Ripping down half the trees
with Evan J
Hosted by chris johnson Podcast Poetry
Sharp and ornate, good-humoured and grief-stricken, Evan J’s work bears witness to the ongoing emergency of settler colonialism and the unsteady, unsteadying path toward responsibility. These poems won’t let the reader turn away.
Join us for a conversation between chris johnson, ARC Poetry’s Managing Editor, and Evan J, poet, advocate and educator, on his collection Ripping down half the trees.
One out of every twenty students in the adult education classes Evan J teaches in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, dies every year; the surviving students are often afflicted by severe racism, poverty, addictions, and violence. Ripping down half the trees engages with these struggles, offering a catalogue of experiences specific to the remote regions of Canada.
Tearing down the façade of Canadian justice and equality to expose the racism, colonialism, sexism, prejudicial capitalism, and ableism at the nation's core, these are poems about cruelty, both the obvious and the ambient. They are unflinching in their sociopolitical criticism, upset by unchanging systemic oppressions, unable to overlook the threat of the author's white skin, unwilling to forget Justin Trudeau in blackface. And while they acknowledge the limits of the author's privileged perspective, they are never willing to let the perpetrating structures of this cruelty go unchecked.
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