Category Archives: Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria, British Columbia

ORGANIZER: Richard Olafson and Linda Rogers

CONTACT: ekstasis@islandnet.com

 

 

 

I am challenging the people of Victoria to geurilla poem one another on September 24 and forever after, to write poems in icing on cakes, to chalk sidewalks, to leave poems in pockets, to paint or embroider their clothing with activist poems, to call into radio shows and read poems that encourage positive change, to make poem cards for those we love and admire. All activist poets will be designated honorary assistant poet laureates at The Well on September 24. 7:00pm – 10:00pm.

Download the Press Release for Victoria-BC

 

BACKWORDS AND FORWORD

In the beginning, there was a world
that needed a word and the word
was go(o)d, master of the unbroken
universe, mother of the wheel that
breaks like the poet who sings in his
change like the sea, like children
with begging bowls, begging for new
words to plant in the garden of
good and evil. This is the dialectic
of smash and fix, beautiful verbs;
dirty blood filtered through kidneys,
dirty air wet-cleaned in forests, dirty
deeds transformed by alchemists,
dirty water washing stars, our
clean windows on the firmament,

deaf composers listening with their fingers,
children thinking backword and forword.

This is change as simple as breathing.
Expired, the soul has weight and we
rediscover the lightness of being, only
twenty-one grams: our holy vocation
to catch and release its  mysteries
as the river runs through us, revealing
the word that is love made visible.

In Byzantium, the words for change
are bozuk para, meaning broken money,
and nothing is lost in translation.
Long ago and far away, only hungry
beggars would touch these fractured
alms, but now that we’ve cracked
the world, an enigma engine that
drives itself, everything broken is
holy and we get to pay it forward.

Linda Rogers-Victoria Poet Laureate

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