Dwelling among the
bruised and infinitely binding world
are we not meant to
relinquish it all, to begin at last
the one abundant psalm of letting be?
-Dennis Lee, “Civil Elegies”
Edmonton is a difficult home. As much as I have longed for an easy definition of that word, “home,” over the years I’ve realized that this city will not offer it. When I think of Edmonton I feel a mixture of affection and alienation, sentimentality and sorrow. I could never quite explain why until about 6 years ago, when one of my older sisters introduced me to The Weakerthans. Through their music, the band attempts to negotiate their own troubled relationship with Winnipeg. Lead singer John K Samson questions why he cannot forgive the “frameworks labelled home” and mourns his city whose streets will “never take [him] anywhere.” I have often turned to the band’s work when I feel overwhelmed by the city, the land and our relationship with it.
Then, this year, I was introduced to Dennis Lee’s “Civil Elegies.” Lee wrote the long poem in 1967, when he was struggling to understand what it meant to live in an “outpost of empire.” He examines how Canada’s colonial legacies have manifested themselves in our oppressive urban environments. Our cities are clogged with spectres of those “born in Canada” who “died truncated, stunted, never at / home in native space and not yet / citizens of a body of kind.” Canada has “specialized in this deprivation.”
Taken together, the Weakerthans and Dennis Lee somehow manage to express those emotions with which I have struggled my entire life. While they write about Winnipeg and Toronto, respectively, their words easily apply to Edmonton. Moved by their honesty, I set out to document my own experiences in this city through photography. The result is a short portfolio featuring photos I have taken as I walk through Edmonton, accompanied by lines from both “Civil Elegies” and various songs by the Weakerthans. While I took the photos with the spirit of these works in mind, none of them were taken to match specific lines. This is the first of 6 installments.
bruised and infinitely binding world
are we not meant to
relinquish it all, to begin at last
the one abundant psalm of letting be?
-Dennis Lee, “Civil Elegies”
Edmonton is a difficult home. As much as I have longed for an easy definition of that word, “home,” over the years I’ve realized that this city will not offer it. When I think of Edmonton I feel a mixture of affection and alienation, sentimentality and sorrow. I could never quite explain why until about 6 years ago, when one of my older sisters introduced me to The Weakerthans. Through their music, the band attempts to negotiate their own troubled relationship with Winnipeg. Lead singer John K Samson questions why he cannot forgive the “frameworks labelled home” and mourns his city whose streets will “never take [him] anywhere.” I have often turned to the band’s work when I feel overwhelmed by the city, the land and our relationship with it.
Then, this year, I was introduced to Dennis Lee’s “Civil Elegies.” Lee wrote the long poem in 1967, when he was struggling to understand what it meant to live in an “outpost of empire.” He examines how Canada’s colonial legacies have manifested themselves in our oppressive urban environments. Our cities are clogged with spectres of those “born in Canada” who “died truncated, stunted, never at / home in native space and not yet / citizens of a body of kind.” Canada has “specialized in this deprivation.”
Taken together, the Weakerthans and Dennis Lee somehow manage to express those emotions with which I have struggled my entire life. While they write about Winnipeg and Toronto, respectively, their words easily apply to Edmonton. Moved by their honesty, I set out to document my own experiences in this city through photography. The result is a short portfolio featuring photos I have taken as I walk through Edmonton, accompanied by lines from both “Civil Elegies” and various songs by the Weakerthans. While I took the photos with the spirit of these works in mind, none of them were taken to match specific lines. This is the first of 6 installments.
Lee, Dennis. "Civil Elegies." Civil Elegies and Other Poems. Toronto: Anansi, 1972. 33-57. Print.
Weakerthans. "Left and Leaving." Left and Leaving. Epitaph, 2000. MP3.
---. "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open." Left and Leaving. Epitaph, 2000. MP3. 
This is intriguing and eloquent but also so depressing! Martha Wainwright once described an experience living in a city as being "trapped between grey buildings learning to start at the start.". I hope, though, that if we squint and turn our heads the right way we can begin to see some of the amazing beauty that exists in the cracks.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to further instalments.