“Nostalgia” by Brayden Ma
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Nostalgia” by Brayden Ma, second place winner of the 2026 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, junior category.
Nostalgia
By Brayden Ma
In the city where
East marries West;
Old embraces New
A man sells clichรฉd t shirts and handbags made of โleatherโ, hustling tourists and locals alike;
Another gnaws on a toothpick and selects a pearly green mahjong tile;
A third strikes a cleaver into great racks of meat in a market stall illuminated red.
A woman grips countless plastic bags, the weight of groceries stretching them thin;
A second pushes leaflets into the hands of passersby, advertising products that may or may not work;
Another trades crazy stories with girlfriends over steaming baskets of dim sum and porcelain cups of puโerh tea;
Above them all, bamboo scaffolding watch over the overaggressive taxi drivers and overworked laborers and
overwhelmed students.
A man, his crisp navy suit buttoned once, surveils his phone, watching a graph rise and fall, fall and rise;
Another waits impatiently for a train, his immaculately polished loafer drumming the platform;
A third pushes pompously past the rest, marching up a dawdling escalator.
A woman tuts dismissively as a bookbag scrapes her shoulder on the train one too many times;
A second clutches the hand of a curious child as the two walk through a park;
Another hollers into her speakerphone call, unbothered by the irritated glances stolen toward her;
Beneath them all, a canned voice announces Hong Kong Station and asks everyone to please stand back from the
doors.
Copyright ยฉ Brayden Ma
Second place winner of the 2026 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, junior category.
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