Ripping down half the trees

Evan J

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780228007449
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• 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 HULDUFÓLK MEET COYOTE
• THE VIOLENT ORANGE HOURS
• THIS FALLS DEEPER THAN ROCKS
• JUST OVER THE MOUNTAIN FROM YAQUI, ARIZONA
• INVADERS: MYSTERY SPACE RIDERSOR, AN ODE TO ALAN KURDI
• 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 HEADOF 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 NEEDLESSTOLEN 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 STREETSOF 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 LIFEOR, HOW TO VIEW THE KIDS AT NIGHT
• BEAR PAW AND BEAST
• HOW TO WRITE A POEM ABOUTDEAD CHILDREN
• BARBLESS
• HOW TO FLY HOME
• NONE HAVE BLED ON THESE STREETSMORE THAN JIM
• INDIVISIBLE BY ALL THE RIPS
• MY PROSE POEM FROM INSIDETHE 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 DOORAT MIDNIGHT
• TO THE MAN STABBED LAST WEEK BEHINDMY BACK FENCE
• SOMETIMES THE STORM WINS
• POTTERY, AN IMPOSSIBILITY
• NOTE TO READERS
• NOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS