Welcome to the fourth edition of Fresh Voices, a project from and for the League’s associate members. 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 new series!

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Each Home
by Carol Casey

Each home has its patchworks of light

and hints of warmth in the dark night-scape,

containers of pain and tarnished expectations,

imperfections, disappointments, unpardonable acts

and words that can never be taken back,

that moulder in the attics and basements,

haunt closets with tears,

sadness of the known that is not really

and every stranger that familiarity breeds,

that breathes and eats and sleeps, that is

whole and broken together within these walls

waiting for faces to form around the

ubiquitous entrapment of love so deep

it is often mistaken for everything else

under the sun.

Carol Casey been writing poetry since age 13 and never completely stopped, even though work, family responsibilities and general life calamities often and persistently took precedence over poetry promotion.  Writing poetry has been a mainstay throughout her life, empowering and grounding her through many ups and downs.  In 2005 she joined the Huron Poetry Collective, and remains an active participant.  She also attends the Stratford Poet’s Workshop when possible.  She has given numerous readings and her poetry has appeared in two chapbooks by the Huron Poetry  Collective, “No Corners to Hide in” and “The Language of Dew and Sunsets; and in periodicals such as “The Leaf”, “Toward the Light” and “Tickled by Thunder”.  She has also contributed to two anthologies about women and health care, “Women Who Care: Women’s Stories of Health Care and Caring” and “Much Madness, Divinest Sense: Women’s Stories of Mental Health and Health Care”. She is looking forward to entering more fully into the Canadian poetic conversation.   

Deafness #1
by Mary Anne Lonergan

tribute to deaf and hearing impaired

What do we hear,

but a silent sound

of no voices,

no laughter or cries

but steady silences

What do we hear,

but feel the drumming rhythm

of our own heartbeats

floating, like waves

in and out of our minds

They say

silence is golden

but a long day and night,

of not hearing anything

Truth is,

silence is deafening

Deafness,

the enemy of all time

Not hearing a Masterpiece,

bird song, ocean waves

or the joyful sounds of singing

that we all take for granted

Deafness,

torment of a soul,

constantly fighting

This silent scream,

that wells up from the depth of our lungs

demanding to be heard and to hear

what the rest of the world is hearing!

All history is translated
by David Yerex Williamson

i

You remain one place long enough

your past may leave you for another

more suited to memoir –

.             a song to follow

Drawn from earth surrendered

old mornings creep up trunks of ashes

shiver young hours out branches

.                 perch –

waiting to fasten to new stories

It was harvest when you first left home

the tick talks and tells you nothing.

Folded ghost

follow that old settler road

off the Yellowhead

to an almost town

where once your history lived –

behind fractured windows

toothless your grandfather’s house

cries for her scatterlings

.             a season out of step

grass roots cling

shifting seeds drift

scrub trees take back ground lost

Wildflowers thinly dusted

fall fallow under hushed breezes

chunks of lives straying through ribbons of indigo

mingled in old letter words

.             shared in time

each voice holding

in place – making There here

Time is a strange spider

eats the memory out of history

Today no earth remembers you

or itself

Excerpt from the long poem All history is translation

David Yerex Williamson is an educator, poet and public speaker living in Norway House, Manitoba, on the bank of the historic Nelson River. David has dabbled in theatre and poetry since the 1980s. His creative work has appeared in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, Contemporary Verse 2, Aesthetica, Quint and, most recently, in the Winnipeg Free Press’ National Poetry Month feature in April, 2016. David is co-founder of the Boreal Writers Group, a collective of poets and lovers of poetry seeking to create a community across the boreal landscape. David can be reached at [email protected].

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Curated by Lesley Strutt and Susan McMaster, these poems represent just a small portion of the great work being produced by our members, and we are excited to have this opportunity to share their poetry with you. If you are interested in contributing to Fresh Voices, please send 3-5 poems to [email protected]. You may submit only once per month, but you may submit every month until your poetry is selected. This opportunity is open only to associate members of the League–if you are interested in joining the League, please visit our membership page!