Canadian Poets Reflect On Our Times

Pandemic Poems is a project based in Edmonton, uniting the Canadian poetic community around questions of the present.

About

About Pandemic Poems

A large group of Canadian poets address the questions of our times--this unusual present.

This collection features the voices of established poets and of people from all walks of life, from mail carriers to pastors, from diplomats to construction workers. This is important. We rely on poets to invite us to look through a reflective window, illuminating the human condition. Pandemic Poems features these well-known voices, but it also inverts the traditional relationship between poet and public. By incorporating the voice of the citizen-cum-poet we enrich the reflective and conciliatory functions of poetry.

Pandemic Poems is a work of art that exists for its own sake, but it also exists for you. It comes into being in service of the people of Canada--all of them--and of the people of the world. We reflect on the present purposefully, knowing that people are strained, anxious, and scared. We are strained, anxious, and scared. We hope this collection can help you give voice to your own feelings and can serve as an outlet and katharsis for some of the strain of the pandemic.

You are not alone. We stand with you. There are few people in Canada who have lived through something like this, although some Indigenous people and refugees have faced similar life-threatening emergencies. We will make it through to the other side of this crisis. These poems are here for you.

Contributors

Kevin Solez, editor

Kevin Solez is a professor, writer, translator, and editor currently working on a book about Homer’s Iliad (learn more at ravenresearchgroup.wordpress.com). He has lived most of his life in Baltimore and Edmonton and has published scholarly articles, journalism, and poetry in Canada, the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Austria. He is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Memorial University of Newfoundland, on the ancestral homelands of the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk.

Featured Contributors

Eunoia (2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. Bök is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at the University of Melbourne.

Jenna Butler is a professor of creative writing and environmental writing at Red Deer College, and an off-grid organic farmer in northern Alberta. She is the author of six books of poetry and essays.

Cobra Collins is a Mohkínstsis based Métis poet of significant height who was shortlisted to be Calgary’s poet laureate in 2016 and 2018. She has represented her city on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word as well as collaborated with artists of different backgrounds for dance (Fluid Movements Arts Festival) and performance festivals (IKG 1 ! Live Performance Festival).

Natalie Elliot is a writer and academic who lives in Montana, New Mexico, and New York. She spends her days writing funny stories about serious things.

Kate Knowles, a graduate from MacEwan University’s Communications program, has a deep enthusiasm for words. She won MacEwan’s 2017/2018 Book of the Year creative writing contest and most recently had a short story published on a specially designed beer can, a joint project with multiple authors, Blindman Brewery, and Jason Lee Norman. http://piperinemusings.wordpress.com/

Josephine LoRe is a first-generation Canadian whose poetry has been published in Canada, the US, England, Japan, China, Wales and France. She has two collections, Unity and the Calgary Herald bestseller Cowichan Series, and when not distracted by Covid is working on a series of poems based on her Sicilian Heritage. https://www.josephinelorepoet.com

Blaine Marchand's award-winning poetry and prose has appeared in magazines in Canada, the US, New Zealand and Pakistan. Active in the literary scene in Ottawa for over 50 years, he has published six books of poetry, a young adult novel, and a work of non-fiction.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. Writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta 2007-8, he is author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent poetry titles including A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) and Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019). robmclennan.blogspot.com

Susan McMaster has published 30 poetry books, anthologies, and wordmusic recordings, and is a former president of the League of Canadian Poets. Her projects include Waging Peace: Politics & Political Action, which brought poetry and art from across Canada to Parliament Hill; and Branching Out, the first national feminist/arts magazine. web.ncf.ca/smcmaster

soundcloud.com/susanmcmasterpoet

riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/branching-out

Kirk Miles has published four books of poetry and won the Alberta Screenwriters Award in 2009. In 2011 he was awarded the Golden Beret Award, from the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, and has been nominated five times for the Calgary Poet Laureate position.

Jude Neale is a nationally and internationally known Canadian poet. Her eighth book, Impromptu, was launched in early March by Ekstasis Editions.

Nisha Patel is the City of Edmonton's Poet Laureate and the 2019 Canadian Individual Slam Champion.

Dr. David Reddall has been a sessional instructor at MacEwan since 2005. He has published scholarly articles concerning Yeats and Hermeneutics, Emily Dickinson and Kantian Aesthetics, and Magical Realism and Theothanatology.

Shima Aisha Robinson a.k.a. Dwennimmen is a Treaty 6 (Edmonton)-born poet and spoken word artist who embodies, with every poem, the ancient meaning of her chosen pen name. Dwennimmen is the name of an ancient African Adinkra symbol, which means ‘strength, humility, learning and wisdom.’

Lisa Shatzky has written five books of poetry and a sixth is on its way from Black Moss Press in Autumn 2020, titled A Thousand Ways to Kiss the Earth. Her other books are: The Bells that Ring (Black Moss Press 2017); When the Colours Run(Black Moss Press 2015); Blame it on the Moon (Black Moss Press 2013), which was short-listed for the 2014 Acorn Plantos Award for Peoples Poetry; Do Not Call Me By My Name (Black Moss Press 2011), which was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Poetry Award in 2012; and Wandering in Yesterday's Rain (First Choice Books, 2005).

Kelly Shepherd’s second full-length poetry collection, Insomnia Bird: Edmonton Poems (Thistledown Press, 2018) won the 2019 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. Originally from Smithers, BC, Kelly lives in Edmonton and teaches at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.

Eugene Stickland is a playwright, novelist and poet living in Calgary. This is his first pandemic.

Zoe S. Todd is a scholar, teacher, artist, and writer from ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan) in Treaty 6 territory. She is currently associate professor of Sociology and Indigenous Studies at Carleton University.

Thomas Trofimuk is an Edmonton writer of poetry and fiction who has four novels in the world, the most recent being “This is All a Lie.” He writes on an irregular basis for his own website; “writer, gardener, failed Buddhist” at www.thomastrofimuk.com.

Francis A. Willey, Canadian (Born, July 21st, 1969), Autodidact, 35mm film photographer/poet, and artist working in Treaty 7 territory. www.franciswilley.com. Instagram: neopictorialist.

Sheri-D Wilson (D. Litt /C.M./Calgary Poet Laureate Emeritus /aka Mama of Dada), is the award-winning author and creator of 13 books, 4 short films, and 4 albums which combine music and poetry. Sheri-D is a Marriage Celebrant and Ceremonialist. www.sheridwilson.co

List of All Contributers

field Basansikis

Ellana Blacher

Christian Bök

Jenna Butler

Margaret Chandler

Cobra Collins

Anthony Dawber

Telmo dos Santos

Natalie Elliot

Kathy Fisher

Jay Gamble

Jillian Gordash

Patrick Horner

Philip A. Jagger

Kate Knowles

Will Lawrence

Josephine LoRe

Andreas Loutas

Blaine Marchand

Poul Mark

Paul Marshall

rob mclennan

Susan McMaster

Kirk Miles

Colin Morton

Nathan Mutch

Jude Neale

Clay T. O’Flanagan

Nisha Patel

Roylin Picou

E. Pourbaix

David Reddall

Rebecca Reid

Shima A. Robinson, a.k.a. Dwennimmen

Sabrina Samuel

Christie Schultz

Lisa Shatzky

Kelly Shepherd

Jason Shine

Kevin Solez

Eugene Stickland

Zoe S. Todd

Thomas Trofimuk

Hau Truong

Mary Vlooswyk

Francis A. Willey

Jason Williams

Sheri-D Wilson