My website is changing… evolving… transforming! from a little, hairy, yellow and black caterpillar into, um, a little yellow and black butterfly. Soon, I hope, it will be unrecognizable. But it will still have my face. Yes, my face with antennae and 36 eyes or whatever. It will still be mine, and I hope you’ll stick around to witness the rebirth, and that you won’t stomp on me with your big human feet.
Poem to Council
To Council, 2024
When my Dad began to lose his vision
he had the foresight to find a future home
in the heart of Halifax, though his own heart
remained with the old house on Lake Charles
and mine has a well worn path that leads
wherever I’m going next, because
others have travelled this way before
and bent the grass with shiny shoes
I catch the bus on the corner,
watch the wrought iron railing
flow past, the one around
the secret garden we all call public
whose wounded trees wrapped in burlap
keep to themselves, uncooperative.
We stop at the crossroads, where
passion and protest meet, bullhorns echoing
across the square of bricks inscribed
with the names of the well meaning;
then on down Spring Garden— past the
familiar panhandlers, the profusion
of the precariat, dotted with white collars,
all taking space on a sidewalk
that’s generous on the north side,
narrowing on the south
Past the big-hearted new library and
the shell of the old that stands, abandoned
on the grassy graves of the poorhouse dead
whose names are inscribed nowhere but air
Past the stone-faced courthouse and the other,
respectably buried dead, their spirits
cornered by church and cathedral—
a remembered few, and forgotten poor,
flowing together to the all-knowing sea.
Through the valley of shadowy Barrington’s
bricks and glass and crumbling turrets,
between the mountains of prosperity and insecurity,
The bus releases me. I watch the tents go up
then disappear, the fences rise around plots
of grass in Parade Square— as though they are
more precious than a human life.
I climb the steps of City Hall
and find my way into your chambers
bringing greetings from the city’s heart
and from my own which beats
a little faster when it knows it’s heard
by people who also love this city—
and when my vision,
clarified by being seen,
shares a home with those
who’s job it is
to make it better.
poem for the eclipse
Path of totality
The moon’s
An ancient blade stone
Skipped slant
On the lake of the sun
Slipping between waves
This radiant disappearance
At the optometrist’s
a temporary blinding
In exchange for
a clear future.
“Is this better, or this?”
But really it’s just shadow
Burning at the edges
The light, an irrepressible rumour
If you heard the whole truth
Blazing from that mouth hole
You’d burst into flames
Path of totality
Flour
Today I bought organic flour
not for the good of the planet
but because I want pancakes —
pancakes and brownies and
peanut butter cookies — and,
there is not a spoonful of flour
to be had, except for the expensive,
kind-to-the-earth variety.
So with the privilege of a credit card
and money in the bank,
I bought organic flour today.
The whole country is baking bread
as though it will help to stave off
the virus. The whole nation’s rising up
making yeast from potatoes
(which I also bought, and not just
to help the farmers,
who are apparently drowning in them),
The whole world’s starting
sour dough starter, bubbling
almost patriotically on our counters.
but really it’s just a “we’re all in this together” meme
on Facebook,— or even a competition
(best looking, crustiest sour dough loaf!) —
except for those
who can’t afford
flour at $5 a kilo
who can’t afford
Internet, who can’t
afford to be all in this together.
If only our kitchen ferment
bubbled out on to the streets.
If only the whole world would rise up
like a loaf of bread and demand justice
for those whose mouths have not
tasted it their whole lives.
two poems for the day
(originally published in Open Heart Forgery, I think, and possibly on Facebook)
Wounding Ground
by Anna Quon
At the wounding ground,
wild poppies grow,
translucent,
above landmines
dug in years ago
like precious tubers.
The ghosts of hands and feet
scatter like salt
over the wounding ground.
No one remembers now
who is to blame for the one-legged child,
the blind dog, the bloody stump.
It was so long ago
that people hated one another.
the past is wispy as a cloud
over the wounding ground.
Warships
by Anna Quon
Warships are the colour of brains,
Without their convoluted beauty
Their decks are gritty as asphalt
Washed grey as cloud-covered sea
Nothing sticks. Not life, not dirt
Not death. Nothing here
Is made for people; even blood
Disappears, even sunlight..
America’s Sickheart
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Emma Lazarus
Your guest have arrived
but you’re less than delighted
these aren’t the ones you thought
you’d invited
You’re fuming i know
as you walk down the hall
still you’re smiling and trying
to swallow it all
It’s fondu tonight
(this great melting pot
a fountain of chocolate
volcanic and hot
Where your tired, your poor
your huddled masses
are fed like cake
to the wealthy classes)
You yearn to breathe free
but your bleached blond smile
is glued to your face like a
bathroom tile
The wretched refuse of their teeming shore
aren’t the ones you expected outside your door
crying for toothpaste, healthcare and justice
from cages you locked, under ICE auspices
America’s Sickheart,
The homeless knock to come in
but the word on the street
is “no room at the inn”
No room on the bench
no room on the curb
Your welcome mat’s flip side
Says “Do not disturb”
The lamp you lift up
gives no light to the lost.
Its to rout out illegals,
those tempest-tost
in storm-torn lands where
the winds are man-made.
Your golden door’s barred
to the poor and afraid.
America’s Sickheart,
you’re ready to banquet.
Your table your guest list
Your guard dog’s all set.
You called 911 on the brown kid who cried
for his mother and father, somewhere outside,
while he curls on the concrete
hungry and cold
for your friends to ignore
or berate if they’re bold
So swallow your courage,
your lies and dissenters—
an aperatifs normal
when your court one percenters.
So welcome, welcome
to your big dinner bash
those whose skin’s clearly white
whose breath smells like cash,
who turn with such grace
(and loosen their ties)
from the rest of humanity
while their own, simply dies.
This moon
This is the moon of worms
and sugar, of crows and crust and sap
the full bloom moon,
trickling, syrupy sweet
and saffron bright
into the street, at night.
This is the moon that
floods the path for snow drops,
their blind heads poking above
dead leaves and twigs
left by winter’s tidal drift.
This is the moon of dry skin
and the bull-headed crocus,
bursting from glassy ground like
clown-coloured sperm
to penetrate the frosted globe
of air, holding its mirror to this
cold-fingered
full-throated,
lusty Lenten
moon.
this girlishly chaste
and pulse-quickening moon,
this ancient, burnished
starlit lamp
this aspirin
this round worm
this bindi
this lamb
confetto!
this moon
Flying Home
Flying home
I am ready to die,
like my Grandma
Two million women
march below us,
holding up half the sky,
their shoes sparking
like New Year’s Eve fire crackers
The light reaches from one window
to the other
across the plane’s brief aisle.
Between the pews,
the glow of no smoking signs
and the seatbelts that contain us
We are an afterthought, we passengers
The planes real cargo is this
lambent space
The mind at the end
can be like this
A scattering of thoughts
in effortless suspension
over countless joyful graves
and pillars of suffering
But mostly
A brilliant emptiness
In flight toward absolute
nothingness.
January 21 and 22, 2017
It’s a brand new year
The shape of things–
A new year at almost 50
what’s
that thing
looming over
us in the polka dot
sky or behind closed
doors, the cigar-shaped
suppository — the relief
when it’s over the mamm-
ogram machine lifted from
the squashed breast like a
papal edict. A new year
silhouetted against the
stars, missile stealthy
as their submarines
before Engima
cracked them
open as easy
a s c a r d –
o m o m
p o d s
Nazis at home
Nazis at home
They’ve been marching
in their skin’s pale uniforms,
gleaming like boot black
in the torchlight.
At home, they plop
in their easy chairs,
foot sore and weary
and untie their bitter laces
soon they’ll hold their cheek
against the dark, not waiting
for kisses, but for the warm breath
that tells them there’s life
because their fear
winds around their
sleeping children
heavy as black lung
and they cannot hear
the heart beat
of their young
above their own
or distinguish them
from the tender camouflage
of shadow in the black -skinned
arms of night.
Hearing Voices
Not being a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, I haven’t received a copy of its member publication, Write, so have not had the chance to read the essays of the Indigenous writers featured in the Spring issue, or the contentious opinions of the former editor of that issue. The question however of how writers approach characters whose identities are not reflective of their own is one I have some thoughts about which I write about here.
I was once of the opinion that anyone should write any character they wanted to and could imagine, including writing from that character’s perspective. Later in life, I came to the opinion that writing from the point of view of any character not reflective of my identity and from a historically oppressed group was a bad idea. There are a number of reasons for this but the one that I stand by most is that people who have been oppressed should be acknowledged as the experts of their experience, and offered the space to exercise and share that expertise.
How does a writer from a historically oppressive group take away from the acknowledgement of the expertise of a writer from an oppressed group if they write from the perspective of a character from the oppressed group?
Some would say they don’t. Some would say that depending on how they write the character they may be contributing to cultural understanding and appreciation of diversity.
I guess my view on this is influenced by my experience of my own identity. I identify as a Mad, mix-raced and now middle-aged woman. In the area of mental health care there are many representations of people who are considered mentally ill. There are case studies, and things I think of as pathological profiles with checklists of symptoms; I admit to cringing every time I hear a so-called expert– a psychiatrist for example– speak about that experience as if they know what it’s like –because, by definition, they stand on the other side of the divide, unless they have experienced madness for themselves.
It is not wrong for psychiatrists to try to cross that divide by imagining and empathizing with my experience. But if i am sitting right there, why would they do that, unless they value hearing their own voice over hearing mine, and over what my actual experience is?
Airspace is valuable and limited, and so is publishing space– column space, and space in fiction publishers’ annual dockets. I don’t think a psychiatrist should be given airtime about my experience over me, and I don’t think a writer from a historically oppressive group writing from the point of view of a character from an oppressed group should be given airtime over a writer who has had first hand experience of belonging to that group.
What I’m really arguing for is my instinct that people need to be supported to tell their own stories if we really want a world that’s different than the one we live in now. Fiction is powerful. That power belongs in the hands of the people who it’s about. “Nothing about us, without us” as the disability rights movement first said.
And thank you Jesse Wente for saying this.
annaquon 