Creekstone Press Author
The Enpipe Line contributors
The ad hoc theatre company performed “Irresponsible Extraction, We’re Through with You” on the one year anniversary of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This was a Rising Tide Day of Action Against Extraction.
Aileen De La Cruz—see entry for Ta’Kaiya Blaney.
Amanda Earl’s poems appear most recently in Sunfish Journal (UK), Spirits Magazine, University Northwest (USA), with chapbooks published by above/ground press (Ottawa, ON), Avantacular Press (USA), Book Thug (Toronto, ON), chapbookpublisher (USA), & Laurel Reed Books (Mt. Pleasant, ON). Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca & the Bywords Quarterly Journal, & the (fallen) angel of AngelHousePress. Follow Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle or read about her shenanigans & jiggerypockery at http://www.amandaearl.com.
Ann Stone spent her early years living in many places throughout Canada and Europe. A love of poetry has always been a part of her life, along with a strong sense of connection with animals and nature. After moving to the Lower Mainland, Ann began to pursue her latent interest in poetry through local workshops. Her love and respect for nature has begun to make itself heard through her poetry.
The Anonymous Collective performed a mutterance in 2011.
Alex Cuff lives in Brooklyn where she teaches writing to public high school students. She is a co-founder and editor of No, Dear Magazine, a print journal featuring New York City poets. Her poems and collage appear regularly in mailboxes all over the world. “Shooting the Moon” was written in Wendell, MA.
Al Rempel’s books of poetry are understories (Caitlin Press, 2010) and a chapbook, The Picket Fence Diaries (Lipstick Press, 2010). His poems have also appeared in The Malahat Review, Grain, CV2, and Event. He’s been published in various on-line publications and anthologies, including Rocksalt and 4 Poets. Al is currently an alternate teacher in Prince George, BC. He has a second book of poetry forthcoming with Caitlin Press. He can be found online at http://www.understories.blogspot.com. His next poetry manuscript, with the working title This Isn’t the Apocalypse We Hoped For, and certainly part of understories, deals with our consumption and waste, especially in terms of transportation and food, and the anxieties and fears that this produces. We have lost—at least in the grocery store—a solid relationship between our food and the land it comes from, and in the process we are losing our place in the world. “Deconstructing ESSO” first appeared in Event.
Alex Leslie‘s collection of short stories People Who Disappear is forthcoming from Freehand. Her chapbook 20 Objects For The New World is available from Nomados Press. Her fiction, non-fiction poetry and photography have been published in Canada and the US. Web: alexleslie.wordpress.com.
Andrea MacDonald has worked as a community organizer to stop the pipeline.
Andreas Kahre is a Vancouver-based interdisciplinary artist, musician, writer and editor whose work encompasses images, sound, and text in many different configurations. He has collaborated on numerous performance projects, theatre, dance and audio art projects, as well as installations and media art projects that have been presented across Canada and internationally. Andreas was one of the director/curators of the Western Front in Vancouver for more than ten years, and has taught in the Department of Film, Theatre and Creative Writing at UBC, and is currently artistic director of the Gabriola Institute of Contemporary Art.
Ara Thomsen: I lived in Bella Coola from the ages of 6-16. I fell in love with the beauty and wonder of the wilderness. Many of the images in my writing still relate to nature, the great teacher. I did some world travelling after highschool and tried a few different careers before settling on writing. I am almost finished my first novel. I love animals, children and anything creative. I recently moved back to Bella Coola and live here with my husband and 2-year-old son.
Bea Kraljii is a sixth grader at St John’s School in Vancouver. She likes to dance and play rugby. She loves cats.
Ben West has been concerned about our living out of balance with the earth since he was very young. Ben grew up in an environment of social consciousness and is a strong believer in lifelong learning. Ben has explored various avenues to make change for the better ranging from film-making and student activism to political organizing and sitting on the boards of a number of organizations including the Aurora Institute and the Board of Governors at Capilano College. Ben was the coordinator of the BC Park Lovers Tour for the Wilderness Committee in 2005. As the Healthy Communities Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, Ben coordinates campaigns related to land use and transportation planning, protection of agricultural land and watersheds, reducing toxic pollution and climate change policy.
c grillo is a singer and songwriter.
Charlene M Mattson: I am a freelance writer and wannabe author living in Prince George, British Columbia. I have been writing all my life, but this is my first Official published piece in my name. I’m not generally a very environmental person, but the idea of an oil pipe going right by my home with such a reckless reputation disturbed me, so here I am! Thank you for reading my poem.
Chris King is a multi-media artist, producer, musician and poet based in St. Louis, Missouri. He cofounded and is creative director of Poetry Scores, which translates poetry into other media. Yes.
Christine Leclerc is a Vancouver-based author and activist.
Christi Kramer was born in northern Idaho. She holds an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and is currently a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia, considering the poetic imagination and peacebuilding. Her poems have appeared in I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights, Lost Horse Press; Foreign Policy in Focus; Sojourners; PRACTICE: New Writing + Art; Beltway Quarterly; Best New Poets 2007, Blueprint Review, and elsewhere. “Path through crocus and the bloom” —from the manuscript, Reading the Throne, Stories of Iraqi Kurds told in exile—was previously published in The Art of Poetic Inquiry, fifth collection of Backalong Books and the Center for Arts Informed Inquiry Series, 2011. Article title: “What do we call that we carry water from the river?” Editors: Thomas, Cole and Stewart.
Claudia Li comes to ForestEthics after founding Shark Truth, a nonprofit that promotes awareness about shark fin soup in the Chinese community. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University with specializations in Marketing and International Business and an Honours in Sustainability.
Conrad Scott is a recent graduate of the English MA program at the University of Victoria, and of the Spring 2010 Banff Writing Studio, Conrad is currently a PhD student in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. His poems have previously been published in Freefall Magazine, and by Marymark Press.
C O S T I S is an artist who lives in Greece.
Daniel Zomparelli is the editor of Poetry Is Dead magazine. He is the program coordinator for the Megaphone Magazine Community Creative Writing Program that offers free creative writing classes for low-income and homeless people. He writes for several magazines in Vancouver. His first book of poems, Davie Street Translations, is forthcoming in the spring of 2012 from Talonbooks.
Daniela Elza is interested in the ecological potential of the poetic consciousness; in the gaps, rubs and (b)ridges between poetry, language, and philosophy. She just completed her doctorate in Philosophy of Education and launched The Book of It (in print and eBook). Daniela has released more than a 150 poems into the wor(l)d in over 50 publications. Her poetry book The Weight of Dew is published by Mother Tongue Publishing (Spring, 2012). “Found Poem” is excerpted from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.
Dorothee Lang is a writer, web freelancer and traveler, and the editor of BluePrintReview. She lives in Germany, keeps a sky diary, and always was fascinated by languages, roads and the world, themes that reflect in her own work. For more about her, visit her at blueprint21.de. The poem “They Thought” is a poetic protocol of the German megaproject Stuttgart21 and the unexpected public protest it sparked.
Elaine Woo is a Vancouver poet, cartoon-artist/writer, lyricist, and non-fiction writer. “I have a teenage son who knows that the world is far more polluted than is generally acknowledged in mainstream media. Nature touches all of us no matter how seemingly remote we are from it. Really we’re not so detached at all. We look up and the sky is above us with birds and flying insects crossing through. In Vancouver we’re lucky enough to be surrounded by water, with all the life within sustaining us. This life is an integral part of our eco-system. I wanted to recognize the non-human creatures of our fragile world in my work and near my home. In writing these two pieces the question arises, ‘How can we best help preserve the delicate balance of our natural world for future generations?’” Note: The Shell Oil refinery is directly across from the Maplewood Mud Flats.
Elee Kraljii Gardiner directs Thursdays Writing Collective (http://www.thursdayswritingcollective.ca) in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. She is the editor of five chapbooks and the coeditor, with John Asfour, of V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, an anthology from Arsenal Pulp Press. A frequent collaborator, she leads workshops on creativity and social writing. Her work appears in Canadian and US publications.
