Tag: Poetry

An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 13th annual Writing in the Margins contest: Helen Knott, Juliane Okot Bitek, and Kevin Settee.

the Similkameen they say are the strong
the frayed the twisted, the worn, we feel that

We song our stories – put them to a beat, draw the melancholy out of them, voices like droplets squeezed out of a braided dish rag on an open balcony.

An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 12th annual Writing In The Margins contest: Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, Jessica Johns, and Randy Lundy.

the revolution will need savvy / party planners, capable / of seeing / how the carnival’s already here.

nowhere is a prison / is a psych ward / is a suicide / is a death / from ‘natural causes’ is a mass grave

granny’s voice cracks when she calls. “when you coming home baby?” i am burrowed in darkness to be reborn. fingers stained ink indigo, daddy’s prison letter is scratched on paper like he already faded into the massive metal mouth that consumed him before we met.

Best of Regina winner of the 2021 Writing in the Margins contest.

At a recent city council meeting where Saskatoon approved millions more in funding for the Saskatoon Police Service, Erica Violet Lee was the only one who spoke against the increase. Rather than trying to convince those whose minds had already been made, she read a poem she had written in honour of Neil Stonechild, Kimberly Squirrel, and all the others whose lives have been stolen by colonial and carceral violence in Saskatoon.

An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 11th annual Writing In The Margins contest.

suffering isn’t bravery those two things are different let someone / say it. to absorb an injustice because you need to to survive’s / not courage don’t let them say that.

Deeper than oceans, channels twice removed / from their native basins. This blood is thicker / than the St. Lawrence, quicker / than the Demerara, sicker / than the Ganges.

An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 10th annual Writing In The Margins contest: Larissa Lai, Pat Kane, and Sonnet L’Abbé.

“if word of such devices spreads, / and more than word, / it may not be just capital that overcomes / the hardened borders of the future capital’s / intent that most of us won’t see.” Poetry runner-up of the Writing in the Margins contest.

“you bear their names like heavy robes. say it. / bind your waist in white ribbon. history’s seams / are tearing. you learned violence as the sweetest love / but you learned from the wrong people.“ Poetry winner of the Writing in the Margins contest.

One hundred and thirty-one days is a very long time – the members are for you every step of the way. We believe in the Co-op, and what you say: with equal work comes equal pay.

In this world, a world where many worlds coexist, there would be no forced migration, no mass extinction.

An interview with Writing in the Margins judges Gwen Benaway, Alicia Elliott, and Jalani Morgan

In 2016, Nicholas Dinardo was arrested and sent to remand at the Regina Correctional Centre. After remaining in segregation for most of the last year, he wrote this poem.

“She points, / here’s Canada, here’s home, caught in a ganglion / of lakes. Our cupped hands cradle continents in turn.” Poetry winner of the 2017 Writing in the Margins contest