THUNDER BAY -- A feminist organization in Thunder Bay hopes that poetry can help facilitate change in a community it believes has a serious problem with racism against Indigenous people.
Northern Feminisms is soliciting poets, no matter what their level of experience, to read their work at designated locations across the city on Wednesday, as part of what spokesperson Taina Maki-Chahal describes as its ongoing efforts to use creative means to work on social justice issues.
"The poems have to address racism, and they should be under three minutes. They're all going to be set in public space, so we have a Port Arthur loop and a Fort William loop, and we are going to close at the McIntyre River along the trail there where there have been many Indigenous deaths," Maki-Chahal told Tbnewswatch in an interview on Monday.
There are 11 stops in all. Participants can read their work at all the stops or just one. Members of the public are invited to listen.
Maki-Chahal hopes for a good turnout.
"There's a lot of buzz on social media," she said. "A lot of people are picking up on this idea of putting poetic words of resistance out in the street, reclaiming these public spaces and talking back to this racist rhetoric that's floating around our city."
Poets, she said, "speak to the pulse of what is happening, and in times of trouble poets are very active with their words."
"We're trying to amplify the voices of people who often are not heard, and so that's a resistance to mainstream voices clamouring to this idea that everyone has their voice to speak...Unfortunately, it is the privileged and the ones with power and who are more articulate who tend to be the ones who speak."
Maki-Chahal said the locations for Wednesday's readings, such as McVicar Creek, were chosen for a variety of reasons, one being that water has "a lot of medicine."
She said the creek was also where an Indigenous woman from Lac Seul was found murdered in the 1970s.
The Thunder Bay Public Library was chosen because it's a public spot and the library has been supportive of creative voices and poets, Maki-Chahla said.
New names suggested for locations connected to colonization
One of the locations for the south-side Thunder Bay poetry loop is McGillivray Square in front of City Hall. It's named after William McGillivray, a leader of the North West Company in the early 19th century fur trading era.
Maki-Chahal would like to see McGillivray Square as well as some streets in Thunder Bay renamed.
She noted that there have been efforts across Canada and the U.S. to rename places and take down certain statues and plaques because of their ties to a colonial or racist past.
"One street in the city we need to rename is Wolseley Street," she suggested. Colonel Wolseley was "a mass murderer, and he's considered a hero to some," she said.
"Read his colonial history. And Red River Road, he was part of forging that through too. We had a really strong colonial history and we have to start thinking about some of the key players in that history," Maki-Chahal added.
She said Mount McKay could also be renamed.
"There hasn't been real meaningful change. Maybe changing some names...some people have to get upset maybe. Maybe some people who are comfortable with those kind of mainstream settler-colonial names will have to get a bit uncomfortable."
