Writes of Spring: Intimacy A National Poetry Month Project with the Winnipeg International Writers Festival and the Winnipeg Free Press Writes of Spring
By: Ariel Gordon Posted: 12:30 PM CDT Sunday, Apr. 24, 2022

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/04/2022 (1541 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the League of Canadian Poets announced that the theme for this year’s National Poetry Month was “intimacy”, a poet-friend wondered if all we’d be reading would be kissing poems.

Luckily, the poets who submitted to — and were selected for — this year’s Writes of Spring defined intimacy differently.

We call having sex with someone “being intimate” but intimacy isn’t only found in romantic relationships. It’s about connection, moments of vulnerability, and those can happen between any two organisms or even in a moment of clarity alone.

But the coronavirus pandemic has meant that we’ve either been too intimate or not intimate enough with our families, our neighbours, and our wider communities for more than two years.

Co-editor Duncan Mercredi and I wanted the poets to tell us what it means to be intimate in this strange place we’ve found ourselves.

Writes of Spring was launched at McNally Robinson Booksellers on April 23 and can be viewed here.

Beading tales

by Lynnel Sinclair

Blood sweat
and laughter
sharp prick
drew blood
from virgin
fingertips
Cree women
beading tales
with callused
hands
the air is full
of humour
every circle
is the flower
of life

Lynnel Sinclair is a Cree/Métis woman and a poet, writer and storyteller. She’s from Grand Rapids (Misipawistik).

 

Elemental

by Denise Duguay

Throw my ashes
off the pier
at the end of 11th Avenue, over the highway and
down the road from where my parents
in the creaking honeymoon bed of the old family cabin
rubbed and rubbed against their fates
until a spark flew up and out the window, igniting
the cigarette
my grandmother had been trying to light,
standing under their bedroom window
growing cold as she waited for this sign,
watching
the lake waters rise
up the road, up the steps, up her bare leg
until that first drag,
her first breath of me,
of a chain of smoke rings that held, while she
tapped ash, tapped me
into the flood tide now rushing back
to the shore, to the pier
where the rest
of my ashes are now
falling
home.

Denise Duguay is a poet and TV critic who pays the bills by copy editing at the Winnipeg Free Press.

 

birdseed

by Megan Ronald

my grandparents bought
a new bird feeder
they know each one by name
nuthatch, oriole, chickadee
each morning, coffee and birds
I wonder if some day,
I’ll have a bird feeder
cardinal, sparrow, blue jay
and maybe someone
to sit with me

Megan Ronald is an English student at the University of Winnipeg. This is her first poetry publication.

 

Excerpt from “What Direction is North”

by Brigette DePape

show me your mom tattoo

i want to see under your socks

i am pedaling so hard but i don’t know where i’m going what direction

is north? i forgot my mittens but it’s your fault

if i lose you i feel your ribs when we’re together and they feel like

i need you a mountain that i climb and i don’t want to stop

but so what if i know how to play the tambourine in your band with your cousin

you don’t know what bells are

you think tigers and tiger lilies are the same thing

you weren’t there when the grass stopped growing when my elbow broke

and so did my bed and so did the plane and so did the sun

when my skirt ripped

when my freckles fell off

This poem appears in Sun Compass, published in April by At Bay Press. Brigette DePape has written plays for fringe festivals across Canada. Sun Compass is her first book.

 

Faithful Twosome

by Jeannette Timmerman

In the pre-dawn sky,
the moon waited
for a goodnight kiss
from the rising sun.

Jeannette Timmerman is an octogenarian whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and anthologies. She loves the smell of skunk, especially in spring.

 

Intimacy of the Riverbank

by Shannon Joy Wazny

I don’t know if I can do this

I confided to the trees

I am spent from isolation

Ice thawed patiently in the river

The uncertainty

The sun soothed me silently

The disingenuous politics

It had been a long winter

The erasure of integrity

The river was swollen with snowmelt

Nobility

I heard a single goose flying nearer

I doubt my strength, my reserves

The colony has deemed it spring

War in real time on my TV

Interactive maps of the battle unfolding

Time to nest

Those poor people

My heart breaks

To renew

I need the trees to bud again

I cannot take the denuded branches

A crocus appears

Warmed by the generosity of the pines

Shannon Joy Wazny has lived her whole life in Winnipeg. She has been both a Pushcart and a Best of Net nominee twice.

