These poems each have a set of guided questions, related videos that allow for deeper investigation, and suggested writing activities. We'll be adding more poems here soon! The Powwow at the End of the World Sherman Alexie slams the environmental destruction of settler-colonialism as we travel on an upstream course towards the powwow at the end of the world. The Tyger In the woods at night, the speaker talks to a magical animal… Guanahani, 11 This bracing ballad (re)considers the beauty and history of the Caribbean island where Christopher Columbus first landed. sturgeon Intense with empathy, the poem places poet and struggling fish in direct physical relation. Sonoma A dreamlike sense of the uncanny hangs over this poem of an encounter on a coastal highway. An Innocent Little Girl • Favzieh Rahgozar Barlas captures a snapshot of child marriage, its cultural and economic context, and its physical and emotional aftermath. Passing into Storm Through an objective lens, this poem, which could be a trailer for a horror movie, describes a white man deliberately walking into a snow storm. To what end? World Town Layers of memory paint a moving, vibrant portrait of one man’s time spent in a seaside town with his father. Money A museum coin collection prompts a reflection on the captivating nature of currency. 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. From Red Doc In this poem-as-a-conversation, a man and his mother consider how the past lives on in the present. 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. From One and Half of You Trying on traditional clothing and finding how it fits. Or not. Blank Sonnet Set in Halifax of the 1930s, this sensual, inebriated love poem plays with the sonnet form. The Problem With Being a Box Too Small for Its Contents Misch expounds the unbearable work needed after a breakup: to separate from your lost love and “rejoin yourselves…even when you don’t want to.” Dear Updike Evelyn Lau powerfully describes the world around her in order to grieve the loss of a beloved writer. Beat! Beat! Drums! With rich bombastic language and Whitman's trademark sprawling lines, this poem rallies troops for war. The Trick The body and the mind are intimately linked and cannot be divorced from each other. These Poems, She Said Can an argument be the foundation of a love poem? Robert Bringhurst certainly thinks so! Un Docteur Anglophone Traduit Les Inquiétudes De Son Patient Avec Google/An English Speaking Doctor Translates the Concerns of his Patient with Google This bilingual poem expresses the limitations of understanding across languages when experiences become lost in translation. Plenty Who would have thought a trip to the grocery store could be so full of beauty? A Stone Diary A love poem to a stone takes on deeper, rockier meanings. Other In Other, Livesay breaks free of patriarchy’s hold and ventures into landscapes of mountain, cedar forests, night skies, and the fierce interior of her spirit. Death of a Young Son by Drowning Blurring time but clarifying feeling, this poem gives voice to a mother who loses a son and gains a country. Tide Both stark and tender, this poem is about Reena Virk, a BC teen of South Asian descent who was assaulted and murdered by her peers in 1997. I've Tasted My Blood In this thunderous poem, the speaker proclaims his rage, anguish, and hope in the face of war and oppression. I Have Something to Tell You In this surreal poem, a man made of cameras brings his unexpected concerns into sharper focus. Insomnia A dark, playful twist on what someone would do if they could only sleep… The Bow What flows through a name, and a name, and a name? i am graffiti This poem vibrates with anger and defiance in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 1992 Sometimes a scent or a site or a taste can sweep you up into the past. This finely honed narrative poem knows what that’s like. 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. Not the Music In Not in the Music, Crozier explores the inviolable: the sacred parts of ourselves that we cherish as personal sanctuaries. For My Best Friend One way to grieve is to give tribute, perhaps even before the person you are grieving is completely gone. From Correspondences Anne Michaels challenges us to find new maps to think about old experiences. Too Negative Have your friends’ parents ever warned them away from you because they thought you were a bad influence? “Too Negative” is a poem about that experience. 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. Editing the Prairie If the prairie was a written story, imagine the rejection letter it might get! Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen brilliantly uses rhyme and meter in this brutal poem about a poison gas attack during WWI. Language English