by Rita Wong
水滴石穿
Acknowledgements
It is an enormous gift and a humbling responsibility to live on the beautiful, unceded Coast Salish homelands of the Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard), XwMuthkwium (Musqueam), Skwxuwu7mesh (Squamish) and Stó:lō Nations. I dedicate this book to all the Keepers of the Water, and to restitution for Indigenous peoples. As an (un)settler whose ancestors hail from the Pearl River delta, I vow to do my part to support climate justice and to foster respectful co-existence with land, water and life.
Thanks to Dorothy for asking: “Can you love the land like I do?”
Gratitude to the many who make poetry possible:
Kindred spirits Larissa Lai, Hiromi Goto, Dorothy Christian, Shahira Sakiyama. Keeper of cultural memory and integrity: Lee Maracle. Artists: Marika Swan, Cindy Mochizuki. Careful readers: Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Wang Ping, Fred Wah, Roy Miki, Larissa, and Hiromi (thank you for late-hour fast response!). Thanks to ET for rapid character assistance. Shout out to poet-organizers Christine Leclerc and Steve Collis. Family village: Cindy, Luke, Lana, Jeff, Pat, Billie, Canace, Peter, Cedar, Soleil, Zee, Cary, Sae, Koji, Tania, Miranda, Ming, Mariza, Daphne, Ping, See, Lawrence, Teresa, Thomas, Herman, Tammy, Holly, and more from the Wong and Chan clans and beyond. Love plus water makes Walter.
Steadfast spirits and encouraging travelers along the journey: Cecilia (knitter, walker, impromptu organizer extraordinaire), Janice (generous host and tireless truth-teller), Bao, Jamila, Lily, Sid, Jordan, Alannah, Denise, Elisa, Baco, Jamie, Eric, Michelle, Weyman, Jeff, Joah, Brett, Donna, Agnes, Shauna, Karen, Jo-Anne, Mimi, Peg, Daphne, Henry, Rain, Kelly, Chelsey and the creative witness group. Rainway & underground streams crew: Shahira, Dan, Bryn, Amy, Max, Sarah, Sara, Greta, Bruce, Naomi, Melanie, Rodney, Choo, Celia, Michael. Keepers of the Water and the Athabasca: Sam, Jesse, Harvey, Bruce, Helene, Julie, Janice, Evelyn, Nancy, Harvey, Bob, Caleb and more. All the Downstream workshop participants—you know who you are—and helpers/supporters: Dorothy, Larissa, Walter, Karolle, Alex, Peter, Pat, Karen, Matthew, Jeneen, Samantha, Vanessa, Choo, Michelle, Brenda, Elisas, Astrida, Janine. Book magicians: Silas White and Carleton Wilson. Gratitude to the caretakers, organizers, poets, scientists, sacred firekeepers of Burnaby Mountain, and to the protectors of Cəsnaʔəm:.
I raise my hands in appreciation and thanks to the guardians who inspire us to remember our human responsibilities to take care of the land, the earth, the waters, for past, present and future generations: the Unist’ot’en Camp, the Tsleil Waututh Sacred Trust, the signatories of the Save the Fraser Declaration, the Klabona Keepers, the Hupacasath, the Healing Walk organizers, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the Mikisew Cree, the Mother Earth Water Walkers, the Haudenosaunee at Kanehsatake and Kahnawake, the water protectors at Elsipogtog, the Peace and Dignity Journey, and many more protectors and defenders than I can possibly name here, from Pacific to Atlantic, Arctic to Equator, inspiring in courage and heart. In Indigenous resurgence and respect for spirit of place, I see hope for humanity. Over the years, forums organized by No One Is Illegal and Rising Tide have offered much needed education.
