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Ripping down half the trees |
eBook Available
A poetic confrontation with the structures of oppression in Ontario's remote northwest.
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.
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.
Details
Part of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series (number 60 in series)
120 Pages, 5 x 7.5
ISBN 9780228005469
June 2021
Formats: Paperback, eBook
"In Ripping down half the trees readers are guided by a multitude of speakers who will bring them to sometimes dark and uncomfortable spaces where 'the lights are always off.' Exploring a range of themes, from the social and racial inequalities found within Canada to how to pluck pheasant and how to respond to hostility, Evan J artfully confronts and questions his privilege, thereby causing the speaker's eyes to adjust so that we may do the same. Ripping down half the trees is poignant and stark, yet filled with 'unfathomable beauty.'" Greg Santos, author of Ghost Face
"To read Ripping down half the trees is to experience a jarring feeling of contradiction and a provocation to contemplate how apathy plays a part in our lives. Evan J's words are arresting and urgent and woven with visceral images, linguistic precision, and sharp emotive undertones that cut to the bare bones of human experience. This is not an easy read. Evan skilfully guides the reader through that which is fraught - the violence of modern living. But more than that, it is written with an eye for beauty and a deep care for people and place." Lishai Peel, co-author of Why Birds and Wolves Don't Trade Stones
"To read Ripping down half the trees is to experience a jarring feeling of contradiction and a provocation to contemplate how apathy plays a part in our lives. Evan J's words are arresting and urgent and woven with visceral images, linguistic precision, and sharp emotive undertones that cut to the bare bones of human experience. This is not an easy read. Evan skilfully guides the reader through that which is fraught - the violence of modern living. But more than that, it is written with an eye for beauty and a deep care for people and place." Lishai Peel, co-author of Why Birds and Wolves Don't Trade Stones
Evan J (he/him) is from Manitoba and now lives and writes in the town of Sioux Lookout, Ontario.
THE METRO
Bloor-Yonge 3
The Ron from bottom up 6
If homelessness is a sandwich, our culture of silence is the bread 8
All the friends at the party 9
The Huldufólk meet Coyote 10
The violent orange hours 11
This falls deeper than rocks 13
Just over the mountain from Yaqui, Arizona 14
Invaders: Mystery Space Riders 15
Of course you do find spicy bits 17
Colonialism for dummies 19
NORTHWESTERN
Facing Fort William’s Orphanage 23
Deciduous with answers 25
Spore prints 26
Probable cause misjudgment of altitude 27
How to pluck pheasant 29
How to clean walleye 31
How to pick blueberries 33
Today the twelve gauge 35
The fox 36
In the least desired corner 37
How to make a skull from the head of a bear delivered
Tuesday in a grocery bag to the afternoon office meeting 38
All it takes is an artist and a knife 39
The boreal 41
Note to the people using old needles stolen from a public bathroom 42
Valhalla 43
This isn’t about me or a title 44
SIOUX LOOKOUT
A synonym for raft is foundation 47
Beyond ear but open 48
Lunch meeting like spruce grouse 49
How to stay alive on the streets of Sioux Lookout 50
A Kingfisher named Bear 51
Chiffon unfinished 52
How to respond to hostility 54
Another death at the Learning Centre 56
Dermis to gold 57
Even if the child’s lost, mothers never lose the title 59
It’s no real pleasure in life 60
Bear paw and beast 61
How to write a poem about dead children 62
Barbless 63
How to fly home 64
None have bled on these streets more than Jim 65
Indivisible by all the rips 66
My prose poem from inside the precinct 67
This cannot be homage in verse 69
Re ember 71
Red Lake 23 73
The appropriate views of morning 74
Dysmorphia 75
In a small northern town 76
Lines on Larae leaving 78
To the boy pounding on our back door at midnight 79
To the man stabbed last week behind my back fence 81
Sometimes the storm wins 83
Pottery, an impossibility 86
Note to Readers 89
Notes 91
Acknowledgments 93
Bloor-Yonge 3
The Ron from bottom up 6
If homelessness is a sandwich, our culture of silence is the bread 8
All the friends at the party 9
The Huldufólk meet Coyote 10
The violent orange hours 11
This falls deeper than rocks 13
Just over the mountain from Yaqui, Arizona 14
Invaders: Mystery Space Riders 15
Of course you do find spicy bits 17
Colonialism for dummies 19
NORTHWESTERN
Facing Fort William’s Orphanage 23
Deciduous with answers 25
Spore prints 26
Probable cause misjudgment of altitude 27
How to pluck pheasant 29
How to clean walleye 31
How to pick blueberries 33
Today the twelve gauge 35
The fox 36
In the least desired corner 37
How to make a skull from the head of a bear delivered
Tuesday in a grocery bag to the afternoon office meeting 38
All it takes is an artist and a knife 39
The boreal 41
Note to the people using old needles stolen from a public bathroom 42
Valhalla 43
This isn’t about me or a title 44
SIOUX LOOKOUT
A synonym for raft is foundation 47
Beyond ear but open 48
Lunch meeting like spruce grouse 49
How to stay alive on the streets of Sioux Lookout 50
A Kingfisher named Bear 51
Chiffon unfinished 52
How to respond to hostility 54
Another death at the Learning Centre 56
Dermis to gold 57
Even if the child’s lost, mothers never lose the title 59
It’s no real pleasure in life 60
Bear paw and beast 61
How to write a poem about dead children 62
Barbless 63
How to fly home 64
None have bled on these streets more than Jim 65
Indivisible by all the rips 66
My prose poem from inside the precinct 67
This cannot be homage in verse 69
Re ember 71
Red Lake 23 73
The appropriate views of morning 74
Dysmorphia 75
In a small northern town 76
Lines on Larae leaving 78
To the boy pounding on our back door at midnight 79
To the man stabbed last week behind my back fence 81
Sometimes the storm wins 83
Pottery, an impossibility 86
Note to Readers 89
Notes 91
Acknowledgments 93
