folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
To
Be A Poet
…you
must first be a child
(or know one very well).
Don't worry about being
creative or skilled just yet.
Be the kid who collects
rocks, shells, fossils,
sea glass, pressed flowers,
and other little jewels.
Do this for a summer.
Then
one day, when you feel
a foggy pull, lay it all out—
spend the whole morning.
What pink underbelly
catches glints of the sun?
What sharp edges remain?
What pushed its way
through earth and hard rock,
and bent in the ocean breeze—
or did it boil to death slowly
in its thick exoskeleton?
What will endure so another
may turn over its body
in little palms at play?
Who will brush away
the attic dust or river slime?
Here,
the exercise:
this collection, strung together,
is it artful? Meticulous?
The pang—is it lonely?
What’s it like to touch?
On Carl Beam’s The Whale of
Our Being
Imagine the Whale of Our Being as
Jonah—retold as an arctic people.
The belly of some imposing beast has
taken them all, crowded under steeple
for shelter. The carved caribou runs,
the Dene baby frowns, the modern white line
marks its kitsch, says “Come here, good sons
with skateboards. Everything you do is fine
art.” Smoking in the fish’s big belly.
The lonely pinewood cries for its farmer
to return. The old lady will die, watching tele.
We say nothing to not alarm her.
The North will melt into dry vast plains.
As for its whale song: only poetry remains.
shortlisted for Room’s Annual Poetry Prize in 2023 but unpublished until now.
Cara Goodwin is a white settler and Cree, Ottawa-based poet whose work has appeared in Bywords, flo., and Room. Over the past five years, she has received two Honourable Mentions for the John Newlove Award and was shortlisted for Room’s Annual Poetry Prize in 2023. She recently read as a featured performer for the Riverbed Reading Series, where her poems traced her ancestral roots across what is now called Canada. Cara holds a BA (Hons.) in Social Communications and a Professional Writing diploma.
