I cycled over to the Museum of Vancouver today to meet with MOV education staff to prepare for some upcoming poetry workshops with elementary school students in May. I had a chance to go through the fascinating exhibits currently on display, some of which are terrific resources for anyone looking to learn more about the city or seeking material in order to write a poem for the City Poems Contest. There’s of course the eye-catching Neon Vancouver display, but there is the c̓əsnaʔəm: the City before the City exhibit (about what some call the Marpole midden), as well as the comprehensive A Seat At the Table exhibit, both of which contain a treasure trove of artifacts, videos, and stories. The latter illustrates the history of Chinese immigration and settlement in BC in a very engaging and interactive way that will appeal to people of all ages. I loved the focus on food too!
I attended a fascinating ProD day talk hosted by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation on Friday which featured a virtual walking tour of Strathcona led by Carmel Tanaka who runs Cross Cultural Walking Tours. The tour underlined how very diverse this neighbourhood was right from the late 1800s and early 1900s. There are a number of cultural groups that have held walking tours in the past here, and many of the paths overlap and intersect. There’s Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Black, and of course Chinese history here. Immigrants of Russian, Serbian, Scandinavian and other European descents also lived in this neighbourhood (e.g. evidenced by various churches and the Russian Hall.)
Then today, I went on a Black Strathcona tour organized through the Museum of Anthropology by the African Descent Society of BC to commemorate Black History Month. We heard about the thriving businesses in Vancouver’s Black community, Black women community leaders, early Black community members in the late 1800s-1920s , and the destruction of Hogan’s Alley by the Georgia Viaduct. We also passed by many historic sites such as Nora Hendrix’s home and Fountain Chapel. I’d of course read and written about some of this history before, but seeing the sites made the history come alive.
I’m keen to get folks writing place-based poems! Although the February 21 online workshop that I’m doing with Heritage VancouverSociety is full (20 person waitlist), there are two more workshops coming up this March.
Pandora’s Writing Collective has partnered with me to organize a live, in-person workshop for 20 participants on Saturday afternoon, March 5, entitled Buried History: A Poetry Workshop at Mountain View Cemetery. We’ll convene at Celebration Hall at 2:30, and then go on a 20-30 minute walking tour on site led by Ryan Macleod. Then we’ll gather again at the hall to generate some writing based on a few prompts. To register, please email Pandora’s Writing Collective’s Executive Director, Bonnie Nish at blnish_pandoras@yahoo.ca.
Two weeks later, on Saturday, March 19, 2-3:30 PM, I’ll be doing a free online workshop, Writing the City: Crafting Poems about Place, with the Vancouver Public Library. You can register for one of the 50 spots here. I’ll go over some key components of poetry, discuss a few site-based poems, and then offer some writing prompts for participants to try out. There will be a chance for participants to share a short excerpt of what is drafted with one or two other participants in break-out rooms, before the session concludes with some pointers on revision.
I’ll be organizing a workshop this spring on the important subject of revision. Wonderful American poet, Mary Oliver wrote about undertaking forty-plus revisions on any one of her poems. I have to agree about the necessary process of revision. It takes time and attention to hone a poem. Everything counts–every line-break, every word, every piece of punctuation.
Valentine’s Day has its origins in spiritual devotion rather than romantic love. St Valentine had been imprisoned and later executed for his beliefs during the Roman empire in the third century AD, and was later made a saint by Pope Gelasius in 496 AD. One legend is that Saint Valentine performed a miracle by restoring the sight of his jail-keeper’s blind daughter.
As Mary Oliver noted, poetic attention is devotional. And devotion transcends romantic love. Celebrating love through poetry can go beyond February 14, and beyond the expected romantic rites and words. The world —individuals or families who are suffering from poverty, isolation, and marginalization, communities experiencing war or the climate crisis, our ecosystems, our biosphere–could definitely use more love and devotion these days.
Junie Désil
Chantal Gibson
Tolu Oloruntoba
I thought it would be good to celebrate some local Black poets this month with an article highlighting a few of their poems, given that February is Black History Month, and Valentine’s day is coming up.
Junie wrote a brand new poem—and in sestina form! Kudos to her for mastering this complex French form with its pattern of repeated words. It is powerful and incantatory, and I love how it incorporates an epigraph about love and justice by philosopher, activist and social critic Dr. Cornel West.
Tolu offered six possible poems and we decided on a new, unpublished one about his grandmother and newborn daughter. The poem braids together joy and grief and duty. The declarative sentences, the repetition, the intimacy, the honesty–all come together to create a memorable and resonant piece.
Chantal provided a poem about ancestors from her new collection, with/holding which establishes a transformative connection between past and present. Great play on words with the title, ”Add Hominem”! Let us strive to restore humanity to those who have been dehumanized, excluded and defamed.
It was wonderful to bring in the Year of the Tiger and celebrate the resilience of the Chinatown and Asian Canadian communities with two online events! In the early afternoon, Bruno Dias, Communications, Engagement and Events Manager at the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens, emceed an hour-long reading featuring six local poets: Catherine Lewis, Isabella Wang, James Wang, Lucy Yang, Jaeyun Yoo and myself. We read and discussed an array of poems about love, feasting, family, ancestors, dinosaurs and more that you can listen to on the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden’s YouTube channel here.
In the evening, Todd Wong hosted his annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy banquet which celebrates both Robbie Burns Day and the Lunar New Year. Todd and Elwin Xie showed video clips about the new Chinatown Storytelling Centre, as well as an excerpt of the new Chinatown opera that premieres with City Opera this fall. Most of the performers were live on stage at Floata restaurant in Chinatown while the audience watched online. (I zoomed in to read “Ode to the Plate.”) There were terrific music performances throughout (vocal, guitar, violin, and of course bagpipes), plus a great reading by Janie Chang from her novel, Library of Legends. Floata provided special haggis dumplings and other delicacies for take-out.
