Powell River Live Poets’ Guild struck out boldly in a new direction in January, with Parallel: Forty-nine Canadian poets speak to Obama. More than five hundred poets across Canada were personally invited to respond to a competition for forty-nine poems that would tell the new American president, who is strongly arts-oriented, something essential about Canada and being Canadian.
A strong response from poets famous, infamous, and unknown brought in several hundred poems from across the country. Governor-General’s Award winners and Poets Laureate mingle with private closet poets who have never before shown their verse to a soul. The variety of submissions is wonderful and the quality high, says editor Eva van Loon. “I love this anarchic, populist project, not least because only rarely does the literary voice of Canada speak from the West. It pleases me that tiny Powell River has the red-haired, swashbuckling gumption to try this on. Usually these initiatives come from Toronto or Montreal.”
Parallel is planned to be the first book entirely digitally published and manufactured in Powell River. The Guild, which published its first book in 2008 as the Youth Peace-Poem Contest anthology PRIPPA 2008: Friendship Never Ends, decided to try to end dependence on out-of-community sources by starting niche publishing on a local basis. Parallel will be the first book along the learning curve, but the Guild may also re-publish special editions of the collection as local publishing catches on and opportunities arise for special editions for special books like this one.
“Some of these poems are heartbreakers and some are hilarious,” says van Loon, who lived in the US for about a decade. “We’re asking our first, second, and third-round judges to try to put themselves in Obama’s shoes–or slippers, if the First Puppy hasn’t chewed those up–and consider which poems would speak to them about Canada and stick in their minds. That’s what sets this collection apart from any other collection of Canadian poetry. We are at a point in history when we must tell our enormous, powerful neighbor who we really are, and what our vision is. It would have been a waste of time to present the previous American administration with this collection. But this President may just listen–and hear.”
The Guild sent nine of the poems to Obama just before his Canadian visit and will send the book as a gift as soon as it comes off the press in the next two months. Powell Riverites will have first crack at buying a copy from the Guild’s website or at the still-to-be-announced book launch at $15 plus applicable taxes. “For once,” grins van Loon, “the rest of the country is going to have pay a little more–ferry costs, you understand.”
The Window is Closing!
Happy to announce that over two hundred poems by 70 poets have come in thus far for possible inclusion in “Parallel: 49 Canadian Poets Speak to Obama.” We are starting to like the title, not least because parallel lines by definition do not meet. If one thing is clear from this stack of fine creativity before me, it is that Canadians are a unique people.
The youngest poet is 22; the eldest 80. (If you can expand that envelope, please do.)
Poems have come from poets in Nova Scotia, each prairie province, Quebec, Ontario–even Hawai’i. There’s only a sprinkle from north of 60, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and PEI, however; so if you know any poets there, nudge them to choose one of their finest pieces and send it in. They’ll be in good company, GG winners, poets laureate, published poets, unpublished poets–a wild melange, but the quality of poetry is very high.
All forms are welcome. We have haiku, tanka, villanelle, sonnet, couplet, song lyrics, and a ton of free verse.
First-round judging is drawing to a close this week or early next, but you should definitely send yours in to mettalaw[at]gmail[dot]com by this weekend.
We sent nine poems from the collection via email to President Obama a few days before his visit to Canada, as a taste of what is to come.
The cover is being designed by a young Canadian painter. I’ll see if we can put it up here when available.
Thanks for being part of this uplifting project in these difficult times. Remember Yeats claimed poets carry the world on their shoulders?

Another poem for consideration
Here’s another poem by Kaimana Wolff that she’s considering submitting.
Yukoner Comes to Vancouver
Exiled to paradise again
I’m forced to strip:
the parka slips off first;
then the heavy boots,
till pale skin’s blinking in the unaccustomed airThe body lightens; sucks at seacoast city,
easy bones softened by the greening rain
Wrap me in nothing but this warm, wet wind–
“so light, so right”
now I’m on my way
mere nacreous twist of anonymous sun–
so simple to stay here, drugged and dreaming(but I’m searching for a single wild face
I’m looking for a touch like a talisman,
an eye with the knowledge of a brave slant sun
that lays its light upon me with an urgent grace–)“Stop that singing! stop that howling!
Stop that noxious caterwauling!
Not allowed! not allowed!
You can’t do that in a crowd–”Exiled to paradise again I must admit
I like this next-to-nudity,
this weightless anonymity,
this multitudinous silence where I can’t be missed(still I hunger for a single wild face,
and ambush every eyeful of dreams;
I listen for a voice that blows the skull clean
as the clear dry wind of that mountain place–)“Forget the North–it’s all gone bad!
Drop the past–or you’ll go mad.
Stay light! Stay right!
Keep those civilised goals in sight–”Exiled to paradise again, can I forget
that I was not the only animal
once
whose wild face lifted to a lengthening sun

Some poems for consideration
Kaimana and I decided to post some poems that would be appropriate for the project, to give you something to consider. Here’s one that Kaimana is considering submitting.
True North
The sun of these soft woods
has gathered and curled wtihin him
all shining threads of summer
and today has cleared the workhouse of the sky
to hammer out a new goldKneeling on the roofbeam
with your hammer half raised
don’t stop to listen to his celebration
catch filaments of this azure sun
and bind them to your roofBut stop you will
dizzy from within your work
lean for the moment looking northwardundone by the circling season
a golden shingle drops from a poplar
still
and clear
as winter water
Please note that Kaimana can post this because she has copyright permission — don’t post your poems in the comments! Send them to Kaimana with permission for us to publish them so that no laws are broken. (It helps to have a lawyer run a Poets’ Guild sometimes.)
