You may have noticed that we’ve been quiet over here at blue skies poetry for the past while. While we both love our work at The House of Blue Skies, sometimes it takes a back seat to other parts of our lives — work, family, and other creative projects (most creative folks know how that goes).
We are thrilled to share one of those creative projects with you now: Angela has brought together a series of her “farm poems” into a chapbook.
no one wants poems about barb wire fences
and sky and the sound of the wind.
Silenced, I thought my words obsolete.
Yet when I come home, the river sings,
barley whispers and poems demand to be heard.
All I can do is promise to bear witness,
awed by those clear winter mornings –
that first lung-cutting inhalation a prayer –
as the sun illuminates snow-covered fields
and sets every tree ablaze with frost, and it is my all, my
everything, so commonplace and familiar.
Part love-song and part elegy, this collection explores Angela Kublik’s relationship with the land she grew up on, left, and is continually drawn back to. Gathered together for the first time in If I Must Leave, these poems bear witness to both the beauty and the challenges of life on her family’s Alberta farm.
We would love to share this chapbook with you. To order a copy, please click on the PayPal button below (the $12.00 cover price includes shipping in Canada and the US).
Dymphny and Angela, Co-Publishers
Filed under: News
by editor Date 18 August, 2017
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after picking off yellow leaves
on second glance
one bloom
handmade toy
on a shelf –
waiting for the grandchildren
left right left right
on the treadmill –
are we there yet?
~ kjmunro
Originally from Vancouver, kjmunro now lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. She has recently joined the Executive of Haiku Canada, & as a volunteer for The Whitehorse Poetry Society, now called Yukon Writers’ Collective Ink, she helped organize the biennial Whitehorse Poetry Festival. She was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2014 Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award Competition, & her chapbook, summer evening, is available through Leaf Press as number ten in their oak leaflet series. (www.leafpress.ca)
Filed under: kjmunro> Poems by
by editor Date 25 May, 2016
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~ Dave Casey
Dave Casey is originally from San Francisco and holds a Master’s Degree in Metalsmithing and Jewelry with a minor in Painting. He has taught drawing, painting and sculpture at the Alberta College of Art + Design for more than thirty years. Dave has painted with acrylics for years and during the past ten has included digital photographs. In the paintings objects and surface come together as sites for remembrance, and as a location for our stories.
Filed under: Dave Casey> RE:ACT Art & Community Together - Calgary Poetry Project
by akublik Date 19 December, 2015
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~ M. Roberts
M. Roberts is well known for photographing the Calgary literary scene.
Filed under: M. Roberts> RE:ACT Art & Community Together - Calgary Poetry Project
by akublik Date 18 December, 2015
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Sh … Sh … don’t cry … your father will be back soon … I am hungry too … today is the day they will sign the Gah hala’s treaty … today the pipe will be smoked and everything will change … there will no longer be emptiness in our bellies. They say they will protect the buffalo if we agree. They made the promise the police will help us … they will look after the women and children and keep us safe. Things are going to change soon. Everything will be plentiful again and we will walk together with the newcomers. We will share the land with them and we will teach them our stories and our songs and they will teach us theirs. We cannot stop this change. Sh … please don’t cry … you are going to grow up to be a strong warrior and you will speak of the days when the change began. We will always be here, my son … we will always be here … don’t cry … the change is coming and we will always be here …
I’m still here … I’m still hungry … I need change … do you have any change? I don’t want your pity, I want your change. What? What are you looking at? Just acting right good. Don’t you look down on me … I know who I am!! My great grandfather signed the treaty of this land! Do you know who you are? I don’t need this. I don’t need anything. I just need … I just need my babies … my babies … where are my babies!! You!! You took my babies you son of a bitch! My babies … I just need a light … you got a light? What, do you want me to dance for you? I’ll dance for you!! Ahhhh, just kidding. Please … give me some change.
So that you know … the history of this land. Hear the songs that are held deep in this land. Ask me questions about who I am, about who my parents and grandparents are. I want to mean something to you … something more than western movies and alarming
statistics you read in your newspapers. Our young people are rising up … now is the time for them to feel proud of exactly who they are. They will stand up and use their voices. Education is the new buffalo. Let go of any stereotypes you may have held about my people. I don’t want you to be afraid of me … I don’t want to be afraid of you. I want to feel protected by the police. I do not want broken promises. I want the truth. I need for us to talk. I need you to hear me. I am survival … I am connected to this land by the very being of who I am, by the songs that flow through my veins as long as the sun shines and the grass grows and the water flows. I am respect, and I am here. You are here and we will always be here. I want you and me to see each other as human beings. I want change.
~ Michelle Thrush
Michelle Thrush is a Gemini award winning screen actress (Blackstone), who has also appeared in Arctic Air and North of 60. She is a tireless supporter of youth education and arts, a promoter of First Nations rights and culture, and the proud mother of two daughters.
Filed under: Michelle Thrush> RE:ACT Art & Community Together - Calgary Poetry Project
by akublik Date 17 December, 2015
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