Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “I try to constellate, but Arctic words fall apart” by Alyssa Martens, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program.

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I try to constellate, but Arctic words fall apart

By Alyssa Martens

Night’s extremities abate
as eccentric green currents

clear a path in the sky
auroras tempt with flashes

of temporary light—summon
remembrance, rebellion

I count new stars
constellations expand

Sky is the poem
I am too small to reach

before ice, Svalbard was
an equatorial forest

yesterday, I found a fossilized
leaf in an ice cave

delicate lines carved
in mudstone

I hear aerial branches
sway, leaves rustle

green skies recall
a forest vanished

remember Earth
all of her epochs

a final aurora dwindles
a falling leaf

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Copyright © Alyssa Martens

Alyssa Martens is a São Paulo-born and London-based artist, writer and learning designer crafting immersive art and education projects with a focus on climate and migration. She has received four Canada Council for the Arts awards, which support her core environmental works: Lungs of the Earth (Lobe Spatial Sound Studio, 2024), In Memory of Colour (her forthcoming debut poetry collection), Terra Poetica (Science Gallery London, 2026), and A Blue Moment (Play Festival, 2026).

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members, curated and edited by Erin Vance.

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