Ripping down half the trees / Evan J.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

J, Evan, author.

Series:

Hugh MacLennan poetry series

The Hugh MacLennan poetry series

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indigenous peoples--Canada--Social conditions--Poetry.

Indigenous peoples.

Social problems--Canada--Poetry.

Social problems.

Social conditions.

Sioux Lookout (Ont.)--Poetry.

Sioux Lookout (Ont.).

Indigenous peoples--Social conditions.

Ontario--Sioux Lookout.

Canada.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

ix, 94 pages ; 20 cm.

Other Title:

Ripping down 1/2 the trees

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"Some poems can live without souls / but mine remain ghastly fools flicking / uncomfortable narratives like / cigarette butts during class change. One out of every twenty students in the adult education classes Evan J teaches in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, dies every year; the surviving students are often afflicted by severe racism, poverty, addictions, and violence. Ripping down half the trees engages with these struggles, offering a catalogue of experiences specific to the remote regions of Canada. Tearing down the façade of Canadian justice and equality to expose the racism, colonialism, sexism, prejudicial capitalism, and ableism at the nation's core, these are poems about cruelty, both the obvious and the ambient. They are unflinching in their sociopolitical criticism, upset by unchanging systemic oppressions, unable to overlook the threat of the author's white skin, unwilling to forget Justin Trudeau in blackface. And while they acknowledge the limits of the author's privileged perspective, they are never willing to let the perpetrating structures of this cruelty go unchecked. But these poems also let stand the shelterwood, the upstanding actions of individuals, the totems of hope. They work as coping strategies, as therapy, as empathy, offering a glimpse of optimism and a space for discourse. These are poems that listen."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: THE METRO

Bloor-Yonge

The Ron From Bottom Up

If Homelessness Is A Sandwich, Our Culture Of Silence Is The Bread

All The Friends At The Party

The Huldufolk Meet Coyote

The Violent Orange Hours

This Falls Deeper Than Rocks

Just Over The Mountain From Yaqui, Arizona

Invaders: Mystery Space Riders

Of Course You Do Find Spicy Bits

Colonialism For Dummies

NORTHWESTERN

Facing Fort William's Orphanage

Deciduous With Answers

Spore Prints

Probable Cause Misjudgment Of Altitude

How To Pluck Pheasant

How To Clean Walleye

How To Pick Blueberries

Today The Twelve Gauge

The Fox

In The Least Desired Corner

How To Make A Skull From The Head Of A Bear Delivered Tuesday In A Grocery Bag To The Afternoon Office Meeting

All It Takes Is An Artist And A Knife

The Boreal

Note To The People Using Old Needles Stolen From A Public Bathroom

Valhalla

This Isn't About Me Or A Title

SIOUX LOOKOUT

A Synonym For Raft Is Foundation

Beyond Ear But Open

Lunch Meeting Like Spruce Grouse

How To Stay Alive On The Streets Of Sioux Lookout

A Kingfisher Named Bear

Chiffon Unfinished

How To Respond To Hostility

Another Death At The Learning Centre

Dermis To Gold

Even If The Child's Lost, Mothers Never Lose The Title

It's No Real Pleasure In Life

Bear Paw And Beast

How To Write A Poem About Dead Children

Barbless

How To Fly Home

None Have Bled On These Streets More Than Jim

Indivisible By All The Rips

My Prose Poem From Inside The Precinct

This Cannot Be Homage In Verse

Re Ember

Red Lake 23

The Appropriate Views Of Morning

Dysmorphia

In A Small Northern Town

Lines On Larae Leaving

To The Boy Pounding On Our Back Door At Midnight

To The Man Stabbed Last Week Behind My Back Fence

Sometimes The Storm Wins

Pottery, An Impossibility.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Online version: J, Evan. Ripping down half the trees.

ISBN:

0228005469

9780228005469

OCLC:

1201656449