 

Oh Borage: an excerpt from “hum of the blue hive”

by Roewan Crowe

Starflowers open from bristled stems. Orient themselves toward the earth.
I lie on the ground with my lover. We look up into their faces.

The nectar-rich flower is architectural, brilliant. Triangular, curved, pointed
blue petals alternate with green sepals. Purple-black anthers merge
around a fuchsia-tipped stigma. It’s reaching out.

I wonder. Do the flowers mind that we are gazing at them in this way?
I feel something I might describe as the beginning of closeness
or kinship or friendship.

I wonder. What would I need to do so that the flower might sweeten its nectar when I approached, as it does for the bee?

Artist and writer Roewan Crowe is currently writing, “Violet’s Impossible Garden,” a queer sequel to the gritty, poetic western, Quivering Land (ARP).

 

Nature Around Us

by Laurie Fischer

In the midst of life’s incredible uncertainty
A moment to enjoy nature all around us.
Time to watch the birds and animals.

To relax and to breathe.

We will find the world may be changing
But the way we feel about it
Can impact all those who are close to us.

It is time to take a moment
To enjoy nature’s beauty.
It’s time to go for a walk
To take some pictures, relax our minds.

To sense, to see, to feel.

Laurie Fischer is a Winnipeg poet whose collections include Poetry of the Pandemic (2020) and Musings on a Life Well Lived (2021).

 

Self Love

by Bryanne Lamoureux

“I just want to be loved”
She tells me.
“You are loved”, I tell her.
I wrap her up in clean sheets, and place
Heat on her sore shoulders.
I caress her and hold her and tell her
she is the most beautiful human, that she is
Everything, and that I love her.
When she comes to, I feel her once more,
Slowly, tenderly, I remind her of how
strong she is to have made it through so much,
that she is safe enough now to rest.
I wrap her up in my arms and hold her until she
Falls asleep.
I remind her that within
Her is a whole world which holds all that
She admires in others and more. That
She deserves to feel safe, to feel held, to feel loved, to receive
Back all that she puts out into the world.
I whisper this to her as she sleeps, and still I
Hold her, give her all that she has given, and remind her
that she is the universe and that the
Universe cradles her back. She is safe.
She is enough. She is everything.

Bryanne Lamoureux is a queer Franco-Manitoban rooted in southern Manitoba (Treaty 1). She is currently completing her Masters in Environmental Studies and writes poetry to make sense of life.

 

The White Dress

by Anne Claros

I moan
into the breathy winds
that carry melodies
from nearby trees.
I am betrayed
by the soothing tickle
of the river’s brush
against my thighs.
It paints a smile
on my face. Satisfaction
devours me.
Sin-filled currents
rob my dress
of its purity.
My nails penetrate
the velvet barrier
clothing the bedrock.
To my mother:
irreparable stains.
To me: Art.

Manila-born, Winnipeg-raised, Anne Claros is a poet who hopes to bring healing through her work.

 

Summer

by Cam Scott

At the height of the heat wave, in the heart of the dome
A hydrant burst beneficently down the street.

It was refreshing just to watch, raspberry butter
On a porous toast. Trains ran, late but with confidence

And no one was delayed for lack of planning.
A chemical aurora in the east, the gasping eyes

Of passersby amassing far below, made
Quite the picture; but there wasn’t any point-of-view—

Only a myriad, and that described us, too.

Cam Scott is a poet, critic, and non-musician from Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 territory. His books include Romans/Snowmare (2019) and The Vanishing Signs (forthcoming from ARP Books in 2022).

 

Wild

by Katherine Bitney

Then you look up suddenly and see, you are wild
as the moon tearing clouds, wild as that last goose
circling, calling out, coming home
to the river for the night. You can hear
the wind beat in its wings, wild as coyotes,
wild as cougars sneaking through tall grass along the banks,
hunting rabbit. Or wild as riverine grapes crawling the bushes
and the river just now open from winter, crashing
with spring ice break. You are wild indeed,
you with your drum
your cold fingers tapping. Wild as the clouds
wild as the pale moon singing.

Katherine Bitney is the author of four books of poetry, a collection of nature essays, and a choral text. A fifth collection of poems is currently under construction.