Can you consider something resilient if it’s broken? This question emerges from my tendency to confuse persistence and resilience. There is a relationship, after all. To me, they are both impressive. Both have to do with a certain staying power. Both invoke a kind of underdog, against-all-odds achievement. But there is at least one key…

We asked the poets longlisted for the 2021 Book Awards some questions about their writing lives, inspirations and -of course – poetry. Read on for their thoughts and stay tuned as we reveal more questions and responses from our esteemed 2021 Book Awards Poets up until the winner’s announcement on May 6, 2021. Who do you write…

Resilience is a coin On one side is strength, on the other, vulnerability. We’re not one or the other—we’re both. The more vulnerable we are, the stronger we’re required to be. Flip a coin. If we land on vulnerability, we lose. If we land on strength, we’re praised. I stand on edge, vulnerable and strong,…

There are mornings when I wake up and can’t seem to locate myself. I am in a different bedroom in a different house, on a couch, in the backseat of a car, hurtling through time and space. When I finally grab at the fraying edges of this, I crash into my humble apartment in East…

For those of us who are introverts, the prohibition of large social gatherings will not have affected us as much as it does our more extraverted counterparts. However, those of us who live alone quickly found ourselves trapped in the feedback loop of our own thoughts, stir crazy and cabin fevered, with ample time to…

Dear Fear,where the hell did you come from?See at first I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me you know like those things they tell you when your 3“it’s just your imagination” “stop complaining”“be a big girl”Be like… my mother?with her skin like freshly brewed iced tea, and just as coldwith her…

1. Coconut by Nisha PatelApril 2021, NeWest Press Canadian National Slam Champion, Nisha Patel, debuts her first poetry collection Coconut. Overview: “Coconut rises fiercely like the sun. These poems bestow light and warmth and the ability to witness the world, but they ask for more than basking; they ask readers to grow and warn that…

: out of what twisted music you were pushed : what rattles and ricochets : as necessary as what releases you : a relationship to creativity sustains you : propels you from the place grammar functions to dysfunction your inner voice : you live a double life : you keep a private collection of daydreams…

You are Enough I’m running another virtual Spoken Word workshop (COVID amirite?) and one of the participants, a young, queer, BIPOC musician asks me how they can become more resilient. Six faces in the Zoom meeting squares, staring at me, waiting for a response. I wanted to fire off a slew of motivational Pinterest quotes;…