Québec has just passed Bill 21, which bans many Québecers from holding positions of authority in the public service ostensibly to extend the appearance of ‘neutrality’ of the state. There has been a loud cry of praise for protecting […]
We are still here Aimé, us the niggers of the north An otherness-nothingness imprisoned in our minds by our colour I have heard of white writers who claim to be bush niggers they live outside the high prison […]
Being Chinese in Canada: The Struggle for Identity, Redress and Belonging by William Ging Wee Dere Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 (400 pages) A life of struggle for redress from Canada’s systemic racism From 1885 to 1947, some […]
My Undiscovered Country by Cyril Dabydeen, Mosaic Press (2018), 129 pages Cyril Dabydeen is a Canadian writer born in 1945 in Canje, Guyana, where he worked as a teacher. He came to Canada in 1970 to study at Lakehead […]
Ma voix se dévoile Je me souviens lorsque j’étudiais le chant classique au Collège Ste-Croix. Thérèse, ma professeure, me répétait sans cesse de relâcher ma mâchoire pendant que je chantais. Elle était si rigide et si tendue qu’elle rendait […]
In Which, Being Book One of the Chronicles of Deasil Widdy by Louise Carson, Broken Rules Press (Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec), 2018, 152 pages “Their long horns drooped and they seemed half asleep, unable to feel his presence. Perhaps I am […]
The history of music is all about borrowing and building on the work of predecessors, whether it be Griots keeping old stories alive and telling the stories of their time, or Johann Sebastian Bach traveling to hear Buxtehude’s […]
Me Artsy, compiled and edited by Drew Hayden Taylor Douglas & McIntyre, 2015 (256 pages) The best way to enter into the spirit of this luminous collection of essays is to quote what Drew Hayden Taylor, its compiler and […]
My grandmother died in 1969 at the age (I think) of 89. My brother and I weren’t expected to go to the funeral and neither of us now can remember exactly when it was. My grandmother had become […]
Vibration before sound, that’s how it starts. You could be at school, at home, anytime, anywhere. You hear mumbling and feel your lips twitch as you mouth words. Keep on your noise-cancelling earphones, never go anywhere without them. Listen […]
Seven Mountains For my maternal grandmother That moment when you see spring on your windowsill you have lost your sister, ceramic pot yellow daffodils, nodding buds. Wilted petals. Ruffled trumpet. Shriveled and fading that moment when news […]