Elena E. Johnson has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards, the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for poetry, and This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. She has a background in field ecology and a longstanding interest in environmental issues. She lives in Vancouver. “Both of my contributions are sourced entirely from found texts that I came across while seeking more information about the proposed route of the pipeline and the ecosystems it would traverse and damage. For ‘Frequently Asked Questions,’ I worked from a map of forest regions of British Columbia, listing forest types in the order in which the pipeline would cut through them, traveling from Bruderheim to Kitimat. ‘Water Crossings’ juxtaposes one of Enbridge’s official answers to an ‘FAQ’ on its Northern Gateway website with a description of a wetland ecosystem in the Sub-Boreal Spruce zone. Bracketed parts are set aside as if removed, so that a poem is carved from the texts. ‘We’re going to wake up every morning…’ is a direct quote from Kyle Clifton, Gitga’at Nation, regarding the effects of the proposed tanker traffic on the Great Bear Rainforest. (Outside Online: Wild British Columbia Gallery.) The Enpipe Line has been a catalyst for me to learn more about the tar sands, the proposed pipeline, and the Great Bear Rainforest, and I’m thankful for that.”
Emily Brandt is a co-founding editor of No, Dear Magazine. Her poems have appeared in New Wave Vomit, The 2AM Project, The Furnace Review, BluePrintReview, and other journals. She teaches English and yoga at a public school in Brooklyn.
Esther K Smith has been a proud member of brevitas for five years. She was a featured reader at Pete’s Candy Store, Brownstone Poets, Phoenix Series, and Living Theatre. Her poems have been published in CLWN WR, Brownstone Poets Anthology, White Rabbit, Live Mag, and Flying Guillotine’s Apocalypse Anthology. At Purgatory Pie Press, she publishes limited edition poetry postcards and artist books. She wrote and co-designed How to Make Books, Magic Books & Paper Toys, and The Paper Bride.
Greg Bem grew up in Maine and went to Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. He lived in Philadelphia, and was a member of the Poetic Arts Performance Project and New Philadelphia Poets. In 2010, he moved to Columbia City, Seattle, where he volunteers at his local Food Bank, and coordinates events with the Spoken Word Lab (SPLAB). He tutors youth, works as a marketer, and co-curates the acclaimed Breadline Performance Series. Visit him: gregbem.com/wordpress/.
Ivan Antoniw is a poet and woodworker or a wood artist and wordworker, depending how you look at it. A Toronto native, he moved to Vancouver in the early Nineties leaving behind an exciting life of accounting and took up with artists and poets as part of his rehabilitation from the excessive use of fossil fuels. Last year he completed The Writers Studio at SFU and continues to work on his poetry and woodworking.
Jaime Lee Kirtz, currently attending SFU’s The Writer’s Studio, has been published online at feedbagmag.com, Pandora’s Collective, and the Poetry Institute of Canada. She graduated with Physics and English Literature degrees at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. Focusing on intersections between language, physics and literature, her work circulates around polis and formation of culture and will be featured in the upcoming anthology emerge.
Jen Currin lives in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches writing and literature at Vancouver Community College and creative writing at Kwantlen University and for Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio. Jen has published three books of poetry: The Sleep of Four Cites; Hagiography; and The Inquisition Years, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry, and won the Audre Lorde Award.
Jessica Wilson is an environmental/social justice activist and writer from Toronto. For the past four years, she has worked in Vancouver as Media and Communications Strategist for Greenpeace Canada, primarily on the Stop the Tar Sands campaign, as well as the Oceans, Arctic, and the Great Bear Rainforest campaigns. Always politically active, she came to Greenpeace after leaving the Ottawa Citizen and Dose.ca In her spare time, Jessica is working on a number of other writing projects, including a children’s book about saving Santa from global warming. Jessica recently began a new role as communications manager for Greenpeace International’s Arctic campaign. Santana who wrote the song “Maria Maria” that the lyrics to “Melina Melina” are based on.
Jonathan Skinner’s poetry collections include With Naked Foot (Little Scratch Pad Press, 2009) and Political Cactus Poems (Palm Press, 2005). He founded and edits the journal ecopoetics (http://www.ecopoetics.org), which features creative-critical intersections between writing and ecology. Skinner also writes ecocriticism on contemporary poetry and poetics: his essay “Thoughts on Things: Poetics of the Third Landscape” appeared recently in the Ecolanguage Reader (Nightboat Books, 2010). Skinner currently is a Fellow with the Cornell Society for Humanities.
