Category Archives: art-based Inquiry

aesthetic response: unsettling – found poetry

[This is my aesthetic response to class’ reading materials. I chose 10 sentences from each article that I felt drawn to, and wrote down on a flip chart paper. I then circled the words that speak to one another. I created this poem by reorganizing the words. Materials include: Madeline Thien “Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, BC”, from My Canada New York Times  ; Leanne Simpson “My Radical Resurgent Present” from As We Have Always Done, Stuart Ross, “The Plastic Container” from Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, Alicia Elliott “The Same Space” from A Mind Spread Out on the Ground]

 

we’re here, in diaspora on our own land
century old legacy of resistance
persistance and profound love
the place where we live
and work together

what the “we” are we talking about?
this is not a history
I learned in school

hunting and fishing
ricing and sugaring
our presence is our weapon
this is our strategic brilliance

choose your own adventure
I should camp, alone,
3 days in the woods
I learned how to fake intimacy

place your hand over this neighborhood’s heart
the landscape we know as hom
would be almost unrecognizable by our ancestors
concrete building cover our teaching rocks
your home will change without you
you will change without your home
don’t forget like this city forgot

unbuckle your uncomfortable past
pack it tight in a box
shove it in the back of your closet
in an ice-cream container
a catfish didn’t have to make as many decision

eagles descend over corridors of evergreens
time passes and spaces change
whether you’re here to witness, or not
don’t make the same mistake
this city keeps making

 

By Gracelynn Lau (Sept 19, 2019)

 

Original artwork and poem by Gracelynn Lau, Sep 29, 2019. Kingston, ON

 

aesthetic response: raw beginnings

Raw beginnings. Wild eyeball of the Earth
spirit in a multi-layer portal to something good
that may come. Find my roots in the shitty
storm even when my hands are shaking.
I’ve lived my anger that I don’t deserve,
even when I don’t have a big vocabulary
and people are hating me.
Regardless of deep fear
of abandonment I answer every call;
I throw myself straight at life
and jump into dance with it.
I’m scared that I’m 15 now,
and I’ll be the elder
when my parents’ are gone.
So meeting life in silent ways
at times in all kinds of different places.
Thank you is the first thing
that hits my morning, then I wonder
how to say goodbye.
“The incredible world that I’ve
in my head and how to release it
without being torn to pieces.
But a 1000 times rather be torn
to pieces than bury it, or retain it in me,”
said F. Kafka. I got up at 6 in the morning,
beauty and surrender. I am grateful
for the quietness,
I am landing.

[This is my aesthetic response to a way of council circle on Feb 14, 2019 in Shawnigan Lake. I painted and jotted down lines or words shared by people while I participated in the circle. I then created this poem by arranging all the words I had jotted down. There were about 11 of us in the circle. The youngest was15, the older was in mid-60.]

by Gracelynn Lau (Feb 14, 2019)

Original work by Gracelynn Lau, Feb 14, 2019

Let us travel back in time and fast forward

I wake up. It’s already tomorrow
in Hong Kong. I open the bathroom door- my mother
was in labor, giving birth to me in the hospital
that had been listed as national heritage 5 years ago.
I run to the street to catch a streetcar, west-bound
to High Park. It is 8:30am. Toronto downtown.
The door closed- my father was giving me a lecture
on punctuality. I returned to him postmodernist
theory, to which I was introduced in the first
year of university. We wrestled until midnight.
By the time I get off the streetcar, I am still able to
arrive to the office 9 minutes early. I pour myself a cup of coffee.
I open the fridge to look for cream- an old boyfriend handed me
a cappuccino, by the fireplace in a pub, a band
was singing in Viking tones. I casted off the last row
of my first toque. As he admired the small holes in the wool,
I put on the toque, I then arrived in the midsummer
in front of the archway, a small Buddhist temple
on a green mountain, smoking a mini cigarillo
with an ex lover, who had not decided to become
a monk yet, no, not until next year. We sat on the staircase,
staring at the rain. Countless cars drove past us
It’s already midnight, in the Australian Central Time.
My coffee is cold, and all my colleagues had gone home.
I wait for the streetcar. East- bound to Yonge. It takes forever
to arrive, always. It takes me forever to fall asleep
again, and when I open my eyes again, I will be
giving birth to my own child.

By Gracelynn Lau (2017)