Cop City Swagger

by Mercedes Eng

Investigating whose safety really matters in the most expensive city in the nation, Cop City Swagger conducts a threat assessment of Vancouver's police. Holding close lived and living connections to the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown neighbourhoods, Eng juxtaposes the police's and the city's institutional rhetoric with their acts of violence against marginalized people, presenting a panoramic media montage of structural harm and community care

Genres: Poetry, Canada

136 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2024

About the author

Mercedes Eng teaches and writes in Vancouver, on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is the author of two chapbooks, February 2010 (2010) and knuckle sandwich (2011), and of Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016), a long poem about violence and resistance in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver. Her writing has appeared in Jacket 2, The Downtown East, The Volcano, on the sides of the Burrard and Granville Bridges as contributions to public art projects, and in the collectively produced chapbooks, r/ally (No One Is Illegal), Surveillance, and M’aidez (Press Release). She is currently working on a women’s prison reader and a detective novel set in her grandfather’s Chinatown supper club, circa 1948.

Reviews

[Khawlah Usmani · Rating 5 out of 5]

i sought out this book to find support and validation for my opinions on police in general and more specifically the vpd. i did not anticipate reading this book to be such an emotional experience and yet i could not contain the feelings of anger, sadness, heaviness, and the tears that accompanied these feelings

i highly recommend cop city swagger to those wanting a snapshot of policing in vancouver under the rule of the current mayor (much needed info) and how it impacts vulnerable communities within the city

[Holly Denson-Camp · Rating 5 out of 5]

as expected, this was scathing in its criticism of the VPD and Sim 🔥 *snaps*

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part journalism and found poetry, and part poetry, this collection knocked my socks off. Mercedes Eng takes a look at police violence in Vancouver, and whether Ken Sim's emphasis on policing has helped in any way. (Spoiler- it hasn't) There are poems about the Downtown East Side, poems about police dogs, poems about Indigenous people who were killed by police.

There's a lot of research in this book. Mercedes takes a hard look at who is "safe" when it comes to policing, and doesn't back down.

[Bristol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saying it's "poetry" exclusively seems disingenuous, but it's also not exclusively nonfiction. Very interesting idea, and lots that I agreed with/felt was well represented. However, some felt like it was purposely taken out of context/misrepresented just to make a point, which I didn't like. Also had an issue with the citations being referenced at the end of the book in that style, though I know that's artistic choice. If I could use half stars I would have gone with 2.5

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really excited to read cop city swagger by Mercedes Eng because I loved her other book Mercenary English. I had the pleasure of attending the Talon Books fall 2024 poetry books launch and her reading was so moving. I also had the pleasure of attending her event at the Vancouver Writers Festival and it was great to hear her discussion around these poems. I really appreciated the note at the beginning of this book as the topic is very heavy and I had to read these poems slowly over a few days. This book made me cry but it also gave me hope that care and attention is being brought to this subject matter in such a thoughtful, creative and meaningful way. This is not the first time that this author’s words have made me cry and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Thank you to the author for my copy!

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

“looking away if a hungry person takes food they didn’t pay for

fighting for social housing and affordable housing

fighting for an inclusive equitable Chinatown

a radical rethinking of rights
that moves from individualism and charity to mutual aid

a living wage and free transit

feeding the hungry children of Vancouver
who need food programs at their schools not cops

shared risk

understanding fight/flight/freeze/fawn as trauma responses”

(from the section entitled “care looks like”)