Flow

North Saskatchewan River in January

I posted a while back about some insights I gained from Edmonton’s poet laureate, Roland Pemberton, and looking back through my notebook, I see that I have some sketches towards another post inspired by his workshop. Given that this week is the Edmonton Poetry Festival, I thought it fitting to turn back to those now, and wander from Roland’s words to my own.

At the workshop I attended, Roland talked about his rap name, saying “my name is Cadence Weapon, and I name myself after flow.”

By flow, he meant the flow of words as they tumble over eachother forming whirlpools, eddies and currents.

Flow is a river, tumbling over itself, and twisting, until it finds the sea.

If his cadence is words, what, I wonder, could be the cadence of this city?

River City, we call it sometimes. Is the river our cadence, the thing that makes this city for all to see?

Can we make this city flow with the cadence of our words? Use poetry and prose to break the winter’s freeze, create an ice flow in the snow, and keep it tumbling over itself even as the North Saskatchewan stands still?

Could it be the people who create a city’s cadence? The people, as they pass eachother in the streets, swerve at intersections, and slow in neighbourhood eddies before they are drawn back to the current?

All rivers flow to the sea, it is said. But where does that leave a city? Where will we go?