscript came together.

Joe/Henry was a long-time member of Thursdays Collective run by the inspired, ebullient Elee Kraljii Gardiner for eight years at the Carnegie Centre. (The group is now called the DTES Writers’ Collective). I’ve worked with him since being assigned to be his mentor in 2012 through the DTES Manuscript Intensive program that was co-sponsored by the Carnegie Centre and The Writers’ Studio at SFU.

Elee, Joe/Henry and I at Bean Around the World Coffee shop on Main & Broadway in 2019 where he and I worked on his poems

In 2016, I produced and directed an animated poetry video based on his wonderful poem, “Drunken Laundry Day with Charles Bukowski” that has been selected for screening in festivals from Montreal to Moscow. Joe/Henry narrates his poem with his distinctive, warm, gravelly voice. The small team of animators led by H. Kristen Campbell did a terrific job incorporating artwork by two DTES artists.

Joe/Henry and I at the DOXA festival screening of his poetry video in 2017 at SFU Woodwards (photo by Elee)

Joe/Henry and I wrote about how we have worked together in an essay, “Poet to Poet: Writing Across Divides” that was published in Write (Spring 2020, page 8-9). In that piece, I also describe some of the background behind the creation of Thursdays Collective, which showed how so many people and organizations came together to build a writing community there.

We took a ferry for Joe/Henry’s first reading outside of Vancouver for the Planet Earth Poetry Series at Victoria’s Russell Books (photo by my partner Ted)

I’m so proud of Joe/Henry and honoured that I was one of many writers and teachers who have been part of his journey, including Elee, Brad Cran (Vancouver’s second poet laureate) who advised Joe/Henry to turn his journal entries into poems (advice he never forgot), Kevin Spenst, Betsy Warland, Anne Hopkinson, and Joan Flood locally, as well as Patrick Holloway and Annabel Buckley, his writing teachers in Ottawa.

Downtown Eastside Writers Collective

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On January 20, 2022, I visited the Downtown Eastside Writers Collective for their weekly Thursday gathering at the Carnegie Centre.  Led by member Gilles Cyrenne, the group writes together in response to writing prompts, and then shares their work.  This time, we focused on specific sites in Vancouver.  I set out a number of images of historic Vancouver sites for them to choose to write about (each image had a descriptive paragraph on the back).  I also brought some wonderful map guides of Chinatown, the Japanese area of downtown and the west side of downtown produced by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.  The brochures included photos of specific heritage buildings and their historical background.  I ended the session with a discussion of how poetry differs from prose in the use of imagery, sound and structure, and ways of varying lines to engage readers.

Last November when I visited the group, we used the prompts “home” and “not home”, which led to some powerful draft pieces.  At the end of that session, I shared some pointers about revising poems.   

By the way, the Carnegie Centre is one of Vancouver’s historic heritage buildings. Did you know there’s a stained glass window featuring three legendary English poets of note?