I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the research-creation project and workshop, Downstream: A Poetics of Water, hosted at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In addition to the Downstream workshop, many gatherings and events fed my soul and this manuscript, including, but not only: the Keepers of the Water Gatherings in Cold Lake, Fort Nelson, Lac Brochet, Hatchet Lake (and earlier gatherings that remind us “Water is boss”); Encuentro in Montreal (thanks to the Canadian Consortium on Performance and Politics in the Americas); First Nations and Chinese Elders Meet and Greet in the Downtown Eastside; the Activating the Heart: Storytelling, Knowledge and Relationship Workshop in Yellowknife; the Thinking with Water workshop at Concordia University; the Tragedy of the Market Conference: from Crisis to Commons, (Re)Scriptae: the University of Calgary English Honours Symposium; the World Humanities Symposium at Simon Fraser University; SFU’s Lunch Poems; the Green Words, Green Worlds Conference at York University; the Material Cultures conference at the University of Ottawa; the Cross-Pollinations Workshop at the University of Alberta; the Under Western Skies Conference at Mount Royal University; the conferences organized by the Association for Literature, Environment and Culture in Canada Conference (alecc) and the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (asle); and more. Much-needed sabbatical time from Emily Carr, spent in Miami, also helped nourish this manuscript.
Close to home, the Rainway conversations, design workshops, community parades, street mural painting along St. George St., storytellers’ bench at the headwaters of the buried creek te Statləw, neighbourhood festivals, and block parties, are encouraging signs of life. Shout out to neighbourhood hubs – Rhizome, now Heartwood. Many brothers and sisters at the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators—including my colleagues at the Emily Carr Faculty Association (Local 22)—have also taught me a lot about the value of solidarity and collegial communication.
Poems in this book have previously appeared in various forms in the following publications: The Winter We Danced: Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement; Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society; Women and Environments International Magazine; the press release chapbook r/ally; The Enpipe Line: 70,000 km of poetry written in resistance to the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal; Capitalism Nature Socialism; Poetry Is Dead (commissioned in response to Edward Burtynsky’s exhibition, A Terrible Beauty, at the Vancouver Art Gallery); Ricepaper; Canadian Literature; A Verse Map of Vancouver; West Coast Line (with thanks to Steve Collis for commune collaboration); Interim; Eleven Eleven; Eighteen Bridges; Ley Lines; Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies; Force Field: 77 Women Poets of British Columbia; and the forthcoming anthologies Alone Together, Activating the Heart and Make It True.
Relevant prose has appeared in the Thinking with Water anthology, rabble.ca, Common Ground, Feminist Review, the Dominion, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, The Capilano Review, Salish Seas: An Anthology of Text + Image, Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation Through the Lens of Cultural Diversity, Alternatives: Environmental Ideas and Action, The Goose, Canadian Literature, Front magazine and Active Geographies: Women & Struggles on the Left Coast (West Coast Line 58).
Any inadvertent omissions are a symptom of overwork and the need for a more humane economy.
photograph on page 55:
Chinese immigrants on the deck of the “Black Diamond” (sailing vessel, BC). c 1889, Library and Archives Canada 1973-050.
photo credit: jane slemon
About the Author
Rita Wong is the author of three books of poetry: monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood Editions, 2007) and sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai). forage was the winner of the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and Canada Reads Poetry 2011. Wong is an associate professor in the Faculty of Culture and Community at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design on the unceded Coast Salish territories also known as Vancouver.
Statement about Becoming Worthy by Marika Swan
I come from a whaling community on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the heart of well-known Clayoquot Sound. I was born on the beach in the place where our people used to bring the whales in. When our people were whaling, they prepared their whole lives spiritually to be worthy of a gift as generous as a whale. Everyone in the community had to work in unity to ensure the hunt was safe and successful. Each whale was such a bountiful offering of food for the community and each part of the whale was utilized and celebrated.
As a Tla-o-qui-aht woman there are many gifts I am hoping to bring home to my community, and I understand that I am on a spiritual journey to lay the groundwork so that I am ready when they arrive. Pook-mis, the drowned whaler, lies at the bottom of the sea floor and offers
a warning that things can go horribly wrong if you are not properly prepared.
Becoming Worthy is a part of a series of woodblock prints exploring my people’s natural and supernatural relationship with whales. Further prints in the series can be seen on my website marikaswan.com.