Windscript Volume 24, 2007-2008 - Saskatchewan Writers' Guild

The Magazine of Saskatchewan High School Writing poetry
17 for life: A foreword by Jennifer Still
Poetry is about possibilities, about saying what normally
eludes words, definition. It’s about pinning down that
which is fleeting, bursting open the minutiae into myriad
worlds. If this was 17 years earlier, I would be sitting down
at my PC 286 (floppy-disk drive) in my basement bedroom,
scented candles lit and flickering, the green DOS cursor
(yes, DOS!) pulsing the 14” monitor, blinkblinkblink. I’d
be writing about my recent break-up, my fight with my
parents, the desperate poverty of the world. I would be
holding close the words of my high school teacher (keep
writing, you have talent) and listening to a voice that is
simultaneously the loudest and quietest part of myself, the
most genuine and the most hidden.
A friend recently told me how she is eternally 17. I agree
with her. There is a fearless, hopeful, ambitious part of ourselves
that remains this youthful being filled with potential.
It is that time when we are just beginning to figure out
who we are, or, as Ceara Caton so aptly writes, when we
are “waiting for (our) perfect picture.” And despite the
fact I needed Wikipedia to enlighten me on the meanings
of such terms as “emo hair” (with thanks to Ben Whittaker,
and for those who are no longer 17, this is a style
that is “emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted or angsty”),
in reading the submissions I was instantly 17 again, connecting
in a very present way to themes of loss, identity,
suicide, poverty, bullying, relationships, drug abuse, family.
And as I sunk into the work and worlds that connected so
deeply with my youth and early risks as a writer, I realized
it is not so much an age that places these young voices as
it is an immediacy, an experience, a presence that is less
reflection and intention as it is desire and action. As serious
and grim as much of the content is, the poems remain
rich with life, with hope, with the experienced voices of
those deeply in the presence of this particular moment.
It is these first wadings into language that will feed the
work, in some form, for the rest of their lives. It was an
absolute thrill to read this work and to engage in discussion
with these writers who not only have the talent, but
the dedication, the curiousity, and the bravery to listen to
their voices and address their deepest concerns through
words. It is such a gift to have a venue for these original,
stunningly aware and imaginitive voices. Thank you to the
Saskatchewan Writers Guild for providing the stage that is
windScript, an immensely important publication.
A special congratulations must go to Arden Angley,
winner of the Jerrett Enns Award for Poetry, and Jocelyn
Lukan, winner of the Currie-Hyland Prize. Arden’s
poem “Your woman, soft and small” immediately struck
me for its incredible imagination and arresting imagery.
Arden’s navigation through landscapes such as “She
paddled her rowboat in the gaps of your gums, waved
to your childhood before it was swallowed” instantly
broke language into new possibilities for me. Arden’s
intuitive approach to writing, combined with her deft
sense of language, narrative, and dialogue is very much
at work in the poems published here. And Jocelyn
Lukan’s suite of poetry has the efficiency and efficacy
so desired in poetry. From the subtle suggested metaphor
of “smoke billow ascends up / smoothstretched /
Saskatchewan skies // I sprinkle your ashes / upon taut
forehead flesh” to the sharp and gut-punching directness
of “naïve candy virgin / waiting / waiting / waiting
to be”, Jocelyn transposes the ephemeral with the particular,
the particular with the ephemeral in a language
that is as resonant as it is focused, as reaching as it is
grounded.
And finally, congratulations to everyone who took the
risk of putting their concerns, their observations, their
passions into words. The stack of poetry I received
was enormous. Hundreds of poems were whittled into
various piles and various piles into yet smaller piles
that became, eventually, a handful of poems. The subjectivity
involved in selection is inevitable. I read for
surprise, for music, for originality. I looked for an image
that challenged me, a subject that evoked, a music that
lifted. So thank you all for some fine reading this fall.
It was no small job to make the final selections. The
work published here, though varied in tone and content,
shares a common attempt to say the unsayable,
to place the world, if only momentarily, into a tangible,
clarified state. On behalf of windScript and all the readers,
for your words, I thank you.
Poetry Editor
Jennifer Still
windScript volume 24
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Jennifer Still