Jordan Hall is a playwright and screenwriter based in Vancouver. Her writing for the stage includes The Possible Lives of Dolores Garcia Rodriguez, about the criminalization of abortion in Nicaragua, as well as her full-length environmental play, Kayak, which won Samuel French’s Canadian Playwright’s competition. Her poem, “June, 2007” received an Honorable Mention for the Bliss Carman Poetry Award. http://www.jordanhall.ca
Joseph Lambert misses NASA. He also wants to express that he misses Abraham Lincoln, the mid-‘90s Dallas Cowboys, Chik-Fil-A, and the good old days. We understand biographical information is necessary, so Joseph lives and writes and films in Seattle and is happy about that. He hopes humanity one day understands sentiments such as, “The song remains the same” or “Skinamarinky dinky dink. Skinamarink a doo, I love you.”
Kathryn Mockler is a poet, writer, and filmmaker. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and her BA in Honours English and creative writing from Concordia University. Her first book of poetry, Onion Man, was published by Tightrope Books (2011). Her writing, films, and blogs are available at http://www.kathrynmockler.com.
Kaitlin Almack has a Masters in Sustainability Science from Lund University in Sweden. “I am interested in ecosystem services, and have work on land-use issues in Nepal, Germany and now Cambodia.”
Karen Woodman is a writer and visual artist from Vancouver. Her poetry appears in Queen Street Quarterly, Quills Canadian Poetry, Pottersfield Portfolio and Bent on Writing (Canadian Scholar’s Press).
Kevin Spenst‘s prose can be found in the anthology Can’t Lit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil, the Martian Press Review, Pages of Canada, Only Magazine and Hacksaw Zine. In 2012 a creative non-fiction piece will appear in the anthology Side Effects (Brindle & Glass). His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Rhubarb Magazine, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Poetry is Dead, The Maynard, Ditch Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, One Cool Word, and Four and Twenty. Most recently his manuscript, The Gang’s All Down by the Abecedarium, was shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. One of his poems is slated to appear in the 2011 anthology Vancouver V6A (Arsenal Pulp Press). Over the past year Kevin’s website, http://kevinspenst.com, has focused on interviews with poets such as rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Bren Simmers, and Christine Leclerc on the topic of editing poetry.
Krissy Darch is a writer and researcher. She lives in Vancouver. “her body is the land” was first published in One Ghana One Voice.
Kim Minkus is a poet with two books of poetry, 9 Freight (LINEbooks 2007) and Thresh (Snare Books 2009). Her third book, Tuft, is forthcoming from BookThug. She has had reviews, poetry and fiction published in The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, The Poetic Front, and Jacket. Her most recent creative work focuses on strange little fabula accompanied by drawings. Kim is currently a creative writing instructor at Capilano University and a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University.
leigh grant is sneaky poet who masquerades as an English student at Algoma University and working mother of two children in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario–where better to go incognito? She has been writing for 18 years and so far has avoided mass publication and all the fame that goes along with it. Being an adventure seeker and always living on the edge (of reality) she is happy to be going out on a limb and risking the loss of her anonymity for the sake of our earth and its art. Oh, and her tongue is perpetually planted in her cheek.
Lin Marshall Brummels was born and raised on a farm on the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills. She graduated from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and Syracuse University. She is a mental health counselor and writer. She has published in the journal Paddlefish and placed in the 2010 and 2011 poetry contest of the WilliCon Science Fiction and Fantasy contests. “My poems are a celebration of the rural way of life, the domestic and wild animals inhabiting this part of Nebraska and a recognition of the connection I feel to this empty landscape.”
Maria Lavis works in ecological sustainability out of her hometown of Vancouver where she lives with her partner, David, and three lovely daughters. She used to write poetry when she was young, not just young at heart. Sometimes, it still creeps up on her. In the silent spaces. The way good, and patient, things do.
Marilyn Belak is a Saskatchewan born poet raised in Dawson Creek, BC (Mile 0 Alaska HiWay). Her prairie youth combined with winters in northeastern BC and summers on the west coast off Atravida Reef gifted her with a holistic perspective of nature. She has participated in writing experiences including, Sage Hill poetry, Banff Wired Writing, and The Moberly Lake Retreats. Her work appears in Canadian journals and a variety of other media. “I contributed ‘The fishing poem’ because it honours the beauty and wildness of the Tahltan and speaks about the headwaters of the rivers. It is a reminder of what is at risk and what will be lost through development of our wilderness. This poem is elemental in many ways and especially demonstrates what it is like to have a pristine local source for our own food as opposed to having prepared foods transported to us by fossil fueled links of trains, planes, ships and trucks.” The poem expresses the author’s opinion and not that of the Dawson City Council. “The Fishing Poem” was first published in the Malahat Review 134 Spring 2001; featured by Leaf Press on Monday’s Poem May 08, 2006; included in the Caitlin Press Anthology, Unfurled , 2010. Written years ago on the Tahltan.
