From the Poplars by Cecily Nicholson

by Cecily Nicholson

In the North Arm of British Columbia’s Fraser River lies an uninhabited island. In the midst of major industry and shipping, it is central to the waterfront of British Columbia’s original capital of New Westminster passed by daily by thousands of SkyTrain commuters. Poplar Island is lush and unspoken, but storied. It is the traditional territory of the Qayqayt First Nation. Made into property, a parcel of land belonging to the “New Westminster and Brownsville Indians,” this is the location of one of British Columbia’s first “Indian Reserves.”This is also a place where Indigenous smallpox victims from the south coast were forced into quarantine, substandard care and buried. As people were decimated the land was taken and exchanged between levels of government. The trees were clear-cut for industry, beginning with shipbuilding during the First World War. The island still serves as booming anchorage for local sawmills.From the Poplars is the poetic outcome of archival research, and of listening to the land and the stories of a place. It is a meditation on an unmarked, twenty-seven and a half acres of land held as government a monument to colonial plunder on the waterfront of a city, like many cities, built upon erasures. From an emplaced poet and resident of New Westminster, this text contributes to present narratives on decolonization. It is an honouring of river and riparian density, and a witness to resilience, tempering a silence that inevitably will be heard.demonstration parcels bought and sold repeatedlyas the record shows, stolenquarantine and bury there the governmentnot taking graves into accountwarships were built view down a launch rampCecily Nicholson is a writer, curator, and community worker in the impoverished and inspiring Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

Paperback

First published April 8, 2014

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

called tot he surface revolution a minimal surface

the most minimal surface other than the plane

a bloom
a smile curved up into sepals awn-like petals

past the parapet widening to the throat
lingual bone thumbed to spine

riparian causeway to ocean

audible integrity bending moments cable-stayed

- pg. 6

* * *

Grosse Isle onto the fever sheds
or as Skwtsa7s future remains
after gales tear the soil

the defence is national
natural

kept and sent subjects
armed to a place
static

invariants

there
and here
as long as the tongues thrive
tips swirl in a huff of cheeks

centripetal release

ecology down and up river
the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm curls carried on

- pg. 10

* * *

lights methodically
turn on over the trails

urban lit sodium incandescent
't will be blue soon

history that no one
holds of interiors only imagined

homeless encampment slats
and garbage bags full of newspaper
dry leaves took the island one spring

another short while

an optical unconscious grasp at action

for calm needs overcome
become intimacies become respiration

- pg. 24

* * *

to serve men
men serve

massage the gap

abstruse excesses

congenital insensitivity to pain

crude touch fibres carries
decussate at the level of the spinal cord

lexer flex parser bison the parser in human-readable
format context-free grammars

steady operations of simple rules the difference of epaulets

- pg. 39

* * *

swam in the ocean for the first time at twenty-two
so buoyant

use of force model
most competitive class of assets, brokers in Victoria

a good picture of the scar, a good picture of the stars

luxurious role of textual radicalism

live with doubts and uncertainty and not knowing
live not knowing rather than having an answer that is wrong

steady operations of simple rules the difference was epaulets

- pg. 44

* * *

oscillations feedback the dream keeps
a meal shared

on the porch out back, behind a safe kitchen
mid-afternoon play while the adults

metallic glitter

silence of Cage to the grizzled symphony-goer

spare sound texture sounds mm mmm
cultural sounds entrapment

never again silent even as extinction

acoustic wishes in alive
system

undocumented hums shares movement, floors

- pg. 58

* * *

timbre talk sharp

objects
quickly change

live
at the shoreline

velvet smells of summer

full sun
thermals birds circle

taciturn
lever hydraulics

reddish
cedar-rot orange

seem copper
circles run through it

- pg. 65

* * *

given to tropistic
survivance

toward light
collecting light

pressure
a quip of skin
catches in the briars
bloody then freer

not your typical foment

the use of language past
winded bleached individuation

toward conscious listened horizon

- pg. 79

* * *

straight ahead in the dark shore verses away night
raft twenty-seven and a half acres

traditional variola vera droplets express

quarantine, and bury there the government
not taking the island's graves into account

warships were built view down the launch ramp

hundreds of workers walked the parcel
a rancherie, raw roll up raw connected corridor

over the north side's shadow moonlight streams
through a dark duppy comb of reeds, nerve-

ribbons flail angles strain out of water breathtaking

- pg. 85

* * *

prices will please the highest bidder. the purchaser shall be
entitled

and time shall be of the essence of the contract

when the cable snaps

found a few days ago
this side of the Serpentine
in an exhausted and helpless condition
he had dropped a bundle of blankets and a body of acumen

the proceeds of the sale of said lands shall be applied
feet of frontage

the slash burned as a precautionary measure, under control
at all times

spark from the old sound embers
at the shoreline of resuscitation. breath on tinder

- pg. 91

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A time in Canada's history that I honestly knew little about until I read this collection of poems by Cecily Nicholson. Where soul searching and politics collide, there's a heart to all the words on the page. One can feel the anguish and the anger, the disillusioned people of a nation, the feeling that there is no justice and the lingering hope that justice will be done. The poem as documentary, a guide to the heart of a matter that the citizens of a nation or region need to know about. A short number of lines to showcase the talent of this poet : P. 64 I have circled the same spot over and over
walls rise and fall to better walls

mortgaging future conditional
pledge of properties
outcome larger
drain
toward doubt

This is where politics and poetry come together through the looking glass of humanity.

[rabble.ca]

http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2014/1...

Review by Nathaniel G Moore

British Columbia has a knack for harvesting poets focused on creating work that spends equal time in language experiments and social justice; these poets include Jeff Derksen, Nikki Reimer, Michael Turner and Daphne Marlatt.

The concept of 'activist poet' might not be a moniker that fits easily as a category in the expanding and always subjective world of Canadian poetry. However, those who touch on the spiritual and political in their poetry should be admired, regardless of possible labels that could be affixed to their creative approaches, because they raise the bar on social and environmental issues.

Though this doesn't guarantee the poetry will be taken more seriously -- a poem about Lady Gaga could insight empathy on any number of issues if executed properly -- or held in higher regard, it does offer another portal into issues that continue to thrash around in their contemporary struggle beyond the completion of reading the work.

This is where poet Cecily Nicholson comes in with her new book of poetry From the Poplars.

Nicholson puts Poplar Island, a small unpopulated island in the Fraser River in New Westminster, B.C, and a suburb of Vancouver, into a studious spotlight.

The former home of the Qayqayt, a people devastated by smallpox, the island is now owned by the British Columbia government, and over the years has primarily been used as a giant shipyard. Unoccupied for some time now, the revived (and displaced/homeless) Qayqayt First Nation has been working to regain control of the island as their traditional space. Qayqayt is the only such group registered in Canada without a land base.

Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2014/1...

[Amilcar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deserving of a solid reread, Cecily Nicholson writes of a world I haven't seen before. A text showing the benefits of documentary poetry. My favourite part of the poem is the texts interaction with the land itself, highlighting the dead, (especially the hospital section).