Fresh Voices 24
Welcome to the twenty-fourth edition of Fresh Voices, a project from and for the League’s associate members, edited by Joan Conway (Check out her personal blog!) and Blaine Marchand. The League’s associate members are talented poets who are writing and publishing poetry on their way to becoming established professional poets in the Canadian literary community. We are excited to be taking this opportunity to showcase the work of our associate members in this series!
Fresh Voices 24 features poetry by: Jonathan Bessette, Dagne Forrest, Carol Good, Samantha Jones, Norma Kerby, Josephine LoRe, Anthony Purdy and Vironika Wilde.
Jonathan Bessette
Born August 2nd, 2018 at 11:40:00 p.m.
at my desk in our apartment, East Vancouver
death, so there is room for other life;I
have thought about you
every night, a distant rhythm,
sometimes closer,
then,
farther away
Hummingbirds flicker in evening light,
across potted plants.Breath collects in rainwater
dams of grey clouds,
an ocean ties itself to my earlobes,
You whisper, even death has to be born
Every heartbeat pounds
nails into the coffin of
yesterday’s me
Somewhere I persist
In the bath, we stretch
every corner of ourselves
to fill empty walls,
but nighttime speaks shadows
when I scream for light,
saturating like suds
in grout between grey tiles
You blink, we overflow,
forget a promise
on the bathroom floor.
I wash your feet
because you are too weak to breathe,
Creeping through windows,
wisteria stretches for our future tombstones,
weaves around wet fingers,
reaching for a glimmer on frosted glass.
Staying, in water pooling,
we would drown,
I break free
to outside,
but doubt finds us,
wind tickling follicles
lazing against chain-link balcony
Overlooking city lights,
hours, days, months,
we shared decomposition,
mulch took shape
Halfway through the threshold
you pointed with a last breath, look!
Paradoxes fell from sky,
Jonathan Bessette grew up in Vancouver—the unceded and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh peoples, and recently completed an MFA in creative writing at the University of Guelph. Jonathan is a white settler of French, Irish, Croatian, and Red River Métis background. Understanding the intersecting voices of these histories, as well as the landscape, politics, and magic of the Pacific Northwest, are regular themes and inspirations in his writing. He’s published fiction in TAR Magazine, nonfiction in Adbusters, and poetry in The Capilano Review.
Battery Acid, by Dagne Forrest
At dinner, my youngest begins to tell me what
to do if someone has ingested battery acid.
I set down my fork. Wait. Battery acid?
It’s as distracting to me as anything
I’ve ever heard. So distracting, I almost miss
his enthusiasm for all he learned about
the PH scale in science class today.
I find myself sharing how to neutralize
an overdose with activated charcoal —
facts from his favourite aunt (who could tell him
exactly how that works and feels) — in detail he
finds fascinating and surreal. It’s not a mistake,
we’ve always been open about the rogue
states of mind that steal her from our lives at times.
I just didn’t think it would be like sharing
an anecdote, now that I feel he’s
old enough to know precisely how
the voices in her head tried to take her life
this winter. Somehow he’s ready. I see he knows.
How she fought back by overdosing in front of
her doctor. How they almost failed to save her
Dagne Forrest’s poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in journals in Canada, the US, Australia, and the UK. In 2021 she was one of 15 poets featured in Canada’s Poem in Your Pocket campaign. Learn more at dagneforrest.com.
Thrum if you don’t know the words, by Carol Good
Your hum catches my ear
as I kneel among weeds
I freeze
My hearing not as sharp
as it once was
I wait to be sure
Twist and turn
to track and trace
your tell-tale thrum
There
Dipping and sipping
along bee balm
I pause in awe
Your improbable existence
a miracle
mine too
yet here we are
You move on
I stay on my knees
speechless
Carol discovered her voice and the power of poetry in a writing group working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way in the mid-nineties. She continued to write around the edges of her life—filled with family, “billable work”, too many cats, a house in constant need of repair, continuing education and community volunteering—until her decision to retire which was expedited by the pandemic. Now she makes her writing a priority.
Twister, by Samantha Jones
I expected suspenseful music
when the skies turned green—
that drumbeat, bassline, wind chime
heart pound that could bury me
under a silo, blown apart
metal sheets, and the romance of getting
into the centre where wind whips, wails
stops to catch a breath
before dragging me through the other side.
Samantha Jones (she/her) is a literary magazine enthusiast and contributor with poetry in CV2, Grain, MixedMag, New Forum, Room, WATCH YOUR HEAD, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Calgary, Canada on Treaty 7 territory and is Black Canadian and white settler. Find her on Twitter: @jones_yyc.
at outer edge of cliff, by Norma Kerby
at outer edge of cliff
rock falls away with
dizzying
abruptness
jagged lip fractured
triggered
to break
in roar of
calamity
dog is not concerned
he hangs by his toenails
looking down
here boy here boy
we whisper
hoping he will turn
gently
and come away
void
holds him mesmerized
nose raised to
smells rising from
valley below
here boy
we whisper
stomachs sick with fear
cliff face
riddled by cracks
bat habitat or maybe
cougar den along that ledge
too steep for trees
ferns tucked into pockets
jumble of shattered boulders
below
unforgiving
drop fifty meters or more
here boy we plead
here boy here boy
Norma Kerby has been published in journals, e-zines, magazines, and anthologies, most recently, the anthologies, Heartwood (League of Canadian Poets), Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem (Mansfield Press), Seed Dreams (Writers North of 54), and Tending the Fire (League of Canadian Poets), as well as her chapbook, Shores of Haida Gwaii (Big Pond Rumours Press). Nominated for a Pushcart Prize (Prairie Journal), she writes about environmental, ecological and social issues, in particular those affecting rural and northern Canada.
