“urban facts 2.0” by Ellen Chang-Richardson

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “urban facts 2.0” by Ellen Chang-Richardson, from Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.


urban facts 2.0

By Ellen Chang-Richardson

Paired issues forever haunt us: 2024: what will the future bring? 2023: a hundred-year legacy, widely discussed. 2021: a 47 percent increase of racism reported over previous year. 2020: a man stalks an Asian; screams, donโ€™t give me your fucking disease. 2011: a twenty-one-year-old called chink, called dumpling princess, called...
1999: a nine-year-old ridiculed, a smelly ass lunch ... 1996: a six-year-old told dream, told you can be anything, told ... 1945: an exclusionary legislation repealed. 1923: an exclusionary legislation enacted. 1902: a Royal Commission declares us dangerous and unhealthy to the state.
1885: a labour complete, a transcontinental road. 1880: a labour, a dream, a transcontinental transit. 1858: a sifting, a prospecting, a promise of gold. 1788: a new life, a hope, a trade in sea otter pelts. As they relay the decency, polite hypocrisy of Canada. After the text of the poem is finished, a greyscale image of a multigenerational Asian family is superimposed on itself so as to appear blurred and ghostly.

Copyright ยฉ Ellen Chang-Richardson

From Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet, multi-genre writer, judicial assistant, and editor of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. The author of Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), and author/co-author of six poetry chapbooks, their writing has appeared in Augur, the Ex-Puritan, the Fiddlehead, Grain, Plenitude, Watch Your Head, and more. They are the co-founder of Riverbedโ€”an experimental reading series based out of the National Capital Region, a member of Room magazineโ€™s editorial collective, and a member of the poetry collective VII. A third culture kid at heart, Ellenโ€™s writing is informed by their love of contemporary art, their concern with humanityโ€™s impact on the Earth, and their experience moving through various societies as a femme-presenting genderqueer.


Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!