My images and words offer a snapshot through space and time. Let’s see the world through the eyes of a little girl, teenager, and young woman in British Columbia, Ontario, and the world.
Mountain Scenery (May 12, 2003). You know you grew up in Vancouver when the first poem you ever wrote was about mountains and nature. I was a little girl in an East Van elementary school who did this for a homework assignment. Michelangelo was once asked how he went about the sculpting process. His answer? ‘I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free’. Even back then, I would see images first, and then recreate them with words. I imagined a glacier lake on top of a mountain and needed to describe what I saw and felt in words (with my limited, little girl vocabulary).
Bridges (2009). This poem is about first love. Although the first line of the poem is “I’m sorry,” it reminisces about happier days and compares this high school relationship to a bridge. Picture of New Edinburgh in Ottawa, Ontario
Tranquility (2009). This poem from my high school years uses imagery to illustrate the sights, sounds, and physical senses found in nature. The first poem I structured as a full circle, starting with dawn and ending in twilight. It’s also a concrete poem which uses the subject as a picture. I shaped the words in one of the paragraphs to look like a declining slope, a visual representation to illustrate the winding hours of a day.
I wrote this Thought Experiment on July 16, 2015 about how mental and emotional connections can be restrained by our physical form. This is also the only piece not password-protected. A picture of the Parliament building and National Art Gallery in Ottawa.
Praha (August 30th, 2015) is the Czech word for ‘Prague,’ the capital of Czech Republic. This poem is about the highs and lows of Prague from my eyes, along with travel pictures. The innocence of this European fairy tale town of cathedrals and cobblestone tiles evaporates at night with stag parties, alcohol, and more.
Fragility (May 02, 2017). My teacher once told me that languages form first, and then we create grammar rules to understand them. I felt feelings I couldn’t identify, so I wrote this poem and shared it with my classmate, who gave me clarity on what I was going through. I wrote this after living alone for the first time, away from my friends and family in a different province
A UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Rideau Locks at sunset in Ottawa, Ontario. Parliament on the left, Ottawa river in the middle, and the Chateau Laurier on the right.
Union Street Cafe (February 02, 2019). This poem is named after one of my favourite coffee shops in Ottawa to honour my love for this city. History is alive and well here, and politics is the air we breathe in. It’s a breath of fresh air to finally find a place that feels like home.
Constantinople (August 26, 2018- February 25, 2019). I started this poem in summer 2018, but didn’t finish until the poem asked to be completed, six months later. Constantinople is the Greek word for Istanbul, a city of twenty million that used to be part of the Greek empire. I wrote this travel poem about the sights and sounds of Istanbul, including Karakoy pier, Hagia Sophia, and Tahir square.
Hello in Passing (March 20, 2019). I wrote this poem after the Air Ethiopia plane crash. ‘Hello in Passing’ is the subject line of an email Dr. Pius Adesanmi sent me, who was one of the people who passed away in the accident. I was also in Addis Ababa, sharing the same space but at different moments in time, so this poem is about my travel experience as well. After that accident, I created this blog about politics and world affairs.