Canadian Poets You Should Know About

April is mostly known for April Fool’s Day, but it also happens to be National Poetry Month! What better way is there to commemorate this month by learning about important Canadian poets?

Leonard Cohen

You may have seen him on a mural while passing by on Crescent Street, but Leonard Cohen was an incredibly influential poet, musician, and novelist. His work resonates with both younger and older audiences due to its confessional tone. His exploration of religion, human emotion, and interpersonal relationships, like in “Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”, led to him earning his status as a legend in the Montréal poetry scene. However, he didn’t find the success he wanted in writing, so he decided to write folk songs to express his creativity.

Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

• Leonard Cohen

“ (…)Yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,

in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,

but let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t

untie,

your eyes are soft with sorrow,

Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye”

Margaret Atwood

Known for her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood’s work makes statements about power politics, gender, and climate change. She draws inspiration from the myths and fairy tales she read as a child to explore feminist theory, despite her rejection of that label: “I don’t consider it feminism; I just consider it social realism.” She is never afraid to speak up about women’s rights and environmentalism in both her fiction and to the world.

More And More

• Margaret Atwood

“(…) Unfortunately I don’t have leaves.

Instead I have eyes

and teeth and other non-green

things which rule out osmosis.

So be careful, I mean it,

I give you fair warning:

This kind of hunger draws

everything into its own

space; nor can we

talk it all over, have a calm

rational discussion.

There is no reason for this, only

a starved dog’s logic about bones.”

Louise Bernice Halfe / Sky Dancer

The Cree poet and social worker recounts her memories and her experiences as an Indigenous woman in her incredibly impactful work. Halfe was forced to attend Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta until she was 16. The life she had there continued to influence her work and her style of writing. For example, she uses code-switching, the process of shifting from one language to another, to represent the loss of the Cree language, largely due to residential schools. She makes sure to honor the women who came before her by telling their stories so that they may never be erased.

Ekweski, Turn-Around Woman

• Louise Bernice Halfe

“ (…)I am not a saint. I am a crooked good.

My cousins said I was easy, therefore

I’ve never been a maiden.

I am seventy, but still

I carry my sins. Brothers-in-law

I meet for the first time wipe their hands

as if I am still among the maggots. I didn’t

know their women wept when their men

slept in my bed. I am not a saint.”

Rupi Kaur

Unlike her peers, Kaur rose to fame on Instagram with her short, lowercase-letter poems. She chooses to write in lowercase to channel her love for simplicity while also honoring her mother tongue, Punjabi, in the Gurmukhi script, which has no uppercase letters. Her “Instapoetry” style has garnered a lot of criticism, but she has reached a younger audience that has seemingly become increasingly apathetic to the art of the written word. She also has a love for the spoken word, as she grew to love reciting her own poetry after overcoming her anxiety. Her first book, Milk & Honey, explores themes of femininity, love and loss.

Women of color

• Rupi Kaur

our backs

tell stories

no books have

the spine to

carry

Shane Koyczan

His iconic anti-bullying poem “To This Day” has garnered 25 million views on Youtube. In this poem, he speaks about how bullying can affect people in the long term, a notion he also explores in his novel Stick Boy. The themes of social justice, mental health, and love are incredibly important in his work. He uses the power of the spoken word and music to capture the hearts of his audience. His sincerity is a breath of fresh air in a world where cruelty is considered “just a joke”.

To This Day

• Shane Koyczan

“(…)why else would we still be here?

we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog

because we see ourselves in them

we stem from a root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty

on a highway

and if in some way we are

don’t worry

we only got out to walk and get gas

we are graduating members from the class of

fuck off we made it

not the faded echoes of voices crying out

names will never hurt me

of course

they did

but our lives will only ever always

continue to be

a balancing act that has less to do with pain

and more to do with beauty”