The Tea Set, by Josephine LoRe
I opened the box
It wasn’t for me, it was for the kids
but which kids, grandma?
and would you, could you have known
there would be no room in their lives
for bone china?
Not while they are deep in forest
ten kilometers from dropzone
Helicoptered in because of fire
planting trees from a belt slung low
A shower a luxury
no cup of porcelain tea
Not while they are scaling unnamed peaks
snowboard and avalanche pack on their back
Canoeing an evening glass lake
Life simple, clean
a girlfriend, a black cat
Not while they are gearing down
and riding up a mountain on a fat-tired bike
Covering radiant body with tattoos and glitter
blue lipstick
feathers & rocks & bones & sticks in their hair
So I serve myself a solitary breakfast
on this gold-rimmed porcelain, scalloped
edge, opalescent turquoise leaves
like peacock feathers dropped
into this Chinook city
from which the fledglings have fled
for the air & the sea & the peaks of BC
You were born in a generation of manicured nails
and careful coifs
no-one saw your tears
when your husband’s plane went down
Like Jackie Kennedy widowed the week before you
you bore your grief in silence
Photos show only a world of black and white
And I in this foothill land I call home
although the last generation is in Ontario
and the next on the coast
swirl to the rim of the cup every day
and fall asleep alone
Josephine LoRe has two collections which integrate her poetry and photography, Unity and the Calgary Herald Bestseller The Cowichan Series. Her words have been read on stage and in Zoom rooms across the world, paired to music, danced, rendered into visual art and interpreted through American Sign Language. Her poetry appears in literary journals and anthologies in eleven countries including Canada’s FreeFall Magazine, Fixed and Free in the US, and Ireland’s The Same Page Anthology. She has been on the editorial staff of Parkland Poets and PoetryXHunger and has taught workshops through the Alexandra Writers’ Center Society, When Words Collide and the Wine Country Writers’ Festival. Poetry has been Josephine’s covid antidote.
The Woman at the Window, by Anthony Purdy
She watches from the window
as we run round from the back of the house
where we are supposed to be playing
down the front path to the gate
which clicks as we escape into the street
under cover of the neighbour’s hedge.
We think we are protected, invisible,
and yet we know she is watching
as we run hand in hand
down the path and through the gate
into the wide world
where we know we shouldn’t venture.
We are five and oh, the glory of it!
Obedient children, we are nonetheless
making a break for it
down the path, through the gate
into a world charged with menace
and the thrill of defiance.
She watches from the window
of their bedroom. She fills the frame.
If this is a memory, why do I also see,
from the air like some passing bird,
two small children running hand in hand?
Or am I the one watching from the window?
Does my memory encompass
her vision as well as mine?
Or is it just a dream of watching
and being watched, of we saw she saw,
the distribution of roles immaterial?
Is this how we rehearse
our life as grown-ups, with a mad dash for freedom licensed by a gaze?
Anthony Purdy lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, where he started writing poems and stories two years ago, around the time he turned 70. Recent publications include poems in The Goose, The Fiddlehead, Queen’s Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and The Dalhousie Review, as well as three stories in Queen’s Quarterly. His poem “mornings” received an honorable mention in the League’s 2021 Very Short Verse contest and appeared in the May 21 edition of Poetry Pause; “bakery” was shortlisted for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Spring 2021 Postcard Poem contest; “The Annex” was longlisted for the 2021 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize (longlist of 14 from a field of 1,428 entries from 36 countries).
That Same Shade of Blue, by Vironika Wilde
At the corner of Queen and Dufferin,
a village of tents, a small flag
the words “Don’t charge us with fines”
painted in blue.
A man with a Raptors hat, blue shoulder bag,
focused expression, ready to smile
collects bottles in a FreshCo shopping cart,
glass on the bottom, cans in bags, ready to wave.
A Parkdale corner covered in blue tarps
cleaned by friendly hands.
This is no city project.
A few doors down,
a sign, a notice of development
the words “Social housing not condo”
painted in navy over government blue—
bleeding, crooked letters scream back;
a war on matte rectangles, on ink just so.
Buy that shade anywhere but
you can’t sell a revolution.
Who keeps us safe, Toronto?
A new blue has spilled over 2020.
It has no belt, no badge.
All we have is paint.
—Queen Street West, north side, winter
Vironika Wilde is a poet, activist, spoken word artist, immigrant, tree hugger, and cat fanatic. Those who have read her poetry books, Love and Gaslight and the blood in her honey, call her raw, honest, and willing to spill tough truths about trauma, society, and the human condition. As a nomadic stage poet, she’s performed many cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Honolulu, Portland, Sydney, and Melbourne. Her debut spoken word album, Too Much For You, released in 2020 on all streaming platforms. When Vironika isn’t writing, she loves getting lost, looking at the stars, dancing, and eating pickles (sometimes, all at once). You’re welcome to visit her website and follow her on Instagram.