Mark Weiler is a BC resident and a recent PhD graduate from Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Education. He is interested in public education and freedom of information legislation. He is inspired by projects like The Enpipe Line that work at the intersection of poetic expression and civic participation. In solidarity with poetic-civic engagement of The Enpipe Line, Mark used the Access to Information Act to order documents from the Office of the Information Commissioner. Writing a “Freedom of Information poem,” Mark used his access rights to poetically called for documents about an education game developed by the Information Commissioner of Canada. The Commissioner’s response can be found on-line at http://www.oic-ci.gc.ca searching for file A-2010-00035.
Mary-Juen Sohn started writing poetry in 2010 when she began a blog (juenology.com) to begin documenting her illustrations and short stories. But instead, she found that poetry began writing itself. She grew up in Winnipeg, where the roads wind with the rivers and where she developed a dependency on perogies. Manitoba’s flat prairie horizons and extreme weather appear in her poetry, which are also mirrored in the duality of her emotions. She now lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Meg Torwl works with writing and performance, in radio, video, new media and arts advocacy. Her work has appeared in Canada, the US, the UK, and NZ. Her writing has been anthologized in Knowing ME, Spin, Eat These Sweet Words, Linescapes, Nuestra Voz, Sinister Wisdom, Magdalena Aotearoa, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, The Writers Caravan, and Emerge 2011. Online with Sins Invalid, Writers Tips and Enpipe, and in her own poetry chapbook (in) valid. integrialmedia.blogspot.com/
Melissa Sawatsky is a writer and editor living in Vancouver, BC. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and facilitates a creative program for teen girls called “Hot Ink.” Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including OCW Magazine, Quills, Sad Mag, Rhubarb, and emerge 2006. Melissa is proud to be among a chorus of voices resisting Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipelines.
Meliz Ergin lives in Istanbul, and teaches Comparative Literature at Koc University. She spent six years in Vancouver as a graduate student, and has enduring connections with the people and the nature of western Canada. Her work has previously appeared in Bone, Interim and LOCUSPOINT.
Mercedes Eng works with the Press Release poetry collective, the Standard Ink & Copy Press collective, and is a student at SFU. She is the author of two chapbooks, February 2010 and knuckle sandwich. Her current creative project considers sex work in the Downtown Eastside, using non-standard English to explicate and to resist the ways in which victimhood is constructed.
Meredith Quartermain’s Vancouver Walking won the BC Book Award for Poetry in 2006, and Nightmarker was a finalist for the 2009 Vancouver Book Award. Matter, which came out in 2008, has been described as “prescient, daring.” Her work has appeared in magazines across Canada including The Walrus, Canadian Literature, the Literary Review of Canada, Matrix, The Capilano Review, West Coast Line, filling Station, Prism International, and other magazines. She taught English Literature and Composition at UBC and Capilano College, and has enjoyed leading workshops at the Naropa Summer Writing Program, the Kootenay School of Writing and the Toronto New School of Writing. In 2002, she and husband Peter Quartermain founded Nomados Literary Publishers, through which they’ve published more than 30 books of innovative writing.
Michael Leong is the author of several books and chapbooks of poetry including e.s.p. (Silenced Press, 2009), The Philosophy of Decomposition/Re-composition as Explanation (Delete Press, 2011), and Cutting Time with a Knife (Black Square Editions/The Brooklyn Rail, forthcoming). His translation of the Chilean poet Estela Lamat, I, the Worst of All, was published by BlazeVOX in 2009. He is a part-time lecturer in the Writers House at Rutgers University and lives in New York City. “‘Low Frequency Abundance’ draws on words from Volume 1 of the regulatory application that the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project submitted to the National Energy Board in May 2010. Since the document is extremely lengthy (almost 300 pages), I wanted to employ a conceptual scalpel to cut through some of this material. Reading through some of the executive summaries, I was struck with the extreme reoccurrence of the following phrase: ‘not significant.’ It occurs almost fifty times in the document. As in: ‘Consequently, residual environmental effects are not significant.’ As can be expected, the phrase frequently occurs with passive constructions to simulate the surety of scientific objectivity: ‘With mitigation, project effects on human health are expected to be not significant.’ Sometimes it occurs boldly in the language of prediction: ‘The environmental effects of the Project on freshwater fish and fish habitat productive capacity will be not significant.’ Thus, I limited myself to using the words only found in sentences that contained this very phrase. In the belief that poetry is a privileged domain that can usher forth and adumbrate a whole range of significances, I thought I could pressure the language of these sentences to say something else, to speak for that which has been deemed ‘not significant.’”
Michael Nardone is Poetry Editor for Hobo Magazine, assistant editor for Jacket2, and a regular contributor to Lemon Hound.
Michelle Khanna is an 11-year-old girl born in Vancouver. Her favourite hobbies are dancing, playing basketball and reading. Michelle also loves to write, particularly short stories, but she also enjoys writing poetry.
Nikki Reimer, poet and artist, is author of the poetry book [sic] (Frontenac, 2010), shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert award, and the chapbooks that stays news (Nomados, 2011), haute action material (Heavy Industries 2011) and fist things first (Wrinkle Press 2009). She is currently managing editor of Event. Work has appeared in The Capilano Review, Branch, Dandelion, Poetry is Dead, West Coast Line, Matrix, Front, Prism, Uppercase and BafterC. She lives online at nikkireimer.com. “My thoughts towards my piece (“ceci n’est pas enpipe line”) are somewhat ambivalent, which reflects my ambivalent thoughts towards the oil industry in general. (I grew up in Calgary, and my father has worked in the oilpatch for over thirty years. As part of the artistic underclass, I am sometimes still financially supported by my dad, who is a great father and a stand-up human being, by the way. So my criticism of pipeline expansion comes from a place where I am very much aware of my own complicity.) The piece is composed from text taken from an oil industry calendar.”
SPLAB founder Paul E Nelson wrote Organic Poetry (VDM Verlag, Germany, 2008) & a serial poem re-enacting the history of Auburn, Washington, A Time Before Slaughter (Apprentice House, 2010). In 26 years of radio he interviewed Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Sam Hamill, Robin Blaser, Nate Mackey, Eileen Myles, Wanda Coleman, George Bowering, Joanne Kyger, Jerome Rothenberg & others, including many Northwest poets. He lives in Seattle and writes at least one American Sentence every day. “The time has come to understand all animals, as the First People of this continent did and do, as brothers and sisters, though with some species, it’s hard to tell the brothers apart from the sisters. As the 233 heat records (and counting) in the summer of 2011 should suggest to anyone with a conscience, global climate change is here and the benefits from the bitumen do not outweigh the myriad complications and catastrophes that result in tar sands “development.” This is not development, this is rape pure and simple for a wealthy few. For those without a conscience, it is First People, Poets, Environmentalists and others who will give you the opportunity to develop one and halt this madness. The poetic form of “Enbridge/Endgame” is haibun, in the Japanese tradition and quotes the names of many affected tribes. May Gaia have mercy on us all, even the ones who perpetrate madness like this proposed pipeline. PeN – 8.2.11”
Peter McDonald, was a mathematical savant until he tragically perished in a poetry accident. Peter’s first collection of poetry was composed entirely of numbers.
Penny Sidor is a singer, songwriter and voice teacher from Gabriola Island, BC, Canada. She released “Global Economies” on her first CD, Days of August, in 2007. In 2011, she released a collection of new songs on Not One Mile. For a full bio and song samples please check out the website at http://www.pennysidor.ca. “Global Economies” was written at the time of the economic collapse in 2008. It was abundantly clear at the time that global economic structures are inherently self-consuming. All the taxpayer-funded bailouts of the wealthy are not going to change this.
Philip Metres is a poet and scholar, whose recent work includes Abu Ghraib Arias (2011), To See the Earth (2008), and Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront (2008). He is a professor of English at John Carroll University, in Cleveland, Ohio. Embedded in a series of poems about oil and its impacts on our collective past and futures, “Ode to Oil” was written in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2010, and the subsequent parade of images of oil-slicked birds.
R3 is an ad hoc workshop group comprised of Ray Hsu, Rebecca Schaeffer, and Rosemary Anderson.
Ray Hsu is a rockstar who happens to write books. Ray is the author of Anthropy (winner of the Gerald Lampert Award; finalist for the Trillium Book Award in Poetry) and Cold Sleep Permanent Afternoon (winner of an Alcuin Award). He has published over 150 works in over 75 magazines and anthologies internationally. Ray taught writing for over two years in a US prison and now teaches in the University of British Columbia Creative Writing Program. He collaborates across disciplines, districts, and dinner tables. Catch him at thewayofray.com.
Rebecca Schaeffer is currently completing an undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia in Creative Writing. When her time is not consumed by classes, she enjoys obsessively collecting books that she never has enough time to read, and deciding better ways that they could have ended.
Reg Johanson teaches writing and literature at Capilano University in North Vancouver, on occupied Coast Salish territory. “Mortify” was published in Capitalism Nature Socialism Volume 21 Number 4.
Renée Sarojini Saklikar writes thecanadaproject—about life from India to Canada’s West Coast, and places in between. Her poetry and essays appear in literary and online journals. Poems from thecanadaproject have been short-listed for national awards. Renée is a member of the Federation of BC Writers and Event magazine’s advisory board. “Not A Political Poem” seeks to link not just the personal with the political, but also, geography with atrocity.
Rex Weyler is a writer and ecologist. In the 1970s, he was a cofounder of Greenpeace International and editor of the Greenpeace Chronicles. He served on campaigns to preserve rivers and forests, and to stop whaling, sealing, and toxic dumping. He is currently working with Tanker Free BC to stop tar sands pipelines and tankers in Canada and the US. He posts the “Deep Green” column at the Greenpeace International website and his own “Ecolog” blog appears at rexweyler.com. He writes and consults on film and television projects, speaks on issues of ecology, and is currently writing a book about ecology and economics. His books include Blood of the Land, a history of Indigenous nations of the western hemisphere, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Greenpeace: The Inside Story, a finalist for the BC Book Award and the Shaughnessy-Cohen Award for Political Writing; The Jesus Sayings, a deconstruction of first century history, a finalist for the BC Book Award; and The Story of Harmony, the history of musical knowledge and technology. He is a co-author of Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life, and contributor to other books and journals.
rita wong is the author of three books of poetry: sybil unrest (co-written with Larissa Lai, Line Books, 2008), forage (Nightwood 2007, winner of Canada Reads Poetry 2011), and monkeypuzzle (Press Gang 1998). Wong received the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop Emerging Writer Award in 1997, and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2008. Building from her doctoral dissertation which examined labour in Asian North American literature, her work investigates the relationships between contemporary poetics, social justice, ecology, and decolonization.
Rob Budde teaches creative writing at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George. He has published seven books (poetry, novels, interviews, and short fiction), his most recent books being Finding Ft. George (Caitlin Press) and declining america (BookThug). His most recent interest is experimental “ecopoetry” and he is working on a study of Devil’s Club / Hoolhghulh tentatively titled Panax. Find him at writingwaynorth.blogspot.com.
A newcomer to Calgary, Robert Swereda is a member of the filling Station Collective. He studied creative writing at Capilano University in Vancouver, where he was an editor and contributor of The Liar. He has authored three chapbooks. Other work has been published by The Puritan, ditch, West Coast Line, Issuu, The Incongruous Quarterly, Northshore News Blogspot, The Capilano Review, Enpipe Line and Poetry Is Dead.
Links to Rose Hunter’s writing can be found at “Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home” (roseh400.wordpress.com). Her book of poetry, to the river, was published in 2010 by Artistically Declined Press. Poems of hers have been published in such places as PANK, kill author, The Nervous Breakdown, anderbo, Juked, The Toronto Quarterly, and others. She is from Australia originally, lived in Canada for ten years, and now lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Rosemary Anderson received her BA from the University of British Columbia and her MRE from Seattle University a very long time ago. After teaching this-and-that here and there for several years, Rosemary has spent the past twenty years or so selling real estate in Vancouver. Currently an MFA creative writing candidate at the University of British Columbia, she hopes one day to find herself.
ryan fitzpatrick lives and writes from his home in Vancouver. He is the author of Fake Math (Snare Books, 2007). Recently moved from Calgary, he is a former editor for filling Station magazine and is one of the organizers of the Choose Yer Own Festival.
Said Farah contributed two works to The Enpipe Line.
Sâkihitowin Awâsis is an unstoppable force in the universal emancipatory movement. Still, this two-spirited, radiant, radical rapper reverberates more internal to you than your vertebrate, conveying the continuity of the life of all being. Resisting the constructed divisions between nature, each other, and ourselves, now we must fuse unity from our common current of actions and ideas if we are to restore our lost relations. Ignite insight and revel in revolt. In solidarity, all comrades. “Bike Rally Rap” was written for the International Day Against Extraction. On April 20, 2010 it was performed when Climate Justice London and allies barricaded a Shell gas station, a symbol of the destruction inherent to the capitalist disaster.
Sheila Peters has lived in Driftwood Canyon just outside of Smithers for over thirty years. She is a writer and publisher and activist; her books, stories, poems and non-fiction explore people finding hope in unexpected places and places finding unexpected hope in people. Her most recent book is The Taste of Ashes, a novel (Caitlin.) “There’s the big picture and then there’s one small stone in a creek of little apparent consequence. There’s the whole world and there’s one small home in a canyon of little apparent consequence. But you never know what might matter when things fall apart. What little dance step might keep us from sinking.” See http://www.saythenames.blogspot.com.
Sonnet L’Abbé is a writer living in Vancouver. Her two books of poems are A Strange Relief and Killarnoe.
Stephen Collis is the author of four books of poetry, the most recent of which, On the Material (Talon Books 2010), was the recipient of the 2011 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Forthcoming books include several parts of the on-going poetic documentary of revolution, “The Barricades Project,” and a philosophical exploration of the concept of “change.” He teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University, where he is a 2011/12 Shadbolt Fellow.
Susan Steudel is a poet living in Vancouver, BC. “An Improvisation” was written during proceedings in Ahousaht v. Attorney General of Canada. The poem came from listening to testimony and thinking about the case which centred on Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations fisheries. The plaintiffs are situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island and rely on fish and shellfish for their economic, cultural and spiritual livelihood. Among the claims was title to a portion of undersea beds. Although Marshall Sahlins’ ideas on affluence pertain to subsistence economies, the question of how to measure affluence feels apt when applied to global systems of exchange. For instance, how much oil do we need? As Mina Loy frames it, “What can you know of expansion…?” Oil spills. Expansion of a proposed pipeline through more than 50 First Nations communities will result in damage to animal and plant species, soils and water. Corporate discourse, based in law, operates on a few catch words that we could keep trying to interrogate. “An Improvisation” isolates expressions found in law and re-allocates to them naïve meanings. The new definitions of “An Improvisation” are meant to dislodge some of the immobility and ownership of these words in a playful way.
Ta’Kaiya Blaney, 10, lives in North Vancouver and is from the Sliammon First Nation. “Shallow Waters, recorded July 2010, is one of five songs co written by Ta’Kaiya and her singing instructor/professional songwriter/pianist Aileen De La Cruz. Ta’Kaiya is also known for singing “Amazing Grace” in the Sliammon language, translated by her grandfather. Ta’Kaiya has been working with Aileen since the age of five and has performed at large events in both BC and Washington State. She also sings and plays the violin at various coffee shops in Vancouver and North Vancouver. Ta’Kaiya has also recorded the songs “Carried Away,” “Watching Over Me,” and “Wonderful, Beautiful” in June 2011.
Weston McGee was born in Vancouver. He quickly remedied the situation by moving with his mother to Quesnel, where he did most of his growing up. Weston has lived in Prince George since 1990. If you would like to experience Weston McGee’s glorious presence, you might find him among the stacks of the Prince George Public Library, or walking nowhere on a treadmill at the PG Family Y. “‘Charles with the sign’ was inspired by ‘Casey at the Bat’ and by a real world event that took place in the summer of 2009. I was not in attendance at the baseball game, but I reviewed all the media I could find and spoke to one witness.”
Wiesia Kujawa is a periodic writer of poetry (Room of One’s Own 1975, Memewar 2009), and a consistent reader of poetry (from 1959 after finding a selected Shelley). She makes her reading and writing home in Coquitlam, her listening home wherever a poet is speaking. Right now, she is thinking of writing a poem which would bring the labours of Heracles into the 21st century.
Creekstone titles by The Enpipe